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.)