Revisiting Evangelistic Ideas Part 1: Love, wonderful, plan.
At the 2016 SBC Pastors Conference, leave it to Ed Stetzer to pooh-pooh the smug, “we’re above it” crowd when it comes to evangelistic methods. This is not to say that the SBC pastors are above evangelism, but dumping on evangelistic methods is a far more prominent activity among many of the SBC pastors than bothering do to any. Were it not so, baptisms and attendance would not be down...again, for the SBC. But at the Pastors Conference in St. Louis, Stetzer was right. Evangelistic methods of the past have become punchlines in the present.
In any case, this begs the question if F.A.I.T.H., 4 Spiritual Laws, Evangelism Explosion, “Do you know where you would go if you died tonight?” are all relics of the past best left there, or are they still of use today?
Evangelicals are often a silly bunch. John MacArthur, Russell Moore and others mourn the loss of words like “Evangelical.” Others, like me, like to use words others so willingly surrender to either the media, culture, or even Joel Osteen. Words like happy, wonderful, best, etc.
Maybe I am old fashioned, but I honestly believe that it is still okay to say to people, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Whether in those exact words, or in so many words. Everyone who has ever used something like the 4 Spiritual Laws more than once knows that you don’t actually go verbatim and rehearsed anyway. That rarely happens when you speak to actual people. “Wonderful” has never meant “easy,” and apparently everyone but Evangelical snobs who make fun of evangelistic methods seem to know this.
Talking to normal people, who often see little awe-inspiring wonder in their daily lives can and should be told that they are loved by God, and that they are right in sensing that they, like the whole of creation, are crying out for justice and redemption. They need to be reminded that the folly of living for self or other humans can often blind them and other people from living lives of true passion for their Creator. This Creator is a God who has set upon a wicked world an undeserved redemptive plan in and through Jesus Christ. He is a loving God who invites us all to participate in loving purpose to bring about the redounding of God’s glory from all creation when He finally and fully floods the cosmos with His radiant beauty that we only can get an approximate glimpse at on cloudless nights (if we bother to look), and He fills it with immeasurable joy in the final defeat of all evils.
In other words, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Moreover, it could be your “best life now,” relative to your life so far without Jesus. It sounds like a wonderful plan to me anyway.
