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The Fine Art of Reaching People

Reaching people is analogous to a fine art. Like anything that is a creative art, the genius of reaching people cannot be traced to one single factor. In art, there is never a single dimension that constitutes the finished creation of true artistry. The painting of a compelling landscape is many things—color, perspective, detail, and the style of the individual artist. Similarly, successfully reaching secular people is a composite of many things that are thoughtfully and expeditiously performed.

By Howard Young

It is a common mistake. Pastors and churches can be trapped by this misunderstanding and never know it. Specifically, that the church must do little more than open its doors on Sunday, and the non-Christian will come. Research over the past decade undermines this mistaken notion. People are staying away from churches in record numbers. It is time to ask why some churches are not vital links to the unconverted and what can be done to change a faltering outreach to the lost.

In some cases, Americans are turned off to both the message and messengers of organized religion. To many, the church has appeared narcissistic and self-serving. Leaders often leave behind shattered lives in the wake of their compromised leadership. The church’s reputation was dramatically eroded and confidence in church leadership greatly shaken by the scandals of the 1980s. In 1974, nearly one half of the adult population expressed confidence in religious leaders, but that number plummeted to 22 percent by 1989. It would help the American church if our recent past did not haunt us, but the data brings little comfort.

Seek Cultural Relevance

The church must also consider the serious question of relevance. In the early 90s, a denomination surveyed a southern city where they wanted to plant a church. The survey centered around a single question: Why don’t you attend church? Seventy-four percent of those surveyed indicated they felt there was no value in attending church. Thirty-four percent believed the church had no relevance to the way they lived.1 While the church does not exist to accommodate secular definitions of relevance, we must also face up to the dilemma framed in the lyrics of an old song: "Why spend our time answering questions no one’s asking?"

What does it take for the elements of a typical church service to be relevant to the current culture? David Henderson advocates that two things must be true to establish relevance. First, the things that constitute a service—a sermon, an illustration, a testimony, a song, congregational worship—must somehow relate to life. It must broach critical, life issues and address in some manner the struggles and nagging questions that taunt the individual. In other words, does it meet needs? Furthermore, there must be a clear understanding and perception of the pertinence of the thing within the individual’s life. Unless people see a pertinence to life, the various elements of a typical worship service do not seem relevant.2 The critical aspects of our traditions, worship styles, and pulpit ministry must connect with real life on some level and under the Spirit’s impetus create curiosity and desire.

A wise church recognizes that bridges must be built between the contemporary culture of the unchurched and the culture of the redeemed church. Although we might suggest a number of strategies to accomplish this strategic goal, any strategy that is effective commences with a fundamental understanding of the existing popular culture. This understanding becomes the headwaters for directing a relevant and meaningful flow of redemptive ministry to the unchurched. For example, our inadequate use of contemporary language in everything from bulletins to preaching may lead people to feel that God is hidden somewhere in the past. Doctrinal and theological terms and concepts are commonly tossed about in a worship service with little or no explanation for the novice believer or the curious individual looking for spiritual answers. Such errors have led many to look other places for spiritual reality—places where terms are defined and operative concepts seem clear.

Prayerful and reflective thought should be given to preaching topics and courses of study in Christian education and discipleship that address the pressing issues of family, career, life disappointments, and a host of other current concerns. The lyrics of our worship songs and special music should resound with themes that convey God’s deep love and passion for the lost. Our language and verbal images should immediately connect with the mental mechanisms of the uninitiated. Like Jesus, we need to take great care in putting the more abstract concepts of God and His kingdom in concrete terms that create a cultural connection.

Henri Nouen captures the plight of the church that does not understand the culture to which it ministers. Although we long to touch people’s lives in a meaningful manner, he suggests that we find ourselves on the "periphery, often pleading in vain for admission."3 This is the high cost of not understanding a generation, not doing the homework necessary to gain a fair hearing of the gospel.

Beyond culture, Advocate Biblical Experience

A common misconception exists that seeking to accommodate any cultural dimension of the American public means an automatic betrayal of both the biblical message and methodology. This does not have to be true. In fact, it is impossible to meaningfully effect change in the life of the individual or society as a whole without a complete commitment to a biblically sound message and methodology. Assuming that anything short of a true biblical experience of regeneration can override negative cultural tendencies or expunge destructive personal issues within the individual will always lead to disappointment.

There is, however, a pressing need to understand that it is possible to be culturally sensitive, and at the same time biblically sound in our approach to the unchurched. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive. In fact, both ideas are mutually inclusive by using strategies that accomplish relevant communication to the unchurched.

Cultural sensitivity and the biblical message are integral to the often-complicated task of leading individuals to a personal relationship with Christ. The biblical message is the part of the process that says, "Christ’s love and forgiveness are your only hope. There is no other way." Cultural sensitivity is the component of the approach that says, "I understand who you are, how you are thinking, and what you are feeling. Here is how Christ can help you deal with these issues."

In light of the critical issue of effectuality in reaching the lost, it is essential to define the term biblical. Since it is the mission of the church to lead secular people to biblical experiences—such as salvation, healing, or Spirit-infilling—great care must be taken to ensure that the experience is biblical in nature and expression. Ensuring a valid biblical experience requires a thoughtful handling of Scripture by those who share God’s Word (2 Timothy 2:15).

The Bible cannot be read and presented like any other book. Often passages are cited, and only what seems meaningful or interesting at the moment is considered. But the Bible is more than a giant resource manual for life. Our understanding of the Scripture’s overall message is lost when we dip into its contents in the same manner we would look for information in an encyclopedia.

No part of the Bible stands alone. Like reading a novel, each character, each turn of events, every description of conversation must be compared to the overall plot. This approach not only makes the Bible more enjoyable, but also ensures that our presentation of the biblical message is accurate and, consequently, relevant in character and transformational in nature for secular individuals.

Cultivate Biblical Lifestyle

The biblical lifestyle adequately lived within any culture will, over time, become a powerful influence for encouraging the reign of God within secular people. The church has the unique challenge of maintaining a godly lifestyle, despite the damaging influences of culture, but at the same time relating to the culture in such a way as to convince the unbeliever of the power and validity of the Christian message. Jesus assured the disciples that the negative influences of unredeemed culture need not paralyze the positive influence of godly individuals (John 15:8–10,16). Furthermore, Jesus prayed for the preservation of the godly influence of His church in the world, despite the pernicious influences of unredeemed culture and the assaults of the devil (John 17:15–17).

Beyond individual and corporate godliness, another striking and compelling feature of the biblical lifestyle that appeals to lost individuals is the high sense of community that is engendered when the local church fleshes out the principles of the New Testament. Therefore, a primary task of the contemporary church is to convincingly demonstrate the benefits of biblical lifestyle and community in the context of the surrounding culture. The challenge of creating an attractive sense of community suggests a meaningful engagement with the surrounding culture through things such as language, food, acceptable styles of dress, or other customs to which the church may respond without being controlled by the culture. This reality led Gunder to observe that the faithful church critiques its cultural environment, particularly the dominant culture; affirms those aspects of culture that do not contradict the gospel; speaks the languages of the surrounding cultures and of the gospel; constantly tries to communicate the gospel in the surrounding cultures; and is cultivating and forming the culture of God’s new community, a culture not of the world.4

Gunder’s assertion does, in a manner of speaking, make the church bicultural. On one hand, the church is conversant with critical aspects of the prevailing culture, while at the same time living the ethics and principles of the gospel, mirroring the biblical lifestyle in each pertinent life context of church, family, career, and contemporary society.

In many ways, the Early Church serves as a template for Spirit-empowered churches endeavoring to maintain a strategic cultural contact with the world around them and simultaneously develop a true Spirit-culture. The primitive church was stirred to a deep sense of self-identity, which led to initial efforts to create a cohesive community among themselves. Some of these efforts were productive, while others, like community ownership, would largely die off before the end of the century. Critical features of the early Christian culture have, however, persisted to the present day. Prayer, community worship, testimony, proclamation and teaching, concern for the needy, church administration, spiritual giftings, mutual concern for each member of Christ’s body, and many other aspects of the Early Church have persisted through the centuries and still powerfully represent the validity of the Christian message.

Create a Pastoral Church

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of sharing God’s kingdom with lost people is developing the local church into a singular pastoral unit. Too often we think of the pastoral ministry as coming from the paid staff of the church. The implications of this misconception can be detrimental to God’s kingdom on earth. Unless a church is extremely small, no one individual can possibly bring the passion of the pastoral heart of God to the entire congregation. In fact, no amount of church staff are adequate for the continual revelation of Spirit-inspired love and care to the congregation and people lost in secular and materialistic lifestyles.

Developing the entire church into a powerful and passionate pastoral unity is essential to reaching secular people. Creating the pastoral church is a matter of planning and implementation. Human and material resources must be mobilized in a manner that energetically seeks the lost who are not yet in the kingdom of God, or those who were once in the church. Current ministry opportunities create a pressing mandate for creative thinking that can spark new programs of compassionate and helpful ministries that convincingly address the needs of both the churched and unchurched.

The present need to prayerfully and carefully develop outreaches and programs of ministry is overwhelming. One church may, for example, recognize that a growing number of single parents need pastoral assistance from the church. Perhaps a car repair program could be started by mechanics in the church. Some aging members of a congregation may need assistance with shopping, cleaning and repairing their homes, health care, and a number of other opportunities for ministry. Secular people experience deeply felt needs in the area of career, family, and personal issues.

Why should the church remain silent when people are crying for help in virtually every area of their lives? If the church does not speak and respond relevantly and passionately to the lives of secular people, they will seek answers elsewhere. Reminiscent of Jesus’ pastoral love for His flock, the church must make the conscious decision to leave the comfort of familiar things, and with the heart of a good shepherd, seek those who are lost.

David Henderson invites us to enter the world of the lost, to engage secular individuals on a level that gets their attention:

"It is not enough for us to understand our world from afar. We need to wade into it and rub shoulders with those we desire to reach. We need to be willing to get our cuffs smudged by the world, living life with non-Christians on their terms and not ours. When we enter the world of men and women around us who don’t know Christ, we lay the groundwork for real communication to take place."5

Reaching people is analogous to a fine art. Like anything that is a creative art, the genius of reaching people cannot be traced to one single factor. In art, there is never a single dimension that constitutes the finished creation of true artistry. The painting of a compelling landscape is many things—color, perspective, detail, and the style of the individual artist. Similarly, successfully reaching secular people is a composite of many things that are thoughtfully and expeditiously performed.

Howard Young is former president of Trinity Bible College, Ellendale, North Dakota. He is senior pastor of Evangel Assembly of God, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Endnotes

1. James Emery White, Rethinking the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997), 17,18.

2. David W. Henderson, Culture Shift (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998), 24.

3. Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 17.

4. Darrell L. Gunder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 115,116.

5. Henderson, 41.