08 May Culturally Engaged Keywords: Evangelism
Social media channels like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and the like provide a window into what our country’s populace finds worthy of note. Interestingly, we are hearing from newscasters such as John King, formerly of CNN, and from renowned author on leadership Steven B. Sample that there is a decreasing need to watch the news on TV.
In Sample’s book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership he argues that we will hear the news from somewhere else if it’s truly important. Word-of-mouth is still a powerful marketing strategy and often times the most persuasive channel for communication.
For example, many people heard about the recent bombings in Boston from a personal friend first, only then did they turn to online media or to news channels for more information. There is no doubt that the World Wide Web, its search engines like Google, and social media like Facebook have connected the streams of communication into an ocean of overlapping relationships. Nevertheless, my point is this: information through conversation is still a powerful and pervasive means of communication.
So, what do Christians talk about? What do they find noteworthy? If the church were to get one headline message, one news-breaking report, what would it be?
These questions get at the content of our conversations and status updates, but also at the heart of what the church refers to as the gospel. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, the Greek word for gospel carried imperial and military overtones. It was often times used to refer to the message inscribed on a scroll announcing the ascension of a new caesar-king to the throne, the victory of the Roman army over and against another nation, or an announcement detailing the benefits provided by the enthronement of a given emperor. The messengers were called evangelists, ‘gospellers’ (more roughly). Their position was defined by the evangel or gospel, which they delivered.
Similarly, today we refer to those who report the news as reporters and earlier in U.S. history, those delivering the newspapers were called newsies. In each of these examples, the person delivering the message takes his or her name from the message they deliver. This was never truer than with Christians. The church is the community of followers whose identity is defined in terms of the King, Messiah, or from the Greek derivative Christ, whom we represent. And yet, it bears asking the question, ‘Are we defined by the message of King Jesus?’ Furthermore, we may ask, ‘What is the message, this gospel news, anyway?’
Like the Imperial message of the Greco-Roman Empire, I suggest that the writers of the four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the subsequent writings of Paul, were all using the term ‘gospel’ with all its royal connotations. Equally, and just as important, were the overtones from the Old Testament that anticipated the reign of Yahweh in his glory to sit enthroned in Jerusalem, receiving the praise of nations as they streamed in to the Holy City. Isaiah and the Psalms are packed with rich and royal imagery of God’s reign through Israel. These are just some brief observations about how the we might begin to construct a re-telling of the gospel. Nevertheless, let me propose a version of the gospel based on these broad strokes. This is by no means novel and is completely in debt to a host of other scholars including D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, and N.T. Wright among others. I invite you to reconsider telling the gospel in terms of Announcement, Welcome, Challenge, and Commission.
In short, the Christian gospel, like its Roman counterparts, announced that Yahweh is King of the world, enthroned in and through the crucified and risen Messiah- Jesus. As King, he welcomes you into the benefits of his reign (forgiveness, reconciliation, family status, etc.), but with the condition that allegiance to all others be demoted or abandoned. Herein lies the implicit challenge of the gospel. But, to all who receive and celebrate this announcement, he commissions them as forgiven, representative family members, and not merely subjects of his Kingship. This brief outline is broad enough to include all the major dynamics of Christianity in terms of faith, substitution, sacrifice, resurrection, and adoption (to name a few). There are other presentations I really find helpful as well like The Story published by spreadtruth, 2 Ways to Live published by Matthias Media, and a handful of short presentations synthesized by Keller in Center Church. But let me just close by asking this: What would be your 60-second gospel? Or if a close friend were willing to engage you for 30 minutes, how would you deepen your re-telling of the message about Jesus?
I fear that if the church could get one headline for breaking news that we might pick something else besides the gospel to harp on. Or if we could agree that it needs to be the gospel news, we may struggle to come up with exactly what that is. So, what’s your status?
–Ryan Donell