Right now, we are studying the Book of Acts in Ecclesia. The story is all about the way the Holy Spirit thrusts the young Church out into the world to announce the arrival of the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. It is exciting and challenging, because the impulse to move outward, to serve and to bear witness about Jesus is so different from our natural way of living and doing church. There are so many inspiring examples of how the early Christians shared the Gospel. It makes you want to get out and share the Gospel boldly, just like they did.
The problem is, the methods the early church used don’t seem to work today. At Pentecost, Peter preached on the street to a gathered crowd. Paul does this on numerous occasions, often a town market or central gathering place. It was incredibly effective in most case in Acts. But try street preaching today. Not only will you not see many people come to Christ, you probably won’t even be able to gather to people to even give you a listen. People just don’t gather anymore. We don’t have a place for it. When we are outside, we are usually on the move, not stopping to hear a religious lecture. In the days of Acts, this was common, though. To gather to hear a traveling philosopher or teacher was a normal way to pass the time, be entertained, and engage in community. It presented a natural place for the apostles to engage. Today, not so much.
In other cases, Paul went into a town and entered the synagogue and they let him preach, mostly because he just showed up and asked to. Try that today in a random religious institution. Even if you are of the same religion, they won’t usually let you speak just because you showed up. And if you want to reach non-religious people, you’d be hard pressed to find a place that they even gather to talk about ideas. It just isn’t a very feasible option today.
So how do we do it? How do we find places where we can engage in the religious, philosophical, and personal questions that people have? The apostles engaged in places that were natural to their culture. What is the natural place to talk about ideas in our culture? When we find that, maybe we can be more effective at sharing the Gospel about Jesus.
Here are some of my thoughts. I’ve had them in my head for a while, but they remain undeveloped. I want to see what you think about them. Where do people engage with ideas? Where are people open to conversation?
- Movies and TV - People engage with significant issues of life, worldview, and values when they watch a meaningful movie. A lot of people think about the world using bits and pieces of thoughts they got from movies. Some have called movies the new sermons.
- Coffee Shops - People are certainly open to conversation in most coffee shops. They probably don’t want to have a Gospel presentation forced on them, but they might not mind being asked about the book they are reading.
- The Internet - There are blogs and forums all over the place online where people are engaging in debate and discussion. The problem is that usually like-minded people gather in the same places and feed off of each other. The only disagreeing voices tend to be hard-headed, unreasonable people who post overstatements and insults along with their opinions. But, never the less, there are people talking about signficant things all over the place online. Youtube, Facebook, blogs, etc…How do we engage with them?
- Colleges and Universities - People go to college to learn, to figure out what they think. That could be a great place to go to engage with people in the time when their ideas are being formed the most.
These are just a few ideas. There must be more. What do you think? Are there other forums for these kinds of conversations? What are the ways we can engage people in these environments in a manner that makes sense? Be specific if you can. Give examples from your local environment, your town. Where are people interacting with significant issues and ideas? That is where the apostles went to share Christ in their culture. That is where we need to go in our culture.
