Pastor Refuses Gospel Tract...

[rebornfree]

I think it is a toolkit and we use what works wherever we are, which might be different to another place. There is also service evangelism, which my last Church was very good at, running food banks etc. My current Church is having a time of prayer and fasting next week to hear what the Lord is saying to us. So we will see.

I might agree to differ with you a bit on the methods but I think you have a good heart in trying to reach the lost. I'm going to bow out of the discussion now as I need to get on with other things but God bless you and your attempts to share the gospel.

 

[1Tonne]

I think it is a toolkit and we use what works wherever we are, which might be different to another place. There is also service evangelism, which my last Church was very good at, running food banks etc. My current Church is having a time of prayer and fasting next week to hear what the Lord is saying to us. So we will see.

I might agree to differ with you a bit on the methods but I think you have a good heart in trying to reach the lost. I'm going to bow out of the discussion now as I need to get on with other things but God bless you and your attempts to share the gospel.

Friendship evangelism is part of our toolbox, and we should all use it.

James 2:14-17 says "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
So be nice to people, bless them and get alongside them. Be their friend.
But, if we have faith that God is real and we see a non-believing brother or sister under God's wrath, and we say to them, “Be our friend”, but do nothing to warn them, what good is that? Faith without works is dead.

Our lack of proclamation evangelism gives the unbeliever reason to doubt that our God is not real. If you saw a house on fire, you would yell and warn the people inside. You believe that the house is on fire and that the person will die if you do not urgently warn them. You would not let it be on your conscience that you did nothing. Likewise, if you truly believe in an everlasting punishment for unbelievers, you will warn everyone you see as soon as possible. You would act in accordance with your belief.
Sadly, our absence of proclamation evangelism shows our level of belief; and the lost see this and this makes our witness weak.

"If you know of everlasting life, and you know of everlasting death, how much do you have to hate somebody to not tell them of it?" Penn Jillette

Lastly, a quote from Brother Yun who is a believer in China who has been jailed and persecuted for his faith but whose fire still burns very strong:
"The church today lacks this. The Holy Spirit descended as a tongue, and it is the Spirit that transforms our tongues. The disciples received a message and those that couldn’t talk became preachers. They received power, clarity and boldness and they started preaching the Gospel."

Thanks for the discussion. I enjoyed it too. I hope this challenges you to be courageous. Pray that God gives you a stronger love for the lost and a greater boldness and clarity to go and share the Gospel. God Bless.

 

[The Liturgist]

My current Church is having a time of prayer and fasting next week to hear what the Lord is saying to us.

Presumably during Holy Week? That said I would argue that it would have been better to have done it this week or one of the preceding weeks, during the Great Lent, since the Lent is literally a time set aside for fasting and prayer.

Thanks for the discussion. I have enjoyed it. I hope this challenges you to be courageous.

What matters is what works in terms of getting people into church. It’s not a question of courage but a question of strategy.

 

[1Tonne]

What matters is what works in terms of getting people into church. It’s not a question of courage but a question of strategy.

As long as they are believers. We do not want to fill the church with unbelievers as they will weaken the body of Christ.

 

[The Liturgist]

There is also service evangelism, which my last Church was very good at, running food banks etc.

Service evangelism is probably the best kind, in terms of creating a positive impression of the church and attracting visitors and inquirers, since our Lord did it to great effect, as did his apostles, and we are commanded to do it. It was the reputation of Jesus and his Apostles for spiritual and temporal works of mercy that preceded the Apostles and helped ensure that there were people who wanted to hear what they had to say. I doubt the Greeks at the Shrine of the Unknown God on the Aereopagus in Athens would have been interested in listening to St. Paul were it not for the reputation the Christians had acquired for serving people, both through supernatural miracles of our Lord and after the coming of the Holy Spirit, those performed by the Apostles and their disciples, and also those accomplished by more ordinary means, such as the operation of homeless shelters, food banks, schools, medical services, et cetera.

Indeed the hospital as a place where sick people could receive medical treatment regardless of their ability to pay was actually invented by St. Basil the Great when he was Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he spent the treasury of that church, which was considerable, constructing the first recognizable hospital, along with a hospice for the terminally ill and a hostel for travelers and related humanitarian services. The Muslims later duplicated this concept, for example, at the Sulemaniye Mosque in Constantinople, although I am not sure of the extent to which they provided service to dhimmis (Christians, Jews and “Sabians” whose identity is unknown, but the Mandeans of Iraq cleverly claimed to be Sabian and in that manner survived, and somehow the Zoroastrians also survived).

 

[The Liturgist]

As long as they are believers. We do not want to fill the church with unbelievers as they will weaken the body of Christ.

People will not join the church, which in Orthodoxy would normally require baptism or at least chrismation unless they were already Orthodox, if they are not believers. However, it is in the church that many are converted, by visiting the church and experiencing the beauty.

The Anglicans, in the US at least, are particularly good when it comes to welcoming people to church and persuading them to stay and embrace the Christian religion. In Australia their ability to do that may have been hampered by the abuse scandal but the approach used by the Anglican church in Australia and by my friend @Paidiske is sound.

Actually, in light of what happened in the Anglican Church in Australia, @Paidiske , would I be correct in assuming that happened in the Archdiocese of Sydney among other locations?

 

[1Tonne]

People will not join the church, which in Orthodoxy would normally require baptism or at least chrismation.....

If we fill the building with too many unbelievers, then eventually we will water down the teachings so as not to scare them away. We like big congregations after all, and telling people about their sins, God's Judgement and Hell are not topics non-believers like to hear. Over time, true believers continue to listen to these milky sermons, and so they never grow. The body of Christ stays weak. They never get to a place where they are equipped to get out there and share the Gospel. Instead, they will think of ways to get alongside unbelievers and be their friends with the hope that they may come to church and hear the Gospel. Thus, fulfilling the cycle of making the church weaker and weaker as time goes on because we fill the building with non-believers.

And this is what is happening in many churches today.
Churches treat it like a numbers game. The more they have the better their church must be. But often it can be the opposite. The more people they have in the church, the worse shape the church is in. (This is not all the time, but it is common) People like it when they have sermons that tickle their ears, but meaty sermons can scare people away.

The question has to be asked of these people who come to Christ and make a confession. Are they coming to Christ because of friendship? Or are they coming because they have been to the foot of the cross? Then, when they do make a confession, are they doing it because it is the done thing in this building? Or are they doing it because they have seen their sin truly for what it is?
These questions we cannot answer but we can see by the amount of people who say that they believe and then fall away, that many were not truly born again. This is an epidemic.

 

[Paidiske]

Actually, in light of what happened in the Anglican Church in Australia, @Paidiske , would I be correct in assuming that happened in the Archdiocese of Sydney among other locations?

It happened everywhere, as far as I know, although some places were particularly notorious (Sydney not notably more so than anywhere else, to the best of my knowledge). I would agree with you that that history is one of the reasons that "cold" approaches to evangelism are generally not received well in Australia.

 

[The Liturgist]

If we fill the building with too many unbelievers, then eventually we will water down the teachings so as not to scare them away.

How do you define an “unbeliever”?

I am opposed to watering down the Apostolic Faith and am extremely critical of the liberal mainline churches for capitulating to the world on various issues including sexual immorality and abortion. Part of the reason why I joined the Orthodox Church a decade ago is because I knew that all that was preserving the doctrinal orthodoxy of the Episcopalian parish I attended was the priest, who was a friend of mine in his last year of service before retirement, and who has since lost his eyesight - please pray for him, his name is Fr. Steve, who was one of the last traditionalists in the diocese of Los Angeles during those years it suffered under what turned out to be the corrupt leadership of Bishop Bruno, who was later disgraced when it emerged he had inappropriate dealings with developers*, and I had prior to that a terrible experience with a United Methodist elder who actually denied the doctrine of the Trinity as conventionally understood, and had also resigned from the United Church of Christ likewise due to the problem of my traditionalist superior resigning, for I would not put a comma where God intended a period.The Orthodox are allergic to change, even in cases where some have argued we should.**


* The tragic case of Bishop Bruno represents a good reason why the ancient canon which prevents people who have ever killed anyone, even accidentally, but especially in a situation outside of military service, which was deemed honorable by St. Athanasius), where someone has shot someone in a military or police setting but then has a spiritual crisis over whether their actions were justified or morally correct, in which case the view of St. Basil of providing close pastoral care and recommending a voluntary abstention from the Eucharist for a time combined with the canon precluding ordination seems to be valid, unless it was the case that Bishop Bruno was baptized after the shooting he was involved in with LAPD that caused him such a spiritual crisis. This canon, like many ancient canons, can be set aside or mitigated via the principle of oikonomia (economy) or applied with exactness (akrivia); the word canon literally means guideline, so the Roman Catholic phrase “canon law” seems to me something of an oxymoron, and there are no canon lawyers (at least that I am aware of) in Orthodoxy.

** This being over whether or not we should ordain women to the priesthood, which I have recently discussed with @Paidiske in another thread, but I don’t wish to derail this one.

 

[1Tonne]

How do you define an “unbeliever”?

Someone who wants to honour God with their life and does so. So, someone who is born again with new thinking and they no longer live in habitual sin. Their actions match their beliefs. They have a strong desire to know God intimately and to do His will.
Sadly, many people come to church and then make a confession and say that they are born again, and they may even fall themselves into thinking they were born again because they learn the lingo, but they continue in secret habitual sin year after year. Someone who has been born again will not stay in sin. They may trip on the odd occasion, but they will not live in it.
Then you can also get others who profess to be believers and they live a life that is good from a human perspective, and they are very nice people, but they only open their bible on a Sunday, and they only pray while at church. There can be many of these lukewarm people. God wants people who are on fire. If someone has a fire within them, as the believers did in Acts, then they will want to tell as many people as possible about the awesome sacrifice their God made for them.
This is where bringing non-believers to church is dangerous. They are made to feel welcome and that they are accepted and so they stay and make a profession. Now, some of those who do make a confession are genuine, but many will mainly be there because they love the friendly people. These people who are weeds amongst the wheat can often have a big influence on the church. Some may even get into positions of authority, and this will compromise the church even more.
So, I believe that we should do as Jesus commanded and go and tell the Gospel to as many people as possible. Then, those who genuinely make a decision will choose to come to church. Sure, there will be fewer people in the church. But the church will be made of true believers who want to honour God.