Over the past few years I’ve heard people say that they don’t know how to do an evangelistic bible study.  It would be one thing if these were “babes in Christ” but this has come from some people who have been Christians for years.  I’ve even heard of some trained in bible and theology make this claim which gives me the impression we’ve made this way too complicated.

For several years now the question I have loved to ask is “Would you like to read together the stories of Jesus’ ministry and teachings?”  If they say yes then when we get together we simply open one of the Gospels and begin reading and discussing that Gospel chapter by chapter.

My goal is to try to teach them as little as possible but to allow Jesus to be their teacher from day one.  I’ve done other “evangelistic bible studies” in the past but I’ve come to believe that there is no better way to do an evangelistic study than to simply walk with the person through a Gospel chapter by chapter.  Below I want to share several reasons for why I think walking them through a Gospel chapter by chapter is the best way to do an evangelistic study.

1. The Gospels (Matt, Mark, Lk,, Jn) were made for this very purpose, it’s the reason why the early church called them Gospels!  Gospel is the English word for the greek word ‘evanggelion,’ so their called Gospels because they are the Evanggelion.  So if you want to do an evangelistic study with someone use the Evanggelions- Gospels.
2. It allows Jesus to speak for himself and not me for Him.  Jesus gets to define who he is and what the kingdom is and what is most important to Him.  Jesus is to be their teacher, not you or I. Jesus instructed us ‘Nor are you to be called teacher, for you have one Teacher, the Christ.’  (Matt. 23:10)  We are not to be another person’s “Yoda.” (The NIV or ESV Study Bibles can provide good answers for most questions that are asked and for the questions you can’t answer you can reply by saying you don’t know.  People need to know we aren’t disciples, we aren’t even saved, by our knowing everything but by our trust in a person.  The reason we are called to live by faith as a disciple is precisely because God doesn’t give us all the answers!)
3. It allows us to walk alongside the person in both humility and appropriate confession.  Anyone who reads and talks about the Sermon on the Mount without humility and confession is just hypocritical!  We’re asking people to be vulnerable to confess they are sinners in need of a savior.  We must be willing to do no less.
4. It shows proper respect for scripture by honoring and trusting the way the Gospels are written and how the inspired Gospels are presenting the Gospel of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. It gives the proper respect due to Jesus and his word.

Imagine that you are having a Christmas party and you have invited me and told me to invite a few of my friends.  I take you up on the offer but before the party I come to your home and rearrange your furniture in a way that I feel is…better.  It would be better if you had the couch here instead of there, it would be better if we painted the living room walls a darker color with an accent wall.  It would be better if you had a few more pieces on your walls and less pictures on the mantel of the fire place.

Even if you did not add or subtract anything from the house most of us would be highly offended because the way we have arranged our house is an expression of who we are.  In the same way, I believe that the Gospels are written and arranged the way they are to present Jesus and the kingdom of God in the way that God would have it.  We can’t improve on this.  We believe the Gospels are inspired, we aren’t.

Eric asked me to share the link to the Jesus 101 study as another way to walk through the Gospel of Mark with someone.

GUEST BLOGGER: TYLER ELLIS serves on staff with Newark Church of Christ as Campus Minister at the University of Delaware. He is also author of the upcoming book, Questions Everything. He blogs at  www.BTylerEllis.com about exploring the challenges of knowing God and helping others do the same. These posts include weekly art & interviews, stories & ideas, and reviews & resources.  Follow him at: www.facebook.com/BTylerEllis and www.twitter.com/BTylerEllis

Thanks to Tyler for taking the time to share this. I want you to know why I asked Tyler to share his thoughts here. Knowing this will frame what he has written here and give you an appreciation for his ministry. What I appreciate about Tyler is that he is in touch with people who are seeking God. Often we have some success reaching people who have left or getting people who have some experience with Christianity. We struggle to reach those who are far, far away maybe because we have a hard time relating to them, connecting to them or even caring enough about them. I appreciate Tyler’s heart in reaching out to this group and I appreciate his insights that come out of that experience.

When Faith Has a Bad Reputation

“If you could ask 1,000 Christians one question, what would it be?”

This is one of my favorite questions to ask people who are not Christians.  Their answers can be very insightful.  Most recently, a college student responded by asking,

“Why is faith considered an admirable quality?”

At first hearing, you might think this is an easy question to answer.  After all, faith has the potential to be admired for its humility, conviction, and sacrifice – to name just a few.

But I knew from the context of our conversation, that by her definition of faith, there was nothing admirable about it.  From her perspective, any faith is blind faith.

Am I Expected To Have “Blind Faith”?

If someone asked you to give the definition of faith, what would you say?

Here are a handful of definitions I found by a quick Google search:

• Eugene Luther Vidal: “To ignore the absence of evidence is the basis of true faith.”
• The Chofetz Chaim: “With faith, there are no questions; without faith, there are no answers.”
• YourDictionary.com: “Unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence.”
• Atheism Resource: “Faith by definition is the suspension of critical thinking.  It’s gullibility dressed up like a virtue.  It’s what you use when you know that what you believe isn’t true.  We want people to believe things based on verifiable evidence, not blind faith.” (a Facebook page)
• Mark Twain: “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

Sound familiar?  Do you think this way or know someone who does?

You can begin to see why a person would not view faith as an “admirable quality” to possess, if this is what comes to mind when they think about faith.

Personally, if I had blind faith, I would probably lose it.  And if I didn’t have blind faith, I wouldn’t want it.

How “Blind Faith” Blinds People From Good Faith

The concept of blind faith creates at least three major problems:

1. Blind faith silences the questions people need to ask if they have any hope of acquiring good faith.
2.  Blind faith gives the impression that there are no reasons to believe in God or to take the Bible seriously.
3. Blind faith fuels the misconception that faith of any kind is only possessed by religious people.

This is sad.  The choice should not be between blind faith and no faith, but bad faith and good faith.

What is Good Faith?

• Hebrews 11:1 (KJV): “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
• Brian McLaren: “Faith is a dynamic state of relative certainty about matters of ultimate concern sufficient to promote action.”
• John Lennox: “Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite.  It’s a commitment based on evidence… It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule.  That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.”
• Tom Price: “Christian faith is not belief in the absence of evidence. It is the proper response to the evidence…So in conclusion, faith is not a kind of religious hoping that you do in spite of the facts. In fact, faith is a kind of knowing that results in doing.”
• Blaise Pascall: “If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious and supernatural element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.”

Faith is only as good as the object in which one puts their trust.  It’s like choosing between two airplanes when traveling across the world.  You can board the airplane on the left that has failed to pass inspection OR you can board the airplane on the right that has passed inspection.

Good faith is trusting in that which is trustworthy.

That’s what is so remarkable about the claims of Christianity.  When you read in the Book of Acts, the history of how the Christian faith took flight some two thousand years ago, you don’t find accounts of early Christians asking people to follow Jesus blindly.  Instead, account after account, you see early Christians inviting seekers to test the trustworthiness of their claims.

Beginning with the very first “sermon” recorded in Acts 2, when the apostles claimed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, they appealed to three evidences to back up that claim:

1. The Messianic Prophecies Jesus fulfilled;

2. The Miracles Jesus performed; and

3. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Not only were they eyewitnesses of these events, but they died as martyrs for their faith in Jesus.

[For additional study, read The Book of Acts; more specifically 2:14-47; 17:2-3,11; 28:13]

What Airplane Will You Board?

Faith is inescapable.  You exercise it every day: with every alarm clock you set, every meal you eat, every car you drive, every intersection you come to, every bridge you cross, every elevator you ride, and every bank account you open.  Every day we take risks in the things we put our trust in, without possessing 100% certainty.  It is same when it comes to the worldview we trust to explain our lives.

Brain McLaren says it well, “The best alternative to “bad faith” in God is not necessarily no faith [in God].”

SO HERE’S THE CHALLENGE: Don’t step back from the possibility of good faith simply because others are stepping forward with bad faith.  Do whatever it takes to obtain an “admirable” faith.

LEAVE A COMMENT

• Where did your concept of faith come from?
• How has it influenced you for good or for bad?

RELATED POST:

• GOOD FAITH VS. BAD FAITH (A SURVEY) http://www.btylerellis.com/2012/03/12/good-faith-vs-bad-faith-a-survey/
• Faith and Facts, by Greg Koukl http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5242

RECOMMENDED BOOKS:

• Finding Faith: A Search For What Makes Sense, by Brian McLaren http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Faith-Search-Makes-Sense/dp/B001OOLENI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337961920&sr=8-1
• Finding Faith: A Search For What Is Real, by Brian McLaren http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Faith-Search-What-Real/dp/031027267X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337961952&sr=1-1

Image by: drawingonanapkin http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?order=9&q=blind+leap&offset=0#/d1hecqy

Usually when you think about a Bible class on evangelism you pretty much figure you are going to talk about how to reach out. You spend time on techniques, tactics, and share experiences that hopefully get people to become more evangelistic. I am a teacher at heart and my usual answer for just about anything is that we just need to teach on it some more. Well, my wife has helped me to see that sometimes more words don’t result in the needed changes. Sometimes you have to be the change you are seeking in others. Sometimes you have to do and invite into that experience what you think people need to be doing in order for it to happen. Having said all of that, a few weeks ago we ended our men’s class in order to start an evangelistic class. I don’t mean we are talking about how to evangelize. We spend the class time coordinating outreach of real people. We are still tweaking it as we go but I thought I would share what we are doing in this class so that someone else could start this if they wanted to. Before I lay out the class, much of what is done in the class comes out of the Church Steps that I wrote about a few posts back:

• Casting a Vision for Evangelism: Introduction to Our New Approach
• Casting a Vision for Evangelism: What We Are Doing
• Casting a Vision for Evangelism: Church Steps
• Casting a Vision for Evangelism: Church Steps in Action

Summary of those posts:
The gist of all of those posts is that we decided our evangelism was way too passive. We pretty much hoped it was happening. Then we decided it was time to make a plan and execute the plan week in and week out. The plan involves five steps of where people usually fall in becoming a Christian (people we know who have never come to anything, people who have come but haven’t gotten plugged in, those who have some relationships in the congregation, those who are studying about Christianity and finally those who have been baptized but need to get involved). Each step describes their current situation and the need that will get them to the next step. It really isn’t always that cut and dry in the real world but you have to start somewhere.

Evangelistic Bible Class:
So what does an evangelistic Bible class look like? Many of you have probably done this at some point as well and I value your feedback. Here is what we do:

1. Devotional related to evangelism. Topics like what it means to be lost, conversion, new life, resurrection, etc (10 minutes)
2. Review what action people have taken from last week’s class (5-7 minutes)
3. Celebrate success (5 minutes)
4. Who do you know we can reach out to? (5 minutes)
5. Church Steps – Communicating various needs of our visitors and lining up contacts and studies from within the class. We go through who is visiting, who needs studied with, etc and get people in the class to do that this week (15 minutes)
6. Prayer – Hand our prayer list of all the names we are discussing for class members to pray over. Prayer time (5-7 minutes)

Throughout the class we sometimes have a prayer here or there where it seems like the thing to do. If someone is talking about their neighbor they want to reach out to we don’t mind stopping things and praying for them right then and there if that seems like the thing to do. So this class has some flexibility but these are the main six things we do. We have also encouraged those who are going to study with non-Christians to just do it during class time in other classrooms (using Jesus 101).

Willimon writes,

“It seemed to me that, if his first designation of himself (‘I am a baptized Episopalian’) meant anything, it meant that he definitely was not to ‘define’ himself. I knew that his church was quite explicit in its service of baptism that the church was telling him who he was, not using the conventional labels of the wider culture, labels based upon gender, class, race, or sexual orientation, but rather on the basis of the gospel. He was someone, in baptism, named, claimed, chosen, called. His name was ‘Christian.’” (p39)

I am becoming more and more convinced that Willimon is a gutsy guy who isn’t going to pull any punches. This was probably easier to say in 1994 than it would be to say in 2012. The question is not whether or not it is easy or hard to say from the perspective of how people will respond to it…the question is, is this truth? His point is that church and the gospel should be defining these things over culture. It is not up to the world to define us by worldly categories and worldly ways of looking at things. Things in our society have changed since he wrote this in 1994. In 2003 the Episcopal church ordained their first openly gay, non-celibate clergy. That complicates things a bit further when there is diverse opinion on these issues within the denominations so that it depends on whose teaching on these matters you are going to go by. It becomes clearer and clearer that scripture defines this and the church should be taking every effort to conform to a biblical view on these things. Of course, there is even disagreement on what that would be.

I appreciate what Willimon is saying here. I think we have co-opted our faith, syncretized it and blended it with the labels, definitions and categories of the world that it is hardly recognizable who Christians even are any more. This is not just true when it comes to homosexuality. This is true is more areas of our lives than we would like to admit.

Later Willimon talks about the differences between evangelism and apologetics. He says,

“That’s why the gospel never asks for mere intellectual agreement. The gospel call is for conversion, detoxification, rebirth. The gospel cannot be mapped onto experiences that are already there, as if the gospel can be easily transposed onto the culture of the high-bourgeois narcissism. Apologetics is never as radical as evangelism because apologetics concedes too much intellectual territory to the enemy before the battle begins, adopting the culture’s self definition as the appropriate means of describing our condition. So we begin with  existentialism, or self-esteem, or Marxism, or some other culturally approved category of thought and attempt to work back toward a defense of the Gospel. I agree with Karl Barth that these homiletical tactics will not work because the gospel requires a severe epistemological reorientation. Our preaching to the unbaptized must aim for conversion rather than mere agreement, evangelism rather than apologetics.” (p.40)

Do you agree? In our discussions on faith with non-believers are we starting in the right place and aiming toward the right goal? How far do we allow the world to define our lives? Should our desires define us? Should our skin color define us? Should the Gospel and our creator define us and what do we do when the labels of the world don’t jive with the labels of our Lord? Who gives the labels and which labels are biblically acceptable and which are not?

Now this ties into Christianity and the culture wars really well. Much of the ruckus we have made over social issues like gay marriage and abortion has been to get the other side to agree with our stance but comes short of actually intending to convert people. We have isolated evangelism from the whole discussion and seen gay marriage, abortion, etc as separate issues that have little to nothing to do with conversion. We believe the world needs to agree with our stance but we don’t see this as an opportunity to move beyond agreement toward conversion. We have thought if people will just get it right on these things that everything and everyone will be okay. We have been taught to believe that Christian faith is agreement with certain truths over and above the tenants laid out by other religious or even non-religious groups. That is just not the case! That is part of it but not all of it. There is a huge difference between agreement with Christian truths and actual conversion and disciple making. Jesus didn’t say “Go and make the world agree with everything I have commanded” He did say go and make disciples, teaching them to actually obey the commands of Jesus and live in submission to him starting off with baptism. Jesus was talking about converting the world, not changing their minds on a few issues. True conversion goes further than intellectual ascent and requires a change of identity.

Here is where I think people like Rachel, Rex Butts, Jonathan Merritt and others are right…our generation is tired of all of the politics. We are tired of the bickering. We are tired of trying to leverage worldly powers for the good of the kingdom of God. It is like we really believe God needs our help and the help of our legislatures to get it right these days. So we try to bring about change through worldly channels. It gets tiring. It really does. Their voices and opinions have brought some needed balance to the conversation. However, there are a few things I feel have been left out that I want to add.

First, there are some fights in life that are worth fighting to the day you die. I am not saying we have picked all the right ones all the time and through all the right means but we can’t go to the extreme of saying there is little to nothing that is really worth fighting for. What you are willing to fight for shows where your heart is. Honestly, we all have things we are willing to stand up for and speak out for or against. It is just a matter of which issues we believe are important enough to do it. I believe scripture needs to help us define and refine our list and not the world.

Second, I don’t think we can allow the world’s reaction to truth dictate which things we talk about and which ones we avoid. Hear me on this. I am not saying be unloving. I am saying the standard for what Jesus and the church is to talk about is not based on how the world reacts to the conversation, unless we are doing it in a way that is unloving, uncaring, and anything less than compassionate. If we are unloving the world may help us correct our tone but the content must always come from scripture. It only makes sense that there is going to be a certain group of people in the world who get up in arms when you speak the truth in areas they disagree on. That is the way the world works. In John 16:8-12 Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, “he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment” and “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth”. Jesus tells us there is truth, especially in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment that the world is not going to want to hear and yet it still stands as truth.

Third, Rachel and others express how tired they are of it all. Well, I am too. However, our own personal level of fatigue does not determine the worthiness of the fight. If it did Elijah should have given up years before he was taken up into heaven because he was also tired of battling the religious and political powers of his day. There are some fights worth fighting and those fights are going to make you tired from time to time. They are going to make you wish they would end. The truth is, some won’t. Now we have probably taken the extreme in the past that many of the fights worth fighting for were political. That was a mistake. We need to open up the New Testament and have a good look to see which fights Jesus and his followers deemed worthy of a fight and which ones did not. I think we have gotten too worldly in our definitions of which issues should get our attention.

Fourth, in some ways my generation has gotten lazy. I am not saying all of us but some have. We are used to things being worked out for us and handed to us. I am not pointing fingers. I am not speaking against Rachel, Rex, Jonathan or anyone else. I am just saying that we have a real tendency to not stick with anything for any length of time. That means our willingness to stick with a cause or abandon a cause is not the measuring stick for whether or not it is a worthy cause. I am tired of trying to teach my three year old to share with his little brother. I am not going to give up on that one and lose that battle. He has to learn it. It is that important. It would be easier in the short run to just give up but it would be much tougher in the long run. I think that is true with some of the issues we face today. We want short term results at the expense of long term gains. So don’t upset the world. Don’t speak out because someone might get turned off from Christianity. We lose our gumption.

Fifth, one of the problems we have is that we, Christians, have zeroed in on a small handful of issues to scream about at the expense of some others. My opinion is that when we spend a large amount of time on 2-3 issues and neglect other issues that are just as relevant we lose our relevance. Let me get more specific. When we spend a large amount of time on homosexuality and abortion (both things worthy of attention, mind you) to the neglect of many other things including the mission of the church and even sins that are in the same lists as homosexuality in scripture but aren’t really talked about very much, people stop listening to what we have to say. On the surface it at least appears we are more willing to poke at issues that are distant to us than those which are more personally relevant and might require personal change on our part. In other words, it is easier to condemn homosexuality when you don’t struggle with it than it is to condemn pride, which you do struggle with. When we do that we lose credibility.

Last, there is a real tension that I struggle with that I haven’t heard anyone mention that I would love to hear your thoughts on. Starting with Rob Bell and now from dozens of others I have heard people decry the bullhorn man. You have that guy out on the street corner preaching people to hell. I know that extreme and I don’t like it. It is often hateful and impersonal. It does some damage. I think we can and should avoid that approach.

Then take Isaiah who in Isaiah 20 preached against sin in Israel completely naked. Granted, his audience was God’s people and not people in the world…which is another issue for another day but still something that should be pointed out when it comes to the role of the prophet. If an Isaiah appeared on the scene today he would be called crazy by some Christians. Some would tell him to stop because of what people might think about Christianity based on what he was doing. Some would think three days of naked preaching was long and crazy. Isaiah went three years! Should people have warned him about who he was going to lose and who would be turned off? How do we find this balance? How do we stay the course? How do we balance the prophetic voice and telling people the tough things that need to be said by someone with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ? How do we know which fights are the right ones and which ones are not worth our time? What would we tell Isaiah if he were alive today and what does that tell us about ourselves?

A few answers:
Much of the answer to these questions comes from embracing grace and truth at the same time. I think we also have to realize that first and foremost any rebuke we have to speak is to be first aimed at God’s people and not the world. Another solution comes from having our nose in the Bible. It is easy to have worldly standards if you let the world be your guide. It is hard to know the truth if you are out of tune with God and His Word. These are all difficult things and I don’t claim to have all the answers. It is important we approach all of this with humility and I hope that is evident in everything I have said above. If not feel free to let me know that I missed it! I do hope some of the points made in this post help someone gain some perspective especially when it comes to the centrality of God and scripture in shaping our views and approach on these issues.

Here are some pictures from our event

The kids color and write on the boxes while we packed the food!

Elijah being cute

1. What people think they want to hear/believe is relevant to their lives
2. What is relevant to people even though they don’t necessarily realize it

Here is what you need:

• 4X8 sheet of 3/4″ Melamine (like plywood with a white coating)
• 4X8 sheet of 1/8″ Melamine
• 1X2 – However many feet you need to use to support your shelves divided by two (these are going to be ripped/cut in half)
• #8 3″ wood screws (don’t use drywall screws as they will split the wood)
• 1.5″ X .25 inch pine molding (just a flat thin piece of wood that will be used for the front of the shelves)
• Drill/driver
• compressor/nailer & stapler
• Caulk gun/white caulk
• Tape measure
• Stud finder
• Small level (needs to be short enough to fit in the shortest dimension of your closet)
• Compound miter saw

Instructions:

I found it most helpful to remove the old door and case the opening with casing and 1X6. That made it really clean because I could match up the casing and the shelves really easily. If anyone wants instructions on how to do the casing I would be glad to lay that out as well.

1. Measure & Mark the height of where you want your shelves. 5 shelves is pretty typical depending on the height of your closet and opening.
   1. Remember the top shelf needs to have enough clearance with the top of the door frame.
   2. Some people make the top shelf less deep but I wanted my shelves to touch the door casing at the front of the closet so it looked really clean.
   3. I made the first shelf 18″ and the rest 13″ apart.
2. Locate the studs.
   1. All screws need to go into studs in order to be secure.
3. Measure the width and depth of your closet
4. Take your 1X2 and rip it in half. The result will be a .75 X .75.
   1. This will serve as the support for your shelves. Traditionally the supports are 1X2 but that would make your shelves really tall to have to cover up on the front and you would lose a lot more closet space and your shelves would look ginormous.
5. Cut your .75X.75 to the length and width of your closet with 45 degree angles where appropriate (1 45 degree cut on the side pieces and 2 on the back pieces) in order to frame three sides of each shelf.
   1. Cut enough of these for the number of shelves you are installing.
6. Take the three pieces you need for the first shelf and place on the wall at the appropriate height.
   1. Make sure you put them .75″ below the shelf height you want so that when your shelf rests on them your shelf is at the height you want (the shelving is .75″ high/thick).
7. Put the .75X.75 bracket on the wall and make sure it is level. Then drill pilot holes with a small drill bit in the location of the studs. Level and screw those three pieces into the wall.
8. Make all your pilot holes in all your wood brackets by setting them on the set you just installed and partially drill the pilot holes over where the screws are on the first board. I did this with all my brackets all at once and it saved me a ton of time. Take them off the wall and complete all the pilot holes with your drill.
9. Install all the brackets at the appropriate heights checking that they are level and again .75″ lower than the shelf heights you want (the shelf material will take up the rest of the .75″
10. Cut your shelves from the 4′X8′ melamine and place them on your brackets. After they were all laid in I caulked all the edges.
11. I wanted a really clean look so I actually cut them to touch the closet door molding so it would look clean.
12. Cut to  length and brad nail the 1.5″ molding on the front to cover the shelf material and brackets
13. Cut your 1/8″ sheet to fit under each shelf and use the compressor to staple these to the bottom of the shelf mounts/brackets. I had to bend these a bit to get them through the door opening and into the shelves. They bend more than you would expect, just bend it slowly.
14. Caulk around the shelves and any gaps you have and paint.