LIFEdevelopment.info - Audience

FIVE - KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE (PERSONAL)

Personal Qualifications (General)

It clearly takes a special kind of person to reach out to secular post-modern people without crossing the barriers of social propriety. While Adventists often close themselves off from "the world" in order to safeguard personal spiritual priorities, outreach to secular people requires a "going back" to the world, not for assimilation, but for the gospel's sake. I do not recommend this blindly for every member. Some are more naturally fitted for this task than others. The following qualities are particularly helpful.

Expanded Horizons

A faithful and authentic outreach to secular people calls for a "two-horizon" person, someone able to be at home in two radically different worlds at the same time. Every person has their own intellectual and social horizon, a perspective that is unique to them. The greatest need in our church is for two-horizon people, people who are not only comfortable in a traditional Adventist setting, but who can also step out and be comfortable in the post-modern, secular world.

The two-horizon person is a person who can make people feel at ease both in the church and in the world. Certainly any Adventist pastor who wants to work with secular people while pastoring a typical Adventist church will need a two-horizon perspective in order to survive. The challenge is even greater where a pastor seeks to bring traditional Adventist people into regular contact with secular people, as the Life Development Project seeks to accomplish. A group leader of such a mixed group will need a deep sensitivity to both sides of the group.

Identify with People

Two horizon people have the ability to identify quickly with people, to sense where they are coming from. People with this quality are able to get close to others in a hurry, to intuitively put themselves in other people's shoes and see the world through their eyes. Spiritual outreach across cultural lines requires great awareness and sensitivity to other people's ideas and feelings.

Some people are naturally gifted with this kind of empathy, others may receive it as a "spiritual gift" given by God to enhance the power of their ministry to others. But even those who are not "gifted" can learn to identify with people more effectively after a little training and practice. The neat thing about secular post-moderns is that they are very forgiving of relational mistakes, if you are honest and genuine. Those who feel the call of God to make a difference in the secular environment will want to sharpen their ability to identify with people and understand the inner drives that motivate their behavior.

Creative Witness

Another qualification for secular post-modern outreach is the ability to offer a fresh and creative witness when the circumstances demand it. A canned or pre-packaged approach is limited in its impact to those who are interested in what that particular kind of can contains. With secular people it is necessary to "play it by ear" a lot more than most of us are accustomed to. Fresh and creative witness means to be able to say something that you have never said before because the situation requires it. This obviously requires sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit is with you and your heart is sensitive to people, you can often sense the right word at the right time, even when you do not know the people very well.

This makes me think of the ministry of Jesus. He went to many kinds of parties. The interesting thing is that while religious people were often embarrassed in His presence there is no indication that sinners (the secular post-modern types of the ancient world?) were ever embarrassed by His presence. He found a way to make them feel at home and, at the same time, maintain those limits that were necessary to His own spiritual experience. Fresh and creative witness means a willingness when necessary to approach people and issues from an entirely different angle than you have ever tried before.

Biblical Knowledge

A fourth essential quality is to know the Bible well. Secular post-moderns ask questions that you have never dreamed of. They almost never ask the kind of questions that are found in the typical set of Bible lessons. Most of our traditional Bible lesson sets were designed to persuade people who already know Christ, are familiar with their Bibles, and are comfortable with the modernist view of the world. That type of Biblical knowledge doesn't connect well in much of today's world.

To know the Bible well is to be prepared so that when the "off-the-wall" question comes, you can reorient your Biblical knowledge in relation to the question and provide an answer from Scripture that transcends anything you personally knew before. That may seem an impossible task but you must not allow the enormity of the task to slow you down. If you have no idea how to answer a question just say, "That was a great question! Offhand, I don't have a clue. Do you mind if I go home and think about it for awhile? A question as good as that deserves a solid answer." As we noted earlier, secular people are a lot more forgiving than we might have reason to expect. They do not expect you to have all the answers at the tip of your fingers, in fact they may become suspicious to the extent that you imply that you do!

Common Language

Another quality that characterizes Christians who successfully interact with the secular environment is the use of basic, everyday language in outreach efforts. There is a language that is common to all who speak English, the kind of language used in magazines and the daily newspaper. These media utilize a basic 8,000-10,000 words that communicate to virtually everyone whether or not they can read or write. On the contrary Adventists often use a specialized "in-house" language which communicates accurately only among us.

Most Adventists who are educated and who work in white collar jobs know how to talk to secular people on a day-to-day basis. The problem is that we tend to segregate that language to the secular part of our lives and switch to a different language whenever we want to express our spiritual needs and concerns. Adventists should challenge each other to express spiritual feelings in everyday language within the church so that it will become second nature when we reach outside to others.

Conclusion

The above qualities require both involvement with the Holy Spirit and much effort and experience. It is not necessary, however, to master all these areas before one can begin reaching out to secular post-moderns. God enables those that He calls. If you feel called to reach out to secular people, commit yourself to get the training and experience that will make a difference in the quality of your efforts. The very best training, however, lies in the doing.

Personal Qualifications (Post-Modern)

While reaching out to secular post-moderns will certainly be a challenge, what kinds of attitudes and approaches will smooth the way toward a more fruitful encounter? What are some ways that Christians can speak with credibility to people in the mainstream of the secular post-modern context? I find the strategies outlined by Brian MacLaren (In The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Post-Modern Matrix, revised and expanded edition [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000], 171-188) to be particularly helpful and the following draws a great deal from his work.

Clear Vision

If we want to reach people in the secular post-modern context, we need to be able to distinguish between genuine Christianity (or Adventism) and our own, culture-dependant version of it. For far too long Adventist Christians have had the tendency to place unnecessary barriers in the way of people's hearing of the gospel. We criticize their diet, their dress, their choices of a day of worship (or lack of one), and their distorted views of how the world will end. We require them to learn our language and think like we do before they can understand the gospel. We need clear vision to discern which things are basic and which things are simply a unique "brand" of Christian faith that makes us comfortable. In the secular post-modern context, we need to get back to the basics of Christianity, which have been lost in the fog of modern secularism and need to be restored in the language and context of a new generation.

Humility

We need to recognize (clear vision) and openly acknowledge that no one, not even Seventh-day Adventists, have a complete handle on truth. Absolute truth resides only in the mind of God and our perception of it is limited and must constantly grow. Therefore, the way that we approach secular post-moderns must make it clear that partial understanding is a natural part of the human condition, even after we come to faith in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul was quick to acknowledge this (1 Cor 13:8-13). We need to present ourselves to people not as ones who are "in the know," but as people who are on the path toward truth (Prov 4:18). Love for others requires a corresponding humility that acknowledges we are not better than others, perhaps just a bit more fortunate at this stage of our experience.

Respect and Deference

As mixed up as another person may be, we need to treat others with respect and deference (6T 121-123). For one thing, everyone we meet is a child of God, bought with the blood of Jesus, and therefore precious and valuable in His sight. When we see people the way Jesus sees them we will learn to value their opinions, even where they differ from ours. Everyone has some perception of truth that we can learn from. While we cannot embrace the kind of absolute relativism that characterizes some post-modern thought, we can embrace a limited relativism that allows the likelihood that other perceptions of the truth are a least partly right. Our limited knowledge is not the fault of God or the Scriptures, it is the reality of human perception.

The post-modern concept of tolerance is an inadequate standard. It is a choice to defer or postpone negative action toward one we disagree with. Respect does more than just "tolerate" another's existence, it sees unique, divinely ordained value in the other person, they become a "soul for whom Christ died." Respect values, encourages and builds up, tolerance merely allows them to live without interference from me. Here Christian faith affirms an aspect of post-modernism, but raises it to a much higher level.

Fairness

If we wish to offer a critique to post-moderns, we must be careful not to enforce a level of scrutiny we are not willing to submit to ourselves. Post-moderns believe in fairness. Others should be treated no more harshly than one treats oneself. Christians will not be appreciated if we insist on comparing our best results with the worst consequences of post-modern thought, for example. We earn the right to criticize others only when we have been just as severe regarding our own shortcomings. On this point post-moderns seem to have the mind of Jesus, who warned us to clean the beams out of our own eyes before commenting on the splinters in eyes of others. We are not immune to self-deception.

Encourage Experimentation

Secular post-moderns live without certainty, forced to relativize everything they hear, and this is a frightful way to live. How does one make decisions on the basis of uncertain "truths?" How does one make it through the day, endure difficulties or rebound from depression in the absence of clarity? The answer is an experimental faith. We can encourage post-moderns to "taste and see" (Psalm 34:8). If one cannot grasp the truth with the mind, one can experiment with the claims of Jesus. As we experiment in doing His will, we will come to know more and more certainty (John 7:17). The post-modern road to Jesus must be a process not a sudden decision. Jesus is the "way" that leads to the "truth" that brings life (John 14:6).

If a post-modern cannot buy all of our certainties, he or she may at least be willing to "try it on" like a garment as a way of exploring it. In the modernistic context truth was learned with the head leading to commitment which resulted in experience. With post-moderns it is better to turn this order on its head. Let people experience pieces of Christian life (serving, spiritual disciplines) leading to reflection and discussion. Over time commitment will rise up leading to further experimentation, leading eventually to a fully devoted relationship with Jesus Christ. With post-moderns we may not have to isolate head and heart as two parts of a decision process. Heart and head will grow together at a similar pace through experimentation.

Gentleness

Pressure and coercion have long marked Adventist evangelism. These tactics arose in the nineteenth century when the audience was made up of people largely familiar with the Christian message but willfully rebelling against it. Their stubborn opposition to the teachings of the Bible needed direct confrontation. The secular post-modern situation is vastly different. People today are not in rebellion against God, they are like "sheep without a shepherd." They are doing the best they can with the situation they have inherited. For wandering sheep gentleness is required not severity and pressure. Post-moderns do not make decisions under pressure, but they are willing to enter into a process. A kinder, gentler approach is underlined by Scripture: "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but gentle to everyone, teachable, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will give them repentance leading to a knowledge of truth." 2 Tim 2:24-25.

 

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