A few months ago Pat Robertson got extremely upset when a reporter referred to him as a "former TV evangelist." In Robertson's camp this was considered slander.
A cynic said recently in QUOTE magazine, "Parents used to worry if they caught their children playing doctor. Now they worry if they're playing evangelist."
It has been 60 years since Sinclair Lewis wrote his fiery indictment of the traveling evangelist. His spiritual predecessor of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart was named Elmer Gantry. In this classic portrayal of the yearning of the spirit in battle with the weakness of the flesh, the flesh wins. Lewis saw in a clear and unforgiving way, the potential for abuse that the role of the modern evangelist entails.
Fortunately, most people don't associate such shennanigans with their local church and their own pastor. I'm glad for that. Still I'm sure that it has taken a toll.
For many years, the clergy ranked first as the institution in which we placed the most confidence. But those days are gone, according to a recent Gallup poll. Only 57 percent of respondents had "a great deal" of confidence in churches, down from 66 percent in 1985.
Even sadder than the image problem for persons in my profession, however, is the toll these abuses are taking on the grand old term "evangelist," for it is clear from the New Testament that evangelism is the first business of the church.
Jesus sent his disciples out two by two. This was the first evangelistic visitation. But they didn't travel in Lear Jets. They didn't beam their message from satellites. "Because most people are familiar with traditional religious messages, broadcasting them is useless to conversion," Dr. Martin E. Marty recently declared. "Less than one tenth of one percent of the American people who are members of a church tell the polltaker they got there because of a radio or television message," he noted. "But 80 percent say, `I got there through someone who was important to me."
Notice how they traveled. "[He] commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey except a staff; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse." They were allowed to wear sandals but only one coat. That is how they travelled.
But look also at what they did, "They went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and annointed many that were sick and healed them." That is what they did. This was no mere headcount. They involved themselves in people's lives and dealt with people's real needs.
A man on an ocean cruise fell overboard. He was floundering in the water, shouting and waving and trying to get the attention of those on board. Finally a lawyer spotted him and shouted, "Shall I prepare a suit against the cruise line in your behalf?" A politician saw him and promised that he would press a bill in congress next term to make sailing safer. Finally an evangelist saw him and said with a smile, "Yes, brother I see your hand, now, do I see another?"
I am being harsh, but it's time for some hard thinking about the business of evangelism, for I believe that real evangelism is your business and mine.
Let's begin here. EVANGELISM IS THE PROCESS OF APPLYING THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST TO PEOPLE'S REAL NEEDS. A young boy who had been blind from birth had just been operated on. The new procedure offered the possibility of sight for this young boy who had never seen the light of day. As the parents waited for the doctor to remove the patches which had covered his eyes since surgery, they were uncertain about what his response would be. Blinking his eyes, adjusting to the sights and colors around him, the boy suddenly began to take it all in. Full of excitement, he said to his parents, "Why didn't you tell me it was so beautiful?" (2)
This is the work of evangelism. It is the business of helping persons open their eyes and see the world as they have never seen it before. It is not the pressuring of people to come to church. Such pressure is in the long run nonproductive and basically unChristian. Rather, evangelism is the introduction of persons to a new way of living, a new way of relating, a new way of perceiving the meaning of existence.
Often we forget what our main business is. A supersalesman sold a complicated filing system to a thriving business. Three months later, the salesman paid the company a visit. "How is the filing system working out?" "Magnificently," replied the manager. "Out of this world." "How is business?" asked the salesman to the manager. The manager said, "We had to give up our business to run the filing system!" Something like that has happened to the church. We have a wonderful structure, we have a wonderful story to tell, we have a highly capable and intelligent sales force, but somehow it seems we spent our time with the filing system rather than looking after our main business: Applying the good news of Jesus Christ to people's real needs.
THIS IS TO SAY, IN THE SECOND PLACE, THAT EVANGELISM DEALS WITH CAUSES NOT SYMPTOMS. The police deal with symptoms. Welfare workers deal with symptoms. Crisis intervention persons deal with symptoms. When the church provides housing to the homeless, it is dealing with symptoms. When we provide counseling to unwed teens, families that are splintering, persons who are battling chemical addictions and a host of other problems that people have usually we are dealing with symptoms. When we seek to do the work of evangelism, however, we are going beyond symptoms to causes. What is at the heart of people's distress? What is it that causes them to mess up their lives, betray their values, barter their futures?
THE EVANGELIST UNDERSTANDS THAT AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD'S DIFFICULTIES LIES A BROKEN RELATIONSHIP. "Estrangement" is what theologian Paul Tillich called it. We are alienated from our God, from one another, and even from ourselves. That is the meaning of another muchmaligned word in our vocabularysin.
The great Presbyterian preacher George Arthur Buttrick, speaking before a Methodist Annual Conference, hit the nail on the head. At one point in his sermon, he looked up from his notes, stepped beside the pulpit, pointed his finger at the congregation and said, "Some of you Methodist preachers, I hear, do not believe in original Sin. I have only one thing to say to you: LOOK INTO YOUR OWN HEARTS!" 3 He got their attention. He was right. Something is wrong in the human heart. Something is wrong, in your heart and mine.
Now please. I am not trying to make us feel guilty. In HOW TO BE A JEWISH MOTHER by Dan Greenberg (Random House, 1964), mothers are advised to make their sons feel guilty: "If you don't know what he's done to make you suffer, he will." That is not my intent. It is my intent to underscore the fact that there is a brokenness in human life that only Christ can repair. That is the essential message of the Gospel. Anything else deals only with symptoms and offers us no good news. But I have the priviledge of declaring in Christ's name that "there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sinsick soul."
You see, we live in a contaminated world. There are two rivers in Europe named the Roan and the Arf. The Roan is a beautiful, pure river, with fresh clear water cascading down from snowcapped mountains. The Arf River is a muddy waterway, wandering like a slimy dirtybrown snake through the countryside. For many miles the two rivers run alongside each other. Even when they finally merge, the two rivers don't immediately mix, the pure Roan and the filthy Arf still flow side by side for many more miles, until, at last, the putrid Arf consumes it's pure brother and the two become dirty.
That is the sort of thing that happens in the real world. The purest most loving heart in the land will not stay so very long working in most offices or factories, attending most schools, living in most communities.
We take on the attitudes and the values of the society around us, and our view of others and of ourselves and even of God become distorted. We become weighted down with the burdens of the world.
More than 100 people died in the crash of an airliner taking off in a snowstorm from Washington National because the pilot figured only a few hundred pounds of ice on the wings wouldn't make a difference. But the extra weight did make a difference and in seconds the plane was in the Potomac.
Thus our lives come crashing down on us when we accepted society's distorted, broken view of reality. We need to return to the source of our lives to be purified, refreshed, renewed. Evangelism deals with the cause of our hurt rather than its symptoms.
This brings us to the third thing to be said: EVANGELISM IS THE WORK OF EVERY CHRISTIAN. You may be embarrassed to be called an evangelist under present circumstance, but that it what you are. Your call as you leave this place this morning is to go out and lead the world to repentance, to cast out demons and to heal the sick. That is a pretty big order, isn't it? Any place you go, however, in your work or in your leisure where you walk with integrity and love because you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, you help turn the tide.
Let's use a negative example. Gaetan Dugas is assumed to be the first man to bring the AIDS virus to the United States. A French Canadian airline steward, he visited New York in 1976 for the visit of the Tall Ships. Knowing all the time he had the disease, he sought sexual contacts with other men, afterward announcing, "I've got gay cancer. I'm going to die, and so are you."
Dugas wickedly plotted to spread his misfortune to anyone who was foolish enough to step in his path. Little over a decade later, one man's aggressive crusade has impacted the world. What a motivation this should be to those of us who have met the One who has power over sin to begin a counterrevolution in out societya counter revolution of decency, of love and acceptance of all persons, of binding up the wounds of society and declaring the Lordship of Christ over human society. That is your business and that is mine.
This brings us to the final thing to be said this morning. EVANGELISM IS THE WORK OF MAKING CHRIST INCARNATE IN THE WORLD TODAY. In other words, as Martin Luther once put it, "We are to be Christ to our neighbor." We are to humble ourselves to give loving service to the world in the manner of the Galilean. Bruce Larson gives a remarkable example of such humble service in telling about Gert Behanna, who wrote THE LATE LIZ. Gert Behanna was converted at age 60 and became one of the great evangelists of our time, speaking to groups all over the country. She told Bruce Larson this story: "You know I travel around speaking for God and in the process I'm forced to use gas station restrooms which are almost always filthy. I used to complain about that to God. I'd say, `Lord, if I'm your servant, how come I've got to use these dirty restrooms?' One day in the midst of this kind of complaint, He seemed to say, `Gert, I come into this restroom too, right after you.' Somehow, I've never thought about that." From that moment on, she said she never left a public restroom without cleaning the mirror, wiping out the sink and picking towels up off the floor. After all that, she'd say, "There You are, Lord. I hope it's clean enough for You." Thereafter, instead of bemoaning the mess she found, she began to think of the person who would be coming after her.(4) That is a far different view of evangelism than one that features an airconditioned dog house. We need to remember that.
Evangelism is the process of applying the good news of Jesus Christ to people's real needs. Evangelism deals with causes not symptoms. The evangelist understands that at the heart of the world's difficulties lies a broken relationship. We are all evangelists. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself...and giving to us the ministry of reconciliation...!(IICorinthians 5:19) In summation the evangelist seeks to live out the life of Christ among his own family, neighbors, friends, coworkers, schoolmates, etc.
One final word: I believe that an important part of evangelism is the simple act of inviting a friend or family member to worship with you. This is where reconciliation between persons and God is most likely to take place. You do not have to verbally assault someone with your convictions. A simple invitation offered out of a loving and joyful heart is the most powerful evangelistic message of all. Billy Graham couldn't improve on it. Your name may never be in lights, but you will be doing the work of the Master.
1. BROADMAN COMMENTS,198485, Donald F. Ackland, editor, et al. (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1984).
2. Dr. Donald Strobe
3. MY CREATOR, MY FRIEND (Waco: Word Books, 1986).