Conversion and the "Sinner's Prayer"

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conversion, evangelism, mike king, youth ministry

Mike King, author of Presence-Centered Youth Ministry (one of my recent reads, and highly recommended!), recently pointed towards an article at Christianity Today titled "Jesus and the Sinner's Prayer," written by David P. Gushee. It took me a day or so to get around to reading it, but since I've been doing some thinking and scribbling (or typing, as it is) about evangelism and conversion lately, I made a point to read it. And there's some good stuff here. I don't agree with everything in the article, but it gives some Scriptural voice to how I've been thinking about belief, salvation, conversion, evangelism, etc. lately. It isn't a recent thought or topic for me; instead, I'm finding myself getting engaged with the topic directly and it feels good. Kind of like stretching the ol' theological legs.

Here are some clips from the article:

Is it permissible to reopen the question of salvation? If we do, how will Jesus' teachings stand up to our inherited traditions? ... In reading through Luke, I had discovered that twice (10:25, 18:18) Jesus is asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" ... [Jesus] offered a fourfold answer: love God with all that you are, love your neighbor (like the Samaritan loved his neighbor), do God's will by obeying his moral commands, and be willing, if he asks, to drop everything and leave it behind in order to follow him ... Jesus never taught easy believism. Whether he was telling the rich young ruler to sell all and follow him or telling a miracle-hungry crowd near Capernaum that to do the work of God was, yes, to believe on him (John 6:28-29), he called people to abandon their own agenda and trust him radically. Radical trust calls for both belief and action...

For clarification, the two passages in Luke are the lawyer questioning Jesus about what it takes to inherit eternal life and the rich young ruler asking the same question.

So, some questions: how does this interact with the use of the "Sinner's Prayer" and the evangelical understanding that all one must do is "believe on Jesus" to be saved? Many people claim (and I believe them) that they have an over-the-top, incredible, one-time conversion experience that causes them to believe, repent, and "get saved." But what comes next? And is that the real question - have you said the Sinner's Prayer and accepted Christ into your heart? The Gospels seem to be saying that's not the only question.

Comments would be great - perhaps we can get a decent discussion going!

Evangelism: a Call to Egocentric Conversion?

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conversion, evangelism, jim wallis

From the inward/outward site: a quote from The Call to Conversion by Jim Wallis.

The gospel message has been molded to suit an increasingly narcissistic culture. Conversion is proclaimed as the road to self-realization…. Modern conversion brings Jesus into our lives rather than bringing us into his. We are told Jesus is here to help us to do better that which we are already doing. Jesus doesn’t change our lives, he improves them. Conversion is just for ourselves, not for the world. We ask how Jesus can fulfill our lives, not how we might serve his kingdom.

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Donald Miller - Evangelism

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donald miller, evangelism, shift conference, youth ministry

Evangelism - Donald Miller

"in one part this is ministry, and in another it's penance"

mystical element to the experience of Jesus that is hard to explain

how has XNY hurt you (recent survey on college campus)?
:: crusades (muslim v. XN, not billy graham)
:: religious TV (these people are goofy; say shocking/mean things, often about oppressed groups of people)

hesitancy to talk about XNY b/c of its perception in the world

feels normal to talk about XNY when it's "just us," but it gets weird when others join in

when a culture becomes so insular that it only interacts with itself, it becomes weird and goofy (acknowledges biblical notion of not being of the world). but the gospel message is to go out into the world and often not come back alive. why do we try to protect and insulate ourselves and our kids so that we're not influenced/taken over by them?

what's the best movie you saw this last year?
blood diamond, the prestige, little miss sunshine, eragon, happy feet...

what is your favorite aspect of the nicene creed? (laughter)

why are we so quick to want to talk to narrative, to story...but we don't really get interested (people are often threatened) by the propositional truth of creeds, belief, etc.

jesus tells story after story after story after story...there are propositions (james), but they are encompassed by narrative.

jesus seems fulfilled just to tell the story

if we went to see Rocky, and on the way home, i said, hey guys, can we pull over a second. what do you think was the meaning behind Rocky? what was the point? (laughter)

human heart DESIRES story. STORY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

story tells us what to live for, what to die for, what a hero does, what a villain is...

culture is hungering for a story, and we're not telling ours very well.

teens want to live inside a great story, they want to play a role. (story of dad/daughter clashing over her lifestyle (goth, blah blah); dad at wits end; donald challenges him w/ this idea; dad comes home later with a challenge for his family: an orphanage needs built in mexico and if we don't do it, xxx # kids are going to be uneducated, probably end up in abusive relationships, etc.; kids catch on (dad, i could use my myspace to try to get my friends to held; daughter recognizes her dad's call for her to be a hero...))

a great story has Ambition, Conflict (God loves conflict, he embraces conflict), Protagonist (if protagonist dies, that cause may die, too)

Paul in Acts 17 goes out and meets "at their meeting place" to discuss...

assumption of church marketing is that it's a corporation; "be profitable for the Kingdom of God." fear of being fired.
***connection interrupted***

Paul acknowledges the religious interest of the Athenian community; notices the shrine marked to "the god nobody knows." takes the time to observe the culture and see how his story can speak into it. sees the longing for a god the people can be near, touch, etc. and sees how the people are being taken advantage of by those running concrete shrines, people paying and running errands to have the chance to come close to god. and paul says God is near...

kids see 3000 commercial messages everyday. we need to tell a story other than, "attain what you can to be comfortable and avoid conflict. so go out and earn and spend..."; acknowledge what is positive in culture and name that which is not.

*book by Robert McKee about stories*

QUESTIONS from the "war room" (i'm not really happy with this label!):
is the loss of story universal? do other religions use them better than us?
:: not a universal thing; it's an american thing (i'd say a western thing)
:: heart doesn't respond to lists; yes, other religions use stories b/c they work on the heart.
:: story in some ways has been overrun in the church by some sort of american story (example of church that decides to encourage members not to run up christmas gift debt, published a 60-page catalog of "make your own gift on the cheap" ideas, the church gave instead of buying (1500 person church), gave $100,000 for well-drilling in Africa, no christmas pageant, etc.)

Evangelism: A Definition

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evangelism, faithful practices, youth ministry

I pulled the following defintion out of my notes from the Evangelism workshop at last weekends Faithful Practices Conference (lack of grammar due to the note-taking quality!):

Evangelism is a set of intentional activities governed by the goal of initiating people into the body of Christ.

Why [evangelize]? Living life the way God intended it to be, to experience here and now the most of the kingdom of heaven.

Okay, so, what do you think? One of the parts of this definition that I like is that it does more than speak of evangelism as an effort towards a one-time event. There is still a quality of some sort of conversion experience in the language, but it goes beyond that, which I think is important. For many, there is no one-time, get on your knees and tearfully ask Christ to be your Savior. Instead, many people experience a gradual conversion (I would say we are CONSTANTLY on the path of conversion, that it is never a completed process). There is communal language in this definition; the initiation is a personal thing but it happens IN THE CONTEXT OF COMMUNITY - very important.

Also, and this it something I have to really think on and pray about, is the idea that "evangelism is a set of intentional activities." I definitely would self-identify as one who hopes that the way I live is a witness to the love of God and thus becomes an instrument of evangelism. But I think that I need to think through what it means to be intentional about a goal of inititiating people into the body of Christ.

On Evangelism

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evangelism, faithful practices, youth ministry

From today's SojoMail, and in relation to the Evangelism Workshop from the Faithful Practices Conference:

In Pasadena, each of the "five families" – Evangelical/Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Racial/Ethnic, Historic Protestant, and Orthodox – each shared their interpretation of Jesus' "mission statement" in Luke 4:18, and asked, "Is Jesus’ proclamation our proclamation?"

One of the interesting "problems" in the Evangelism Workshop was that nobody could/felt comfortable defining evangelism (yet many think it is important to do!). Some, of course, talk about getting people to "make a decision for Christ;" others focused on training believers to be disciples whose lives reflect and, more so, enflesh the love and grace of God for the whole world. It is encouraging to me to see representatives from nearly every strain of (American) Christianity coming together to proclaim the Gospel message - and making a commitment to thinking about evangelism beyond a simplistic, one-dimensional effort to "get people saved."

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (Christ, while in his hometown, reading from the prophet Isaiah as recorded in Luke 4:18-19, for those who need the reference. This is the next story after Christ's fast and temptation in the desert and the beginning of his public ministry in Luke.)