I want to, quite simply, share something that has made a huge impact in my life and has not ceased to amaze me.
A few months ago I went to a short conference in Ireland that talked about how to share stories from the Bible. Stephanie had gone through it and really enjoyed it and it sounded pretty interesting. I wouldn’t say I had any huge expectations. I had perused the manual she got when she had gone and it all made sense.
What I experienced at this conference was amazing, jaw-dropping, refreshing and exhilarating. It sounds like I’m exaggerating there, but I assure you I am not. Over the three days of the conference we heard and “studied” about 15 stories from the Bible (including Jonah’s escape attempt in Jonah 1, the widows and the jars of oil from 2 Kings 7, lepers being healed from the gospels, etc.). I had heard all the stories before. I often knew them relatively well and had heard sermons preached on them (in some cases, even preached sermons on them myself).
But what happened was that with each story, I had a fresh, new, profound encounter with God. I walked away from each time in the word genuinely feeling like I had met with the Lord, had heard from him, and now needed to respond.
For those wondering, the conference was put on by Simply the Story. Check out their site, and attend a conference. You won’t be sorry. (If you’re having trouble finding a workshop, let me know and I’ll see if I can pull some stings)
But it doesn’t end there. I was amazed at how this way of slowly and deliberately asking remarkably simple questions of a story gave the Spirit a chance to speak to me through stories I thought I already knew well. But as I actually put it into practice, I began to see God use it in ridiculous ways as well!
This is the only story I can tell from memory in French – at least with good grammar
The workshop I went to was in English and I ended up with a repertoire of about 5 stories. The problem was, I work and live in France, so that wasn’t too practical for me. So I decided to start learning stories in French. It was difficult and at this point I had only managed to get one story (the prodigal son) to the point where I felt comfortable trying to retell it.
As opportunities came up to retell the story, I would tell the only one I knew. And much to my amazement, God continued to use that one story to speak in different ways. It wasn’t only a blessing for the people I was telling the story with, it was an encounter for me too!
A few examples:
- God wants to restore the inheritance he has for me (that I feel I may have lost through mistakes I’ve made in my life)
- God wants to take away the shame of the mistakes I’ve made. I don’t need to hide them from him or try to avoid the topic, but trust him to redeem.
- God will let me have free will to choose to live my life the way I want to – for good and for bad (in other words, he’s not a magical policeman who will forcibly stop me before I make a big mistakes). In response, I should approach him often asking for wisdom and revelation…
- I should really be careful with the way I talk to and interact with God. (You see the way the younger son talks to his dad and say, “is that really a good idea to talk to him like that?”)
And those are just a few examples!
I’m really delighted with how God is using this in my life and I hope this story encourages you too.
-JP
Warning: Talking about evangelism may cause stress, fear, anxiety, screaming, and eye rolling in a small percentage of adults. You should talk with you pharmacist before engaging in such activity.
Lots of people have lots of ideas about evangelism. In fact a quick Google search will yield quite a few articles. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a LOT recently as well. I can’t say I’ve got it figured out or that I even have a coherent flow of thought yet, but I do want to share some of what I’ve been mulling over in the hopes that it might be encouraging or helpful.
- It shouldn’t be difficult. Seriously. I think we over complicate stuff with methods sometimes. I’ve seen week long intensive conferences on evangelism. That’s ridiculous. It’s also not reproducible. That means that if someone comes to faith, they can’t go home and immediately do the same thing because they don’t know how to explain the old testament sacrificial system and how Jesus fulfilled every nuance of it. But I digress. It shouldn’t be difficult.I should probably nuance this by saying that it’s deep, multilayered, and amazingly intricate. But at the surface level, it shouldn’t be complicated to share the message of faith.
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Despite popular opinion, evangelism doesn’t have to be about confrontation and arguing!
It shouldn’t be scary. There are reasons to be worried when sharing the gospel if you’re in a hostile context (say… North Africa or the Middle East?). But in the United States or in France, should there really be fear associated with sharing the gospel? For many, the fear isn’t directly related to persecution, it’s related to problem #1 – the difficulty. We make it too difficult and complicated and then worry about being able to have all the answers. But if it’s not complicated, it’s going to be like talking about your favorite sports team or a movie you just saw. Will everyone have the same opinion? Nope. But will you still talk about it anways? YES!
The other side to this is the feeling that we need to convince people. We go in to discussions with the mentality of an argument, not that of a real discussion. When you’re trying to convince people and argue your point, it gets scary – unless you’re good at debating. Then, the gift of evangelism is reduced to “people who like to argue”. I’m not satisfied with that as a biblical definition. It shouldn’t be scary because we’re just talking with people!
- It should be natural. What do you talk about? The things that you like and love. The things that captivate you. The things that make you come alive.I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle with my level of captivation and affection for God. Quite frankly, given all that God has done for me, his daily presence in my life, his patience, love and pursuit of me, and his readiness to include me in his work, it’s embarrassing. But I have noticed that when I take time to cultivate my relationship for God – especially in the area of my affections – that talking about God becomes more natural. It doesn’t always result in sharing the gospel, but it almost always result in sharing testimonies.
- It should be comprehensible. It’s the whole Christian-ese thing. Imagine if someone walked up to you and started to talking to you about the danger you were currently in because of the residue left from sugar substitutes and corn syrup (which is found practically everywhere in food). The free chlorine radicals inserted in the sugar substitutes break free in the digestive process, roaming around the body, breaking down cell membranes, destroying enzymatic processes, and ultimately changing the the pH of the body towards a more basic level. But I have good news! There’s a natural product you can take to reverse all of this. And there’s all kinds of literature about how to avoid these malevolent chlorine radicals in your diet!First of all – don’t Google fact check any of that… I’m pretty sure none of it is right. Second of all, even if it were, you probably wouldn’t care much. Because it wasn’t put in a way that’s accessible to you. I think
weI spend a lot of time trying to explain the specifics, the details, and the technicals of faith rather than helping people see why any of it matters. - There are short term and long term approaches – and they’re different – and they’re necessary. I’ve heard a lot of people swear by one method for sharing their faith. The four spiritual laws. The bridge diagram. Romans road. Friendship evangelism. Evangelism Explosion. The more I think about it the more I remember! It had left me thinking that I need to find the one way of sharing the gospel that worked for me and that I liked.There isn’t one. Even on a broad level, you need multiple ways of sharing the gospel. At least one concise, brief way of explaining the message of faith and one longer term approach to representing God and his redeeming work.On the mission field we’re always living in the reality of the short term approach, how do we share the gospel in a single conversation in a concise, compelling way. But in reality, few people are responding to that. While not neglecting this, it’s been interesting to look at living out our faith, testimony, and our evangelism as things that get lived out in the long term. That kind of get’s back to the idea in #3 about our faith being something that causes joy, peace, contentment, relational stability, excitement, love, kindness, selflessness, and manifestations of God’s presence and goodness in our lives. Without that, everything we say about God becomes kind of abstract and far less convincing.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on evangelism too!
I had an interesting experience today. I got a front row seat to a French argument. [Observations to follow the story]
In the building where our office is located they recently did a renovation on the ground floor. This consequently caused the entire building to shift / settle / begin to collapse. In the end, none of our doors would close and the wallpaper was coming off the wall. There were also some unsettling (pun intended) fissures appearing on the walls and ceiling.
And today the owner and her representative showed up at the office with an assessor (I think that’s what the guy was). The assessor proceeded to tell the owner that all the damage was caused by water, not the renovations below. This was immediately contested by the owner (and rightly so in my opinion).
The response of the assessor was to reply (with some aggravation in his voice) that he was a professional, he had seen this before, and it was definitely water damage. At this point I could tell that the owner was a little flabbergasted. She presented all kinds of evidence to demonstrate a that there was no water damage and had never been water damage – and that the current issues all appeared immediately upon the beginning of the renovations.
I was having a nice time trying to follow along in French and observe how the whole thing went down when all of a sudden they tried to drag me into it. Uh oh.
The owner was trying to get me to tell them that it was related to the renovations… I really wasn’t interested in getting in the middle of this. I said quite simply, “The doors shut when we moved in and they don’t anymore. And the wall paper wasn’t like that when we moved in…”
And then I got cut off by the expect assessor who informed us all that “a shifting building wouldn’t cause the paper to detach from the wall.”
They finished with our office and then moved to the one next door. As they entered the next apartment, they continued to argue. And that’s where they started “making observations” and asking each other “simple questions”. It was kind of funny. It was a lot like the phrase “I’m just sayin'” when you want to say something without actually saying it. (For example “his hands are full of M&M’s and your bag of M&M’s is missing. I don’t know if he’s the one who stole it, but I’m just sayin'”)
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A Few Observations [these aren’t conclusions and I don’t want to generalize and say that “the French” are like this, but in this one conversation between certain French people I observed…]:
- The “Experts” didn’t feel any need whatsoever to help other people understand their conclusions. The basically said, “we know what we’re doing and we’ve seen this before. They never stopped and said “I can see how you might be confused. Let me [briefly] explain why I really believe this is water damage and not from the shifting of the building…”
- Nor did they care about other pieces of evidence. Even when the owner told them there hadn’t been any history of water problems, had contradicted some of their assumptions about the paint and pipe replacements, and I had confirmed that much of the apparent damage had occurred once they started the work, these guys had “seen this kind of thing before when it came to water damage.”
- No one ever raised their voice. There wasn’t any yelling, name calling, or cussing. They were relatively civil – though pretty passive aggressive. But it was interesting. Often being passive aggressive goes unnoticed in the US or at least ignored. Here it seemed to be considered a valid way of making point and demanded a response (like a straightforward question demands a response).
All in all, I’m pretty happy I was an observer and not one of the arguing parties!
I have so much to share with you but I sledom (if ever) take the time to put my thoughts into words. However today as I was writing a dear friend about some of the things God has been showing me I realized quickly that my message was not only for her but something I wanted to share with you too!
John and his friend after playing at the park. This is how a felt a few weeks ago about the weight of church planting and its complexity.
Since “office” time is fleating I will just paste it from my letter here…
“I am doing really good. I’m currently reading the third book in Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers and through the example of the fictional characters, I was challenged to begin the day in prayer with JP. Praying together in the morning for the events of our day has been so encouraging and motivating. Morning prayer in community is something that we experienced in a new church during our vision trip to France in 2011 and it really impressed us. We have talked about how awesome it is since that trip and how we hope to do that in our new church. This week it dawned on me that JP and I are the Church in Clermont. The church starts with us. Right? So simple but so true. If we want prayer to be at the heart of the church, then we must be praying together more often.
It hit me while I was talking to A* (who is not french but married to a french man, has two kids, fluent in English and French) at the park, that we are the church. I told her I would pray for her terrible allergies and she was really touched. She explained that in her many years of living here she has noticed people don’t have much faith. Which lead me to share of some of the churches in the surrounding areas and then it dawned on me, that I needed to invite her to be part of the church in my town. If A* and I start to study the Bible together in Clermont then this would be the start of the church. She wants to study the Bible but is not ready to set a time. Praying that we can start soon!
OK I sense part of my note to you will be cut and pasted on to the blog! I am really encouraged at how God is showing me how simple His work for us is. It is simple… listen and obey. Acts is full of listening and obeying which lead to new believers, churches, and miracles (for example: the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8). Starting a church in France is simply listening to God and obeying his leading. So when I hear of a need and the spirit within me senses the need to offer prayer, by simply obeying doors begin to open just as they are with A*. I’ve made the church so complicated in my head (a building, leaders in place, programs…which are all good and serve their purpose) but at the heart of it the church is not complicated. It is the gathering of people who love Christ and love each other! I guess what I’m trying to say is I realize now that you are my church, JP is my church, my friends and family (even strangers) who love Christ and each other form the church! I knew all this before, I just sense an encouragement in the simplicity”
Be encouraged! Christ is with you and He is also with me. We are His Church!
Starting a church is not complicated and today I realate to Buzz Lightyear. Anything and everything is possible when we love God and love others. “To infinity and beyond” -Buzz Lightyear
We recently had a cool opportunity to participate in a Fête des Voisins.
For those who don’t know what that is, it translates to “Party with Neighbors”. It’s a nationally celebrated day in France and everyone is encouraged to get together with their neighbors to spend some time together (which inevitably means eating together in France). But it’s up to each neighborhood or street to plan their own celebration.
Oh yeah, did I say we participated? I meant we planned.
It wasn’t too complicated or anything, it was just a courage thing. It meant setting a date and communicating and coordinating with our neighbors – all of whom are very nice people.
So, in the end we borrowed an invitation from our colleagues who were doing the same thing and handed it out. The other three families who live down our alley all came and we had a great time. One person said that it was the first time they had done this kind of thing in at least three years. Later on in the evening people were saying that since it was so much fun we should do this more regularly! The cool thing is that most of our neighbors didn’t really know each other before – despite the fact that our houses are all connected and our front doors are no more than 15 yards from each other.
It’s really cool to see how God used the little we had and made it into something really awesome. All it took was a tiny bit of courage and a willingness to get the ball rolling. Now we have much deeper relationships and we’re a catalyst for community among our neighbors!
It’s also cool to see that we can be a blessing in diverse ways. It’s not just that we have the gospel to share (although we definitely see this as the biggest blessing we have to share). We can bless people by working towards community and relationships – which is also a huge part of the Kingdom!
We mess a lot of things up on a regular basis – ESPECIALLY when it comes to language. But occasionally things go well.
Recently for part of a worship service, we were going to be reflecting on Romans 8 during our worship time. As I was preparing during the week, I was really moved by a song by Jonathan and Melissa Helser called “No Longer Slaves”.
The obvious problem is that the song is in English while our ministry is done in French. But, being greatly moved by the song – especially the chorus – I took a stab at the translation.
For frame of reference, I’m batting 0 for 100 on translations. If I translate it, there’s always something wrong. I used the wrong word, the wrong tense, the wrong grammar, etc. I’m usually close. But there’s always something wrong.
So I translated the chorus and we did it during the service. I was pretty pleased with the result. Recently I was on youtube and saw that there was an “official” French translation of the song. I was excited that the whole song is now available in French, but I was even more excited to see that I had nailed the chorus word for word!
It’s a small win, but it’s still a #win. Slowly but surely we’re actually getting better at French!
A good friend and I decided the other day to go sit on a bench and asking people passing by a spiritual question to see what would happen and if anyone was interested in talking. It worked.
Let me just start by saying that though I proposed the idea, I was really hesitant to actually go do it. I love the idea of evangelism and all, it’s just that when it comes to the execution of it, I get nervous.
The sunny, yet shady path we found a place to sit and talk
The sunny, yet shady path we found a spot to sit and talkThat being said, we went down to a nice dirt path many people tend to walk on and found a bench to sit on. We talked a little about “the plan” and what we though this might look like. We prayed. And we talked a little more. And then, in mid-sentence, as a young couple with a dog was walking by, I turned and said (something like), “Excuse me, my friend and I were talking about how people might answer a question like, ‘if God could do any miracle in your life today, what would you ask for?'”. I paused. He was clearly thinking about this.
“That the dead could come back to life.” In retrospect, I’m kicking myself. There are at least 2 different REALLY GOOD ways to follow up with a response like that (what would you say if I told you someone did come back from the dead // what if death isn’t the end – what if there’s something after death?). But unfortunately he was French so he answered in French and my mind isn’t that quick in French. They were off walking down the path before I could keep the conversation going.
Augustin (my friend) and I talked a little while longer about that. Then he stopped mid-sentence and asked an elderly couple the same thing.
What followed was really a thing of beauty. The guy was an atheist and not shy about it. But Augustin kept the conversation alive and somehow found a way to turn it repeatedly back to spiritual things. No joke. He talked about (1) the love of God, (2) the grace of God, (3) the fact that Jesus came and died on a cross to forgive us of our sins, and (4) the coming judgement in a conversation with a guy who was intent on talking about almost anything else. And to top it off, he did it with tact. It didn’t feel forced or corny. It was truly inspiring.
Then our time was up and we had to get going. But it was awesome! It was encouraging to both of us. I was encouraged by Augustin’s ability to share the gospel in difficult conversations. He was encouraged by my boldness and courage to give it a try despite the fact that I’m not a native French-speaker. In the end, we’re looking forward to doing it again this week. And then the week after.
Look, we’re ordinary people. But ordinary people with faith that God wants to use us to talk about him. So we try to look for opportunities to open our mouth. We may not have seen anyone ready to look more deeply at this God who became like one of us to restore our relationship with him this week, but we will.
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. (Matthew 14:28-29)
It’s a cool story, right? Everyone loves the adventure of a miracle and Jesus doing something like this. Everyone wants to “get out of the boat” in their own life.
I think God’s challenging me(us) with that right now. The thing is, it’s not in complicated, probing, introspective questions. It’s simple questions.
How much time am I actually spending around people who need to hear the gospel?
How ready am I to talk to them?
Do I actually know how to start a conversation with them? Can I ask them a question to move the conversation in a spiritual direction? Can I effectively and briefly share my testimony with them? How about the gospel?
Do I have the courage and faith to do those things?
It’s not rocket science. It’s simple logic. But through my training and my experience, I’ve never experienced life like this. I’ve worked 40 hours at a church before. I’ve had deep theological discussions about the gospel before. But those seem to work against these questions. Often, the people most desperate to hear the gospel aren’t in churches. Often the people in need of faith can’t connect with a deeply theological, lengthy presentation of gospel.
And so I’m(we are) being called out of the boat. The tools are simple. Just like climbing and walking would have been for Peter. I do have a simple spiritual question. I’ve also got a simple gospel presentation in French. I’ve practiced them a lot! The question is, am I willing to go spend my time outside the comfort of the church plant I work with, outside the comfort of working from home.
Am I willing to trust that God has prepared people of peace?
Am I willing to trust God’s call for us to come here and do this?
Am I willing to start conversations with people I don’t know in a language I still struggle with?
Am I willing to get out of the boat?
Peter did. Any many criticize him for his ensuing lack of faith that led him to begin to sink. But the thing is, he’s the only one who had the faith to get out of the boat in the first place. Of all the other disciples, he’s the only one who can say “I walked on water, even if only for a few seconds.”
So, here we go, right? It’s time to rethink the way I spend my time and what I talk about with other people…
You’ve probably heard us mention a church planter training course or the CFRi at one point or another. You may not really know what all that means, so I figured I’d take a minute to explain it…
This is the church in Lagny-Sur-Marne where I go once a week for training on church planting
The CFRi stands for Centre de Formation Régional pour les Implanteurs d’église. That’s the Regional Training Center for Church Planters. It’s put on by the CNEF or Conseil National des Evangeliques de France (National Council of French Evangelicals – but you could probably guess that). Basically, once a week on Tuesday evenings I drive to a church that’s about an hour away and get practical training from 7pm-11pm on what church planting looks like in the French context.
We talk about things from theology to mission and vision to apologetics. Is it all in French – which occasionally is a challenge but it is amazing practice. In the end, the idea is that this course be useful for anyone looking to be involved in church planting. It’s a two year program and through the program we’re asked to accomplish projects which will, Lord willing, result is our launching a church at the end of the two year program.
The last group of people who we through this program are currently working in three young church plants. And they all are grateful for the opportunity they had with the CFRi.
The Gaylords In France 