The language of evangelism
Last week, I read the book The Heart of Evangelism by one of my professors, Jerram Barrs. I know his methods from having him as an apologetics professor, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the way he has carried on the Francis Schaeffer legacy. One thing that struck me more in his book, than in any other place so far, was that of the language we should be using for evangelism.
His point really makes sense, "speak the right language". I think that many times we become bogged down in our christian subculture and become so insulated that we are unable to communicate God's truth in a relevant manner. I do not mean water down the message, I do mean make it accessible. Often times we use words, "good", "evil", "God" and so on without defining them for the person we are talking to and they have no clue what we mean because they think something different. Use the word "God" to a Muslim, Hindu, or skeptic and you will get three entirely different answers.
We must train ourselves and the people in our churches to learn to understand this. And when we do, our people will have better training to spread God's truth.
His point really makes sense, "speak the right language". I think that many times we become bogged down in our christian subculture and become so insulated that we are unable to communicate God's truth in a relevant manner. I do not mean water down the message, I do mean make it accessible. Often times we use words, "good", "evil", "God" and so on without defining them for the person we are talking to and they have no clue what we mean because they think something different. Use the word "God" to a Muslim, Hindu, or skeptic and you will get three entirely different answers.
We must train ourselves and the people in our churches to learn to understand this. And when we do, our people will have better training to spread God's truth.
posted by Bobby's blog at 1:27 PM
2 Comments:
Good point, Bobby. In the conversations I've had with Universalists, Mormons, and other cults or Christian cults, I've seen that they may sound like orthodox Christianity, but it's because they've redefined the words.
If Christians are to be able to coherent conversations with the culture around us, it is imperative that our language be real and not churchy.
You mentioned an exercise you had to do one time where you had to write a statement of faith without useing overly churchy terms. This is a great exercise for anyone to attempt.
I totally agree. One project we have in our apologetics class is to write a 15 page letter to an unbeliever without Christianese. It's a tough exercise, but I learned a lot.
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