The Southern Baptist blogosphere has erupted in conversation on whether it’s proper to use phrases like “asking Jesus into your heart,” “accepting Christ,” or methods like the “sinner’s prayer” when sharing the gospel. Like many online conversations, this one has tended to generate more heat than light, and I get the feeling that good folks on both sides of this issue may be talking past one another.

This discussion over methods and terms has been bubbling under the surface for a good while now. A younger generation of pastors look out at the state of evangelicalism and are rightly concerned that many people with cultural Christianity in their background cling to assurance they are saved despite an overwhelming lack of evidence of genuine conversion. It’s no surprise that some pastors are blaming the methods and terms that became prevalent in the previous generation. That’s why we hear a pastor like David Platt consider a phrase like “asking Jesus into your heart” to be “dangerous” and “damning.”

The response to this critique has been to trot out the biblical and historical precedent for using such terminology. That’s not hard. The idea of “receiving Christ” is all over the New Testament. It is certainly a part of the good news that we are not only in Christ, but that Christ is in us. Pastor Steve Gaines’ rebuttal to David Platt, for example, focused on the biblical preponderance of such language and how it offers a full-orbed view of what takes place when a sinner places faith in Jesus Christ.

A Global Perspective

The first time I questioned the legitimacy of expressions like “ask Jesus into your heart” was when I was a student in Romania. Several Romanian pastors challenged the use of such terminology. They considered it to be another example of the American tendency to water down the nature of true repentance, and they recommended the use of such phrases only if fully explained. They saw these expressions as distinctively “American” and worried that they did not give sufficient weight to the idea of surrendering one’s life to King Jesus in repentance and faith.

Though some in the Southern Baptist Convention want to make this a debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists, a broader perspective shows that this is part of an ongoing conversation between Christians in the U.S. and Christians in other parts of the world. The pastors I knew who had concerns with this language were not Calvinistic at all. Still, they were afraid of creating false converts and offering them false assurance. It ought to at least give us pause that many Christians in other parts of the world are uncomfortable with this terminology.

The Real Issue is False Assurance

At the end of the day, the conversation about “the sinner’s prayer” and “asking Jesus into your heart” is not really about the legitimacy of such methods or the biblical justification for using expressions like “having a personal relationship with Christ” or “receiving Jesus.” I believe that properly understood and explained, any of these methods and terms can be used, to good effect. And I bet David Platt would have no problem at all with the careful way that Steve Gaines explains what it means to “receive Jesus.”

The real issue comes down to finding our assurance in these methods and phrases. False assurance is when a pastor says, either explicitly or implicitly, “as long as you walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, or asked Jesus into your heart at some point in time, you’re safe.” It’s the kind of false assurance that doesn’t take into account a Christian’s fruitfulness (as Jesus commanded us to) and tries to convince tares they are wheat. The debate is not really about the usefulness of a sinner’s prayer, but the grounding of one’s assurance in a particular moment in time where one felt remorse for sin, regardless if true repentance was present or later evidenced.

Growing up in independent Baptist circles, I recall how much emphasis was placed on the moment of conversion. Revival speakers would come into town and scare us as teenagers, telling us, “If you don’t remember the when, the where, the how, and the who of when you got saved, you’re probably not. So come down and get it settled today!” Multiple baptisms were good for the evangelist’s PR and dozens of teens getting re-baptized made the church feel good (“Look what God is doing in our young people!”).

Despite the hype, I never got re-baptized. I couldn’t articulate all the reasons why this was wrong, but I knew something wasn’t right. It felt like the shenanigans of these revival speakers put way too much emphasis on a moment in time and not on a life of fruitful faith.

True Conversion

This conversation about our methods and terminology in evangelism is an important one. I just hope that people who share a lot of the same concerns will understand the common ground they have and not impute mistakes to one another.

To my young pastor friends, we are often more apt to express concern about the precision of evangelistic language than we are to celebrate the passion of evangelistic outreach. Let’s not impute the excesses of revivalism to everyone who uses terms that are familiar within that stream of evangelicalism.

To my older pastor friends, please don’t assume that those who critique shallow evangelism are necessarily criticizing you or your ministry. And don’t think that young guys are gun-shy when it comes to evangelism, afraid to call people to personal faith and repentance, or have a problem with a moment of conversion.

Again, the issue is one of false assurance. No pastor wants to stand before God and find he offered false assurance to someone who showed no signs of genuine repentance and faith. We all ought to tremble at the thought.

Meanwhile, is it biblical to ask Jesus into your heart? Absolutely. We ought to say more than this when we evangelize, and our main focus ought to be on the biblical terminology of repentance and faith, but surely it is proper to speak of receiving Jesus.

Let’s just make sure we explain our terms and phrases so that the nature of true repentance and saving faith is communicated clearly, boldly, and graciously. I hope that’s something all of us can agree on.

Today, I’m excited to welcome two friends of mine to the blog for a conversation on the need for multi-ethnic congregations.

Derwin Gray is a defensive back who played safety for five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and one season with the Carolina Panthers. He now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the founding and Lead Pastor of Transformation Church in Indian Land, South Carolina.

Juan Sanchez is pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, and one of the advisory council members and writers for The Gospel Project. 

Trevin Wax: Welcome to the blog, guys. First off, why even have this conversation about multi-ethnic churches? Why is this important?

Juan Sanchez: The glory of God. A few weeks ago, I laid the biblical-theological foundation for multi-ethnic churches over at Ed Stetzer’s blog. In essence, through Christ God is gathering a multi-ethnic assembly that will dwell in His presence for all eternity, under His rule, for His glory and our joy. God is greatly glorified as wise when we witness this multi-ethnic assembly being manifested in local congregations and functioning as one (Eph. 4). So, ultimately, this conversation is about the glory of God in Christ.

Derwin Gray: Absolutely, and the gospel paints a glorious picture of humanity reconciled to God through Jesus and to each other! Jesus said “make disciples of all nations (ethnos),” or different ethnic groups. The gospel demands that if different ethnic groups are around the local church, as missionaries, we should be intentional in reaching them. And the multi-ethnic church displays the “mystery of Christ” and the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:4-6,10-13).

Juan Sanchez: I think this conversation is important for another reason too. Due to various cultural factors, many churches were fairly segregated and remain so to this day. However, the church growth homogeneous unit principle (see Tim Chester’s helpful explanation) seems to have legitimized monoculturalism for the sake of evangelism. (I’m not fully knowledgeable about this history, so feel free to help me if I am missing the mark.) As a result, many churches remain fairly segregated for both cultural and evangelistic reasons.

I think that as our culture and economy have become more global and as international travel has become easier, we are realizing more and more that the body of Christ is diverse but that through Christ we have more in common with our Christian brethren throughout the world than with our unbelieving blood kin. Then we ask ourselves when we return from mission trips, if we have such a unity with brothers from different cultures and ethnicities in another country, why can’t we experience this same unity at home?

Trevin Wax: Do you think the homogeneity principle led to church growth but at the cost of multi-ethnic congregations? 

Derwin Gray: Great question. First, let’s define Dr. Donald McGarvan’s Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP). In essence, HUP teaches that people come to faith faster when people are of the same ethnic and socio-economic background. HUP has worked pragmatically and fits very well in our consumer Christianity context. But it has not nor will it ever produce local churches that reflect the ethnic diversity of what the new heavens and earth will look like. Pastors and leaders, our goal should not be pragmatism but God’s glory.

The HUP has become the standard ministry model of church planting and the church in general. However, in his eBook Should Pastors Reject or Accept the Homogeneous Unit Principle? Mark DeYmaz quotes Dr. McGavran as saying, “There is a danger that congregations…become exclusive, arrogant, and racist. That danger must be resolutely combated.” McGavran saw the danger of HUP when it was not used correctly.

Juan Sanchez: Here in Texas, it is not surprising to see a new cowboy church plant (I don’t think they are in the Acts 29 Network!). The idea, born from a legitimate and genuine desire to reach a group presumably not being reached by traditional churches, is that “cowboys” don’t go to “church” but they need the gospel too. Agreed! In this approach, utilizing the homogeneous unit principle, that like attracts like and provides an easier path for profession of faith in Christ, “cowboys” get together and do church in the “cowboy” way in order to reach “cowboys.” As a church like this grows, I would say that growth occurs at the expense of multi-ethnicity AND multi-culturalism. At the end of the day, I’m left asking, “Is this just evangelical consumerism?”

The solution is not to have “cowboy” churches composed of African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Anglos, etc. Such a church would be more homogeneous than they might realize because they are gathering around “cowboy culture.” The picture I see the gospel presenting is not a “cowboy” church composed of various ethnicities but a “cowboys” and “Indians” church – a church where formerly hostile parties, having nothing previously in common but hate for one another, now worship and share life together. In Ephesians 2, we’re reminded that the gospel brings together two formerly hostile parties and makes them into one new man.

Derwin Gray: I don’t think church size has much to do with the lack of ethnic diversity in local churches in America.  Transformation Church (TC) was planted two years ago. God, in His grace, has grown TC from 178 people to a thriving, dynamic, multi-ethnic, multi-generational congregation of nearly 2000. We’ve seen over 800 commit their lives to Jesus. In our case, we’ve grown large very fast; we attribute our growth to our commitment to biblical theology and missiology, fueled by the gospel. Our target audience is whoever lives within the scope of our local church; therefore, our ministry reflects the diversity of our mission field. TC is 60 percent white and 40 percent other.

Juan Sanchez: On a clarifying note, though the homogeneous unit principle may be applied ethnically – let’s plant a “Black” church, it seems to me that it is applied more culturally within current church planting circles. Whatever “target” group is chosen (i.e., upper middle class, artists, musicians, college students, generation X, Y, Z, etc.), everything is tailored to reach that “target,” and that group becomes the majority culture. So long as one fits into that majority culture (regardless of ethnicity), then they will fit into that group. I wonder if perhaps this is what is happening in some “bigger” churches. They may look different (ethnically diverse) when in fact they are really the same (mono-cultural). In this sense, bigger churches may tend to be as homogeneous as smaller churches but for differing reasons. Reminder – all this is anecdotal; I would love to see the data on this!

Trevin Wax: What do you say to the pastor who has a very homogeneous congregation but wants it to be multi-ethnic? Where do you start? How can one begin moving the church in a direction that more clearly demonstrates the glory of Christ’s lordship over all nations?

Derwin Gray: First, the leaders’ hearts must be seized by the biblical conviction that God wants the local church to be multi-ethnic whenever possible. Multi-ethnic church is not in addition to the gospel, it is a result of the gospel.

As a pastor, I had to work through this for myself in the Scriptures and in prayer. The question that drove me was “What does a first-century church look like in the twenty-first century?” I worked through Acts, particularly Acts 2:42-47, to try and answer this question. The most mind-renewing passage of Scripture for me was Ephesians, specifically chapters 2 and 3. That was life- and ministry-changing. One book that was particularly helpful to me in my biblical study was J. Daniel Hays’ From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. So, for the pastor, that’s where I would say to begin – the study of Scripture and prayer.

Derwin Gray: The next step would be to pray and fast for a leadership team at every level, from pastors to volunteers, to reflect the multi-ethnic diversity of the community in which God has placed you to be a missionary outpost (i.e., local church).

Hopefully, this process will bring everyone on the same page, allowing the leaders to address the congregation’s questions, not just you. This, then, is a direction from the leadership, not just the pastor’s latest “thing.” At this point, as a pastor, I would personally try to get my hands on every book written about multi-ethnic ministry and church to try to understand the practical dynamics involved in implementation. Choose the best and share one or two with your leaders.

Derwin Gray: I also think diversity in worship styles is crucial to developing a healthy, multi-ethnic church. It’s important to create a multi-ethnic ethos in the congregation. How do we do that? As the Lead Pastor, I must continually cast a God-sized, beautiful, compelling vision and teach from the sacred Scriptures that the outworking of the gospel produces a multi-ethnic, mission-shaped church.

Derwin Gray: I’d also recommend learning from leaders who have planted multi-ethnic local churches, such as Ken Hutcherson (Antioch Bible Church), Miles McPherson (The Rock Church), Efrim Smith, Mark DeYmaz (Mosaic). I’d love to help any leader who wants to plant gospel-centered, multi-ethnic, missional churches.

Juan Sanchez: Ultimately, we have to trust the Lord. He is sovereign, and only He can change you, the leaders, and the church. But remember that this is an issue of the heart and a renewed mind, first and foremost. You cannot concoct ethnic and cultural diversity in your church. You can’t announce, “We’re now a multi-ethnic church,” and expect that the next Sunday the crowd is going to be different. You also cannot concoct ethnic and cultural diversity where there is little.

Our call is to preach the gospel to all peoples and make disciples of them. A good question to ask is “How does the makeup of our church reflect the community that the Lord has sovereignly planted us in?” As your community changes, Lord willing, so should the makeup of your congregation if you are reaching those within your community regardless of who they are or where they come from.

A couple weeks ago, I posted a review of a new book edited by Robert Plummer, Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism, that chronicles the journeys of four individuals between four Christian traditions. Dr. Plummer was my hermeneutics professor at Southern Seminary, and he is also the author of 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible. Today, he joins me for a conversation about his experience in editing this intriguing new book.

Robert Plummer: As I explain in the introduction to the book, I began to notice a trickle of Evangelicals converting to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy – both from my local church and the seminary where I teach. When I looked for resources that helped in understanding this migration and responding biblically, I had difficulty finding anything helpful. I originally thought about describing and assessing the phenomenon myself but decided that the book would be much more interesting and accurate if recent converts were allowed to tell their own stories.

Robert Plummer: Frankly, I originally did not want to include Anglicanism in this book because Anglicanism is, in some expressions, thoroughly Evangelical. But the publisher convinced me that enough “free church” Evangelicals convert to Anglicanism that it is a related phenomenon we could not ignore. For example, Todd Hunter, former head of the Vineyard movement has recently written a book about his conversion to Anglicanism (see The Accidental Anglican).

Robert Plummer: I have several different hopes for the book, but let me focus on one here – for the Evangelical readership – that it would help us both understand and respond to persons leaving our churches for liturgical Christian traditions. Speaking quite directly… I believe an Evangelical understanding of the gospel, salvation, and the Scriptures is correct. (If I did not, I would leave Evangelicalism.) Yes, I respect persons leaving my faith tradition.

Nevertheless, through the responder sections of the book, I want to lay before potential converts the reasons I think they are making a mistake to leave Evangelicalism. And for those with friends leaving Evangelicalism, I hope this book equips them to make a loving appeal to stay. Chris Castaldo’s riveting account of his journey from Catholicism to Evangelicalism also highlights the strengths of Evangelical claims, I think.

Robert Plummer: Yes, authority is big. Who or what has the final say in matters of faith and practice – Scripture? Tradition? Experience? Or some combination? Obviously, as an Evangelical, I believe Scripture is the final authority, but I also understand the important secondary role tradition plays in all Christian churches – even those that deny they have traditions.

1. Ask questions and listen. Don’t immediately criticize. Try to understand the attraction of Eastern Orthodoxy.  Visit the church they are attending and graciously observe. Admit your own biases and erroneous preconceptions.
2. Read up on Eastern Orthodoxy in places like Wilbur Ellsworth’s and Craig Blaising’s chapters in Journeys of Faith. Another recommended book is Robert Letham’s Through Western Eyes. Eastern Orthodoxy: A Reformed Perspective.
3. Pray.
4. Speak the truth in love.

A pastor recently asked me about the missional strategy behind The Gospel Project curriculum. “We’ve got people in small groups who study the Scriptures but aren’t involved in reaching out to their community with the gospel,” he said. “How can I get them motivated?”

Set the magnificent, majestic God of the Bible before your people week after week, and pray that they will encounter Him for who He is. Why? Because it’s an encounter with an awesome God that motivates us to mission.

• Moses trembles before God in the burning bush. Next he is standing before Pharaoh saying, “Let my people go!” The majesty of God displayed before Moses’ eyes on a faraway hillside is the same majesty God displays before the greatest empire of the day.
• Isaiah caught a vision of the Lord in His temple that was so staggering that he fell on his face like a dead man. Notice God didn’t even have to tell him what to do. God simply asks, “Who shall go?” and the awestruck Isaiah volunteers: “Here am I. Send me!”
• The Samaritan woman at the well was amazed at the supernatural knowledge of Jesus. Next we see her running into town telling her friends and family about His greatness.
• The women at the tomb are the first to witness the resurrection power of God. Next we see them telling everyone, “We have seen the Lord!”
• Peter denies Christ and hides. After encountering the greatness of King Jesus, we see him boldly proclaiming Christ as Messiah and Lord before thousands of people.
• After Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus, he spends the rest of his life seeking to help the Gentiles see the very One who initially blinded him.

May we be so mesmerized by the glory of Jesus Christ that we count it as nothing to lose our lives for the spread of His fame! Let’s get on our faces before God and then get on our feet for His mission.

Yesterday, I shared an article from The Wall Street Journal about the loss of apprenticeship in preparing a young person for adulthood. It’s interesting that the writer recognized the difference between being book smart and wise with regard to life. 

The culture of the first century put a high priority on learning through apprenticeship. You see hints in this direction as you read the New Testament, particularly in how Jesus spoke of His relationship to the Father. But it’s also likely that in the early Christians’ desire to “make disciples, teaching them to obey all that Christ had commanded them,” their vision of “teaching” was somewhat different than what we mean by the term today.

Once they recognize the deficiencies of an information-only type of teaching, these leaders begin to downplay the need for verbally teaching people the fundamental doctrines of the faith. The result is a largely atheological ministry that inevitably leans toward a behavior-focused, moralistic message. The good news (powerful, life-transforming information) subtly shifts into good advice (“Just tell me how to live!”). And we wind up with a biblically illiterate mass of well-intentioned Christians being told each week what to do.

Camp 2

In response, other church leaders swing the pendulum back. We must teach people and teach them well. The problem, however, is that “teaching” in these churches is often reduced to conveying important biblical information. The assumption is that once we learn the right things, we will live the right way.

It seems to me that the real question is what we really believe. It seems to me that we do tend to have two creeds—the one which we believe in our intellectual assent, and then the one which we believe to the extent of acting upon it in faith. More and more it seems to me that the true level of our orthodoxy is measured by this latter standard rather than the former. And more and more it seems to me that there is no such thing as an abstract Christian dogma—that each Christian dogma can be experienced on some level.

Apprenticeship is serious business. Never downplay the importance of sermons, theological education, and deep Bible study. Just make sure you match all of these with doing life together, modeling a new way of being human, inviting people to come alongside of us and learn what it means to follow Jesus – not merely by what we tell them but also by how we live.

The mission of the church is a hot topic these days, and I am glad to see that pastors and church leaders are sharpening each other’s understanding of how to address this topic biblically and how to lead our churches to respond faithfully.

Last week, I posted five nagging questions I had after reading Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert’s book on the mission of the church. Within a few hours I had an inbox full of messages from people saying that they had read the book and had some of the same questions. By the end of the week, Kevin and Greg had offered some helpful clarifications that move the discussion forward. I’m grateful for their friendship and for the tone of this conversation.

Since last week, Ed Stetzer has written an extensive review of What Is the Mission of the Church? for The Gospel Coalition’s journal Themelios. Ed is an evangelical missiologist who has spent significant time studying this issue and encouraging churches to engage their communities biblically with the gospel. In his review, he expresses his appreciation for Kevin and Greg’s interaction with key passages in Scripture, their insistence on keeping the cross and resurrection at the center of the gospel, and the way they differentiate between the mission of God and the mission of the church. And yet, Ed believes that the way they unpack their definition is too narrow. He writes:

With their definition, they underplay the relationship of secondary ministries to those in the community that are not immediately didactic and explicitly gospel revealing. In arguing that God’s mission for the church does not include caring for the poor or intervening on behalf of those who are oppressed (good, God-honoring, and God-commanded), but making disciples through the proclamation, they overlook the role of work and example in discipleship. Rather, they equate “making disciples” with evangelism. Making disciples includes evangelism, but in “teaching everything Jesus commanded,” love and good deeds are also a part of the disciple-making process.

Ed’s concern is very similar to mine, which is why I would like to revisit my five questions in light of Kevin and Greg’s response from last week.

1. “Can we reduce ‘making disciples’ and ‘teaching Christ’s commands’ to the delivery of information?”

I agree with Greg and Kevin that the gospel is never merely “the delivery of mere information.” It is the explosive message of grace that powerfully secures our salvation. I also agree that verbal proclamation is vitally important. Here’s what Kevin and Greg say:

And yet, in the Great Commission texts the disciple making work is described as teaching, testifying, or bearing witness. And in Acts we see the mission of the church described not as Christians faithfully living out their vocations but as the word being verbally proclaimed. When Jesus sent his disciples into the world, it was to speak.

Agreed. But again, Kevin and Greg are defining words like “teaching,” “testifying,” and “bearing witness” as exclusively verbal events. I agree that these words are primarily about verbal proclamation, and yet there are elements of teaching, testifying, and bearing witness that are caught, not taught. I am not downplaying verbal proclamation but leaving room in our definitions of “teaching all that Christ has commanded us” for modeling and mentoring as well. Mark Horne provides some additional biblical support for the view I’m putting forth.

2. “If we agree that there is a zoom-lens and wide-lens view of the gospel, can we also agree that there is a zoom-lens and wide-lens view of the mission?”

To this, Kevin and Greg respond:

We passionately believe that the church should proclaim the gospel with words and promote the gospel with good works. But this is different from suggesting the mission of the church is to rebuild communities or build the kingdom. We hear Trevin asking, “Aren’t good works necessary to corroborate the message we are proclaiming?” Yes and Amen.

I am not denying that Greg and Kevin have a place in their book about obedience and the necessity of good works. My point is that our promotion of the gospel with good works is part of the mission. In other words, I want to include the corroboration of the gospel as part of how we conceive of mission, whereas Kevin and Greg insist on good works, but don’t want to call those good works “mission” because of their desire to keep the priority on evangelism.

3. “Isn’t there a sense in which worship is expressed through our life in the world, not just our corporate worship services?”

To this, Greg and Kevin respond:

We tried as hard as we could in the book to stress that good works and loving others matter, that they are essential, they are not optional, and they glorify God. The confusion may be that Trevin hears us saying worship is the mission of the church and then wonders why we don’t include all-of-life-worship in our definition. But we are careful to say mission is what we are sent into the world to accomplish. Therefore, we speak of worship as the goal of missions. Christian mission aims at making, sustaining, and establishing worshipers (247).

At the risk of talking past one another, I understand that Kevin and Greg have a robust view of our obedience in the world and our worship as consisting of all of life. And yet, I want to include that obedience within the wide-lens definition of “mission,” whereas Kevin and Greg want to make a sharp distinction between the two. Worship is not merely the goal of missions; it’s also the means. Our worship (whether gathered corporately or lived-out individually) is one way that the gospel is promoted and the mission moves forward.

4. “Even if we recognize that the verbs related to the kingdom are passive (receiving, bearing witness to, etc.), does this necessarily preclude us from speaking of ‘work for the kingdom’?”

I won’t rehash this point because Kevin and Greg agree with the way that I and others use the phrase “work for the kingdom.” We’re on the same page here, although I think we need to be careful to keep our theological discourse from devolving into the tendency to police people’s language. Parsing of words and phrases can be a helpful exercise, but it can also lead to a sort of insider-lingo wherein we recognize who’s “on our team” by the way they use or refrain from certain phrases. I don’t think Kevin and Greg are guilty of this, but some Reformed-types do go overboard in language-policing. (For example, I’ve heard people talk about how misguided the phrase “obey the gospel” or “live the gospel” is, even though Peter and Paul specifically use the first and preachers like Spurgeon were happy to use the second.)

5. “Is our representation of Christ not part of the mission?”

Following up their initial response, Greg and Kevin penned an additional blog post on how good works and the mission relate to one another. Interestingly enough, I agree completely with what they say here, quoting from Eckhard Schnabel:

We like the way Eckhard Schnabel puts it in his massive work Early Christian Mission. Schnabel argues that “expansive proclamation” is “the centrifugal dimension of mission” and “attractive presence” is the “centripetal dimension” (1:11). Our words ring out; our deeds draw people in. So the “elements of mission” include not only the ministry of the word but also “charity” and “ministry of grace.” But this is not the same as saying missions is charity or that a missionary is anyone who serves others in good deeds. According to Schnabel, “missionaries” are “envoys sent by the risen Jesus Christ to proclaim the good news” (1:11-12). Just as important, he clarifies what mission is striving for. “The result of mission is conversion: people accept and adopt the message proclaimed by the missionaries, they are integrated into the new community of faith, and they start to practice a new way of life with new behavioral patterns” (1:12).

I nearly did a double take when reading this paragraph because it struck me as saying exactly what Kevin and Greg do not say in their book: that the mission has two dimensions – “expansive proclamation” and “attractive presence” – both geared toward conversion of the lost. The book narrows “mission” to expansive proclamation only, with good works being a matter of obedience but somewhat disconnected from the mission of the church. I agree with Schnabel that the ultimate goal of mission is conversion, while the means toward that goal can also be included in how we speak of the church’s mission.

Conclusion

Let me end by saying how much I appreciate Kevin and Greg’s critique of what passes for “mission” in many segments of evangelicalism. Simply being a nice person and doing good things in the world are not mission, since there are non-Christians who engage in the same types of work. Verbal proclamation is priority; it’s our ultimate goal and it is vital. When they critique the “social justice” crowd, I “amen” them the whole way.

My big concern is that in their stalwart defense of evangelism as the mission of the church, they have narrowed the idea of “disciple-making” more than Scripture does. Ed Stetzer sums up the basic point of contention here:

Gilbert and DeYoung have a different view than the prevailing approach in evangelical missiology.They believe the missio ecclesia is making disciples (X), with other actions and deeds (Y and Z) remaining distinct from X. Others (including most evangelical missiologists) see the missio ecclesia as YXZ, keeping X at the center but seeing Y and Z as essentially part of the mission. Gilbert and DeYoung, in my estimation, get the center of the mission (X), but have not properly worked out Y and Z’s relationship to the fulfillment of the church’s mission.

I’m thankful for pastors like Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert and count them both as friends. I appreciate them for their rigorous thinking imbued with pastoral sensitivity and a desire to be biblically faithful.

Recently, I read their new book, What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission, an ambitious work that seeks to place the church’s mission within the framework of the Bible’s story line and the New Testament gospel. DeYoung and Gilbert focus on the Great Commission texts in order to formulate this definition of the church’s mission:

The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship and obey Jesus Christ now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father. (241)

I am largely in agreement with this definition, but I’m puzzled by the way the book unpacks it. I agree that the mission of the church is to make disciples, but I think I pack more into the definition of “disciple-making” than DeYoung and Gilbert do.

So instead of doing a full review, I thought it might be helpful to put forth five nagging questions about I have about their proposal, in hopes that these questions continue the conversation that DeYoung and Gilbert’s book has begun:

1. Can we reduce “making disciples” and “teaching Christ’s commands” to the delivery of information?

It seems to me that DeYoung and Gilbert tend to reduce “disciple-making” to teaching and then reduce “teaching” to the transferring of information. I agree that teaching is a central part of discipleship (which is one reason I am dedicating the next few years to the development of solid biblical curriculum). At the same time, we need to recognize that teaching also takes place in mentoring, in modeling, and in collaboration with others. So wouldn’t good deeds of love and justice fit within the overall definition of “teaching”? Isn’t part of disciple-making expressed in older Christians coming alongside new believers and together doing the good deeds Christ has called us to? If so, then doesn’t the making of disciples inherently include, at least in some measure, our work in the world? At the end of the day, I don’t think we can separate “making disciples” from “loving neighbor” in the way that it seems DeYoung and Gilbert do.

2. If we agree that there is a zoom-lens and wide-lens view of the gospel, can we also agree that there is a zoom-lens and wide-lens view of the mission?

I liked DeYoung and Gilbert’s chapter on the gospel, particularly the way they distinguish between two ways of conceiving the one gospel. In DeYoung and Gilbert’s conception, the gospel of the kingdom is integrally connected to the gospel of the cross. Or put another way, the cross is the fountainhead of the blessings of the kingdom. My question is: Why not use this approach in considering the mission? Can we not conceive of the church’s mission in wide lens and zoom lens as well? Evangelism is central (zoom lens), and yet evangelism is corroborated by any number of activities (wide lens) that demonstrate the reality of our gospel proclamation.

3. Isn’t there a sense in which worship is expressed through our life in the world, not just our corporate worship services?

At the corporate level, it’s clear that worship takes place within the church’s gathering. Yet the biblical story line begins with Adam and Eve worshiping God by obeying His commands in the garden. It was their cultivation of the garden that reflected their love and praise for their Maker. So when DeYoung and Gilbert claim that worship is integral to the mission of the church and yet want to separate worship from our deeds of justice, I worry that we are failing to remember that our good work in the world is part of our obedient worship to God.

4. Even if we recognize that the verbs related to the kingdom are passive (receiving, bearing witness to, etc.), does this necessarily preclude us from speaking of “work for the kingdom”?

When people use terminology like “work for the kingdom” or “build for the kingdom,” they usually mean that their good deeds are done at the bidding of King Jesus. They are doing these things on behalf of the kingdom. DeYoung and Gilbert are hesitant to allow any of our good deeds to be seen as contributing in some way to God’s work in establishing His kingdom. I understand their concern. Yet I think that propping up an unbendable category here might suppress kingdom work rather than inspire it. I think many people in our churches are unaware of how their “labor for the Lord is not in vain.” Connecting our good deeds to the kingdom that only God will establish can be a pastorally helpful and biblically faithful way of showing the relationship between kingdom work and the church’s mission. “Working for the kingdom” does not necessarily lead to burn-out and utopianism. For most of us, it infuses our current work with passion and excitement, knowing that God will take our work and use it for His purposes.

5. Is our representation of Christ not part of the mission?

DeYoung and Gilbert believe we must represent Christ, but it seems like they connect this representation so tightly to verbal proclamation of the gospel that little room is left for representing Christ through love and good deeds. I wonder if, in addition to the Great Commission passages, we also need to consider the New Testament metaphors for the church as we seek to discern our mission. Images like Christ’s bride, Christ’s body, and the holy temple and royal priesthood help us understand that being like Jesus is part of what it means to “teach all that He has commanded.” Christ-likeness is a part of the mission, and we cannot and should not separate proclamation of Christ from the representation of Christ we offer through our acts of service.

Update: Kevin and Greg have offered some clarifying answers to these five questions here. I encourage you to read their response. This is a conversation worth having.

Today’s post is contributed by Jerry Rankin, president emeritus of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He blogs at The Rankin File.

The gospel and missions. This subject would appear to be a no-brainer and elicit a yawning “Duh, what’s the point?” Everyone knows missions is about proclaiming the gospel. Or do they? It is amazing the discussions I have had over the years with leaders of mission agencies, denominational executives and church pastors about what is missions.

I fought the battle in Southern Baptist circles for years on the need to give specialized emphasis to missions. The retort was that this was unnecessary since everything we do is missions. In reality, if missions is everything, then it is nothing. If it is everyone’s responsibility, then it is no one’s responsibility.

The issue has been complicated in recent years by the emerging of the term “missional.” What does it mean to be missional? I think the common connotation is that whatever is done outside the internal focus of church programs is missional. Outreach to unbelievers and evangelism would certainly be considered missional. Involvement in a church plant in another community, somewhere in unchurched North America or among an unreached people group in Africa would fit the designation.

But so would disaster relief, building a home for Habitat, ministering to the poor through a food pantry and clothes closet, helping to build a church in a pioneer area or passing out water at a public event on a hot day. These activities are not about our church’s worship, discipling members, Bible study classes and youth ministry. They are focused outside the church and are therefore “missional” whether or not the gospel is shared.

Certainly we ought to be doing these things, as Jesus taught us to care for widows and orphans, minister to the poor, heal the sick, and visit the prisoner. He even commended the Pharisees for being conscientious about tithing, but admonished them for neglecting the more important things.

We can do a lot of good things that we ought to do, motivated by love, compassion for the needs of others and accruing no personal benefit, but is it missions? “Missions is the activity of God’s people to fulfill God’s mission.” And God’s mission, from before the foundation of the world, has been to redeem a lost world. It is why Jesus came and died on the cross and rose again. It is why the Holy Spirit gathers believers into a local church.

And obviously, without a clear presentation of the gospel, God’s mission is not being done. In the early 20th century, missions was sidetracked by a paradigm shift to social ministry. Amazingly, the conversation goes on. Missions is relief ministry, it is advocating justice, feeding the hungry, stopping human trafficking, providing education, or digging water wells.

Christians should be doing all these things and more, but if it is missions it will include a clear presentation of the gospel that the lost, the hurting, and the needy might be saved from sin and reconciled to God. Why would we try to improve the temporal, earthly life of others and deny them the knowledge that meets their need for eternity?

I will never forget hearing a missionary public health worker in West Africa testify of a very successful ministry of bringing pure drinking water and sanitation to destitute Muslim villagers. At the conclusion of an impressive presentation he broke into tears and confessed that he had been a failure for he had yet to see anyone embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. I will never forget his closing remark: “Healthy in hell doesn’t count for much.”

Without the gospel, it is not missions!

“Personal relationship with Jesus.” No phrase is more characteristic of evangelical lingo than this one. We all know the phrase, but when pressed, many of us have a hard time explaining exactly what we mean by it.

A few years ago, I wrote an article for another blog in which I wondered out loud about the helpfulness of using the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” when presenting the gospel. Regardless of what we mean by it, how is it heard? Gina Welch, who wrote a book about her time masquerading as a believer at Jerry Falwell’s church, confessed her bewilderment at this terminology:

“You often hear evangelicals use an inscrutable expression to describe their faith. They call it ‘a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.’ For a literal thinker like me, those words had a corporate-speak detachment from content.” (91)

“I still had a hard time holding on to an understanding of these words – a personal relationship with God. As in you and God stay up late talking? As in you and God are secret shares? I mean, I knew the rhetoric – an intimate relationship with God and a willingness to put Jesus first was the outward manifestation of real Christianity…”

“Evangelical language was a language of its own, where the rhetoric often didn’t mean what the words seemed to signify in English. Words were encoded symbols used to describe feelings evangelicals  understood. Sometimes I was able to understand these feelings and crack the code on a turn of the phrase. But not so with the personal relationship with God. With this I scraped and scraped for a more direct meaning, but each layer I revealed was just another picture of a picture.” (236)

Asking hard questions about our Christian vocabulary may make us squirm a little. But it’s healthy to ask questions if our goal is to adopt better, more-biblical terminology.

“Personal Relationship” Lingo – Where Did It Come From?

In the last century, evangelical churches grew in number as people (many of whom migrated from mainline Protestant churches) sought a conversion-centered, conservative Christianity. Evangelicals found that one way to gauge a person’s spiritual life was to discover how they viewed Christianity:

• Was their religion simply a weekly tradition, filled with dry rituals and empty ceremony ( i.e. high church)?
• Or was it a vibrant “relationship” with God through the person of Jesus Christ (i.e. evangelicalism)?

So evangelicals began to say that Christianity isn’t a religion, but a relationship. Our emphasis on personal conversion and subsequent transformation separated us from other denominations. The phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” arose out of this context as a way to differentiate between the two types of Christianity.

As the years went by, worship songs and evangelistic crusades pounded the phrase into evangelical consciousness. Songwriters took the “relationship” lingo and began writing more praise songs to Jesus than hymns about him. Evangelists emphasized the personal aspect of conversion, showing how it’s not enough to know about Christ. One must know him personally.

What About Today?

I believe the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” correctly expresses the biblical idea of discipleship and reconciliation with God. Evangelicals are right to use this phrase if through it we mean a personal, ongoing life of discipleship that includes gradual transformation into the image of Christ.

The Bible teaches that upon conversion we enter into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus is our mediator, the one who reconciles us to God. Justified by faith alone, we are united to Christ. We indeed have a relationship with Jesus, and this truth is glorious! Using the language of “relationship with Jesus” makes communion with God central to Christianity. That’s not a bad thing. The phrase is evocative, and it has been useful.

But I’m not sure that using the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” in our witnessing efforts helps us gauge a person’s spiritual life like it used to. Times are changing. I have met and talked with people who assure me that they have a “personal relationship with Jesus,” even though their lives show no evidence of Christ’s indwelling presence. Others tell me they know Jesus personally but have no need for the local church. A few are all about “personal relationships” with key religious figures.

What do you do when witnessing to a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness who also claims to have a personal relationship with Jesus? In the shifting landscape of post-Christendom’s rampant individualism, a “personal relationship with Jesus” can mean many things – too many things I’m afraid.

What are the alternatives?

Are there other ways to get across the same message? J.I. Packer gives us “knowing God.” The Puritans spoke of “deep communion with God.” John Piper emphasizes our “desire for God.” And then there are a variety of ways to speak of the life of discipleship: following Christ, serving his kingdom, submitting to his lordship. In recent years, “Christ-follower” has become a popular way of speaking of our faith.

What do you think?

Does “personal relationship with Jesus” still have staying power?

What are some other phrases we might adopt that still express this important concept?

Does this phrase help or hinder your witnessing efforts?

The term “evangelism” gives many Christians the willies. We immediately think of canned presentations that seem stiff and unnatural. We are paralyzed by the thought of knocking on a stranger’s door and talking about Jesus.

In response to these images of evangelism, we promote the idea of “building relationships” before sharing the gospel. We call it friendship or relational evangelism.

I think this development is a healthy one. We don’t share the gospel apart from who we are as witnesses. The most effective evangelism takes place within the context of relationships where the life of the Christian is on display.

But sometimes, I wonder if our emphasis on relationships might cause us to turn all our focus to relationship-building and indefinitely postpone gospel proclamation. So someone asks you, “Are you sharing the gospel regularly?” and you think, Of course! I’m building a relationship with an employee at a coffee shop; I’ve got a friend who watches football with me; I’m getting to know the parents in my child’s preschool class.

Weeks and months (maybe even years) go by, and we’ve made friends, but no disciples. We still haven’t spoken about our Christian faith and what it means to trust in Jesus.

It’s true that effective evangelism usually takes place after trustworthy relationships have been built. But something is amiss when we can “get to know” people well over a period of months and never talk about Jesus.

A few months ago, I struck up a conversation with the father of one of the kids on my son’s T-ball team. We talked a little about his work, about his kids, about our community. I asked him why he had chosen our town. His answer? The church drew him here. They had wanted to raise a family in a small town with a good church. Several family members had recommended a particular church, and so they upped and moved here.

This guy had no idea I was an associate pastor at another local church. He didn’t even know I was a Christian. Yet within a few minutes of the conversation, it was clear that he was a believer and that his faith in Christ was central to his life. As I thought about that conversation later, I realized that it would have been impossible for us to form a lasting friendship without talking about Christ. His Christianity was so central to his identity that it could not go unnoticed or unmentioned.

In pastoral ministry, I have the same “problem.” Whenever I talk to a neighbor or strike up a conversation with a stranger, I usually am asked about my occupation. As soon as I mention that I’m a pastor, the relationship changes. The conversation shifts. (Things either go uphill or downhill from there.) But there’s no sense in hiding. What I do is connected to who I am. To form a good friendship with someone, my occupation has to be on the table.

I am all about building relationships and sharing the gospel within the context of those relationships. I’m not saying that every conversation has to end with an altar call. But it worries me when Christians can become “good friends” with non-Christians without revealing their Christian identity.

Waiting too long to talk about your faith is counterproductive. If I can get to know you well over the course of several months and yet never hear you speak of Jesus, then when you eventually do share the gospel, I will probably assume that Jesus is not very important to you.

On the other hand, when your Christian faith runs deep, Jesus has a way of making an appearance much sooner. Our identity in Christ should be such an integral part of our lives that it is impossible for someone to know us well without understanding how our Christian faith informs our lives.

So, yes. By all means, build deep relationships with unbelievers. But be up front about who you and are and what you believe. Don’t go in cognito in order to be a better witness. Let people see Christ in you and let them know Who it is they’re seeing.