Over the past few weeks I have been doing some re-write and revising work to my first book, the (un)offensive gospel of Jesus. My what a few years does to a persons writing style and strength, not to mention one’s theology! As I was re-reading this effort at articulating the Church’s Jesus-showing and Story-telling mission, there were several sections that caught my eye—and I may post some of them here over time—but I thought I would post one in particular. It is a section from chapter 9 on the fourth act of God’s Story of Rescue, Re-Creation.

I liked this section because I thought I made an interesting distinction—if I do say so myself!—between evangelism and discipleship by equating the two to colonialism and sustainable development. So often we view the mission of the Church as evangelistic, which is typically a one-off conversation geared toward converting (read: colonizing) someone by getting them to pray a prayer of salvation. I believe this is misguided. Instead we are called to disciple. I believe we’ve replaced the slow, deliberate task of discipleship with the quick fix of evangelism.

Christians have been called, sent, empowered by King Jesus Himself to influence people as they live their lives to give their life to and live their for King Jesus—the definition of what it means to live out our Matthew 28 calling to “disciple the nations.” This takes time, though. And this takes relationship. And it takes patience. And discipling takes instruction and modeling and care and, well, did I mention time? This is why I think the economic model of sustainable development fits the mission of the church, because it’s an economic model that factors in all of the above in order to establish the common good for a village or tribe or country.

Take a read and tell me what you think. Why the emphasis on evangelism instead of discipleship in the mission of the Church? Is evangelism misguided? Am I making too much of the distinctions? Shouldn’t discipleship, even of non-believers, sit at the heart of the Church’s mission? Should we go ahead and pitch the world evangelism?

I have a confession to make: I hate evangelism. Well, not evangelism, per se, but rather the word. I don’t like how it is used to define the mission of the church. The word evangelism stems from the Greek euangelion for “good news.” It is used in the New Testament as a noun, not a verb. The problem is an entire theology of mission has been built on this single word, a word never used for the commission of the Church.

When the word was originally used by Jesus to announce the Kingdom of God, He described that invasion of God’s Kingdom-movement in the world as good news. He called people to turn from their own Rhythm of Life and believe in this Rhythm by following Him into it. After His resurrection He commissioned His disciples as harbingers of this new Kingdom-movement to share the good news of the Kingdom. Where you would expect Jesus to use the word “preach/proclaim” or “bear witness” in His commission in Matthew 28:19-20, a slower, lower profile verb is used. It’s an almost schoolish word: “disciple.” This verb literally means, “to cause one to be a pupil or apprentice,” which is the primary, controlling word for the Church’s mission. ((Bruner, Matthew, 815-816.))

Key to the mission of the Church is not “evangelism” but discipleship. We are not to evangelize and colonize the world, but to influence our neighbors, co-workers, and relatives in such a way that they pattern their life and lifestyle after Jesus. Our goal as the presence of Jesus in the world is to influence people to follow Him as Messiah, Rescuer, and Restorer. Of course, in this process we will proclaim, explain, and bear witness to the amazing, (un)offensive news that is found in Jesus and His teachings. The mission of the ekklesia, though, is to step into people’s lives and show them a better way of living and being human through Jesus. We are not simply to talk at them about their sin, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and possible heavenly bliss (or other place) after they die.

The differences between these two notions of mission are incredibly stark: While evangelism is a monologue, discipleship is a dialogue; evangelism seeks to win people, discipleship seeks to shape people; when we evangelize, we posture ourselves as a sage on the stage, in discipleship our posture is a guide on the side; evangelism is an ephemeral (once-for-all) event, discipleship is an ongoing, progressive effort. I liken evangelism to Colonialism and discipleship to Sustainable Development.  Let me explain.

“Colonialism is the extension of a nation’s sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler colonies or administrative dependencies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled or displaced. Colonizing nations generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and may also impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the conquered population.” ((“Colonialism,” in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 22 July 2004, 10:55 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism; Internet; retrieved 26 May 2008.)) Have not Christian storytelling, evangelistic tactics often been similar to nineteenth and twentieth century colonial efforts, crossing borders into enemy territory to settle and claim people for our Kingdom? When we Christians enter into a conversation with another, don’t we usually dominate all emotional, intellectual, and verbal capital to make that individual our own? Just as colonialism was often based on the belief that the morals and values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized, don’t we insist that we Jesus followers hold the trump card to all things spiritual? Don’t we Christians insist that our morals and spirituality are more superior to our friend or coworker, all the while believing they have nothing to add to the conversation, about their own spirituality?

Rather than colonizing, the Church is called into Sustainable Development: We are called to step into the cultures, languages, and customs and lives of real people to show and tell them a better way of being human by showing them Jesus and telling them of God’s Kingdom Reign. In other words, we are called to disciple. Those in sustainable economic development indefinitely enter the lives of people groups to show them a better, more sound way of growing food, filtering water, or organizing an economy. Similarly, we are called to step into the lives of people indefinitely to show them a better way of being human in Jesus and explain the significance of His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Just as sustainable development is about the individuals being helped (rather than the group thats doing the developing), so too are efforts at discipling non-followers about them and their lives. Discipleship is not about us and our church or group. In the same way sustainable development equips people to better grow food or better manage a local economy, discipling non-followers must be about equipping them to follow Jesus and obey His teachings, not simply about a promise to get them to heaven.

As Darrell Guder explains in his book, The Missional Church, “The absence of the gospel Jesus preached in the gospel the church has preached has woefully impoverished the church’s sense of mission and identity.” ((Darrell Guder, Missional Church (Eerdmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 1998) 88.)) In other words, how the Church defines and tells the gospel is often very different from how Jesus defined and told the gospel. This results in a misunderstanding of mission and identity. Whether it is the Four Spiritual Laws, Romans Road, or Evangelism Explosion, evangelistic tools used to communicate Jesus’ hopeful, (un)offensive message typically invite people to accept Jesus to receive forgiveness of sins to go to heaven. While experiencing both forgiveness (and might I add liberation) from sin and everlasting existence with God are dimensions of the good news found in Jesus, reducing the gospel to those terms alone is woefully inadequate and foreign to Jesus’ own definition.

For Jesus, the immanent Reign of God was the good news that needed to be proclaimed in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world. A Reign that most certainly takes root as the Church lives out God’s mission to restore all creation through the death and resurrection of Jesus. While the Church must not be equated with the Reign of God, She is in service to it. The Body of Christ is the result of the breaking forth of an alternative Rhythm of Life and is in humble service to that Reign. She serves the Kingdom by bearing witness to it as Jesus’ Harbingers of Shalom embedded within the world in anticipation of God’s ultimate re-creative act of earthly renewal as heaven descends to earth.