Evangelism Friendship

Friendship Evangelism (FE) is the idea that before you can share the gospel with someone you need to establish a ‘meaningful’ friendship with them¹. It’s worth taking a careful look at this definition, because notice it is not the same as Friendly Evangelism, nor in fact is it about evangelising your friends, or becoming friends with people as you evangelise them. No - it’s actually a negative statement about the fact that you can’t or shouldn’t evangelise people who aren’t your friends. Proponents of FE will say things like,

“You must ‘earn the right’ to share the gospel with people.”

Or, “Friendship evangelism is learning to build trustful relationships with unchurched persons in the context of secular life, and then listening and watching with patience and caring for situations in which they show openness for God.”²

Or, “Everything begins with coffee—including evangelism... And if we are good at listening and earn enough trust while talking about interests, eventually we’ll be ready to move the conversation to the next layer.”³

At first these statements might sound very intuitive and natural and good, but in the end we must reject FE for various reasons. Let me outline four.

First, FE flies in the face of the evangelistic methods used by Jesus and his apostles. For the most part they evangelised strangers – whether in private conversation (John 4) or in large crowds (John 6). There is not a single instance in the bible where we read of anyone holding off on evangelism until they have established a friendship. Paul did not arrive in Athens, settle down, take a couple of Athenians out for coffee to talk about the football, before attempting to breach the next layer of conversation. Moreover, the apostles don’t seem to have spent any time praying for specific people to be saved, instead they pray for boldness to share the gospel with everyone (Acts 4:29).

Secondly, it downplays the supernatural realities involved in evangelism – both the blindness of our unbelieving friends and the power of the gospel to enlighten strangers. Jesus expects family members to turn on those who believe his gospel (Matthew 10:34-39) rather than to respect them and find their new beliefs ‘more plausible’ because of their close relationship. Jesus’ own family certainly didn’t (Mark 3:21, John 7:5). In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul explains how and why evangelism is effective (or not), and it has nothing to do with the level of friendship established by the evangelist. It comes down to the fact that “the god of this world (aka the Devil) has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” but that in the case of his elect, God does a work of new creation in their hearts akin to when he said “Let light shine out of darkness” in the beginning!

Thirdly, FE disincentivises evangelism. After all, how many meaningful relationships can one really expect to establish and maintain – 3, maybe 4? If all your friends become Christians, you’ll either have to stop evangelising, or cut a friend to make space for more!

And finally, FE is not real friendship. Reflecting on church, Broughton Knox writes, “Personal fellowship is an end in itself, not merely a means to some other objective, and is a good thing in its own right. In fact, it is very distasteful when people, under cover of friendship and fellowship, have some other ulterior objective which they are driving at and hope to attain, so that for this purpose they cultivate a friendship or fellowship. We instinctively recognize the obnoxiousness of this use of fellowship.”⁴ This is no less the case when the goal we are driving at is evangelism. We ought to be upfront and honest about our motives and methods.

To summarise then, the problem with FE is that in the end it destroys both Friendship and Evangelism. Because it gets Friendship and Evangelism the wrong way around. True friendship does not aim at evangelism; evangelism aims at friendship – friendship with God and with his people. Instead of FE then, perhaps what we really need is EF - Evangelism Friendship! Evangelism that is friendly of course – because we long for people to become our friends. Evangelism that adorns the message we preach with loving and kind behaviour – like taking people out for coffee or inviting them over for dinner. Evangelism that is earnest and sincere from the very beginning. Evangelism that is hopeful – that recognises that any of our relationships - with our classmates, teammates, neighbours, could become true and eternal friendships by the power of the gospel.

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¹ https://www.gotquestions.org/friendship-evangelism.html
² Sahlin, Monte. Ministry: International Journal for Pastors. September 1993.
³ Chan, Sam. How to Talk about Jesus (Without Being That Guy) (p. 37). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
⁴ Knox, D. Broughton. Selected Works Volume II, Church and Ministry. Ed. Kirsten Birkett. 247.

James Bond Evangelism

Let me begin with a classic James Bond scene. It’s from Goldfinger. You might know it. Bond is strapped to a table, with a laser pointed between his legs that is slowly moving higher and higher. Bond says, “Do you expect me to talk?!” And Goldfinger responds with a maniacal chuckle, “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die.”

Well, as we’ve been working our way through Colossians, it struck me that, in a way, we’re saying the same thing to people whenever we share the gospel with them.

In Luke’s gospel for instance, just before Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem, we read,

²³ And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9:23-24 ESV)

I love this passage because it answers three questions so simply: Who is Jesus? In v.20 Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ of God. Why did he come? In vv.21-22 Jesus explains that he came to die and rise again. And what does it mean to follow him? It means dying now to save our lives.

So this is basic discipleship. It is a fundamental, necessary part of all discipleship. Notice that Jesus said this “to all” and about “anyone”, he was not just teaching the twelve apostles about “radical discipleship”. No, if you want to follow Jesus, he expects you to die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian during the 1930’s and 40’s. He was hanged by the Nazis just before the end of the war for a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. So, he wasn’t an armchair theologian.

Last week I mentioned a quote from a book he wrote called “The Cost of Discipleship”. Now let me give it to you in a little more context.

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ, in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an

otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.

When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.”¹

So friends, this is what we’re doing when we evangelise. Whenever we share the simple gospel message with someone – that Jesus is Lord – we are calling them to come and die. To die to themselves as Lord. To die to their old identity. To die to everything about themselves and their old life that they used to hold dear. That’s what we want for them. We want them to die. That’s what we realised, when we became Christians, that we wanted for ourselves - we wanted to die. That’s what Jesus demands of all his disciples.

Of course, what we’re saying to people is that you can either die now or die later. This is the choice we all face – a choice between two ways to die. Because that’s what God says sinful people deserve. Death. If you die now, you can rise again. You can come back to life as a new person. Not another person of course, still ourselves, but new. A completely renewed, reborn, resurrected, renovated person. But you must die first. If, however, you refuse to die now, then, when you die, you will never rise again. At least, not to eternal life.

All this is why the gospel is so intrinsically offensive. I mean, you can be as gentle as you like, but as long as that message comes through, it’s going to offend people, isn’t it? And you are liable to come off as a maniacal villain. In fact, there aren’t too many things you could say that would be more offensive, are there? And you can try and explain that it’s what’s best for them and that you’re trying to save them etc. but in the end, to the natural man, it will always be offensive.

That’s why accepting the message of the gospel is fundamentally a matter of humility. It’s a difficult pill to swallow because it’s a poison pill. Our friends, neighbours and colleagues don’t want to die, don’t think they deserve to die. Perhaps they need to make a few changes here and there but death is much too drastic a solution. Which is why, of course, we must depend on the Holy Spirit to drive this life-giving message into their dead hearts.

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¹ Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “The Cost of Discipleship”. 44. Italics Added.

Used-Car Salesman Evangelism

Just what is a used-car salesmen supposed to do when he gets stuck with a lemon? The poor man - you have to feel for him. The engine rattles, the tyres are worn out, the suspension’s shot, but somehow he still has to sell it.

So, of course, he focuses on the positives. He accentuates the attractive aspects of the car – the lights are in good working order, the paint’s a lovely colour etc. And he downplays the negatives. The things that won’t excite his clientele. He knows that many of his customers will make an emotional decision anyway – not a rational one. He simply has to turn on the charm, connect with them, and apply the right combination of humour and pressure to push through the sale.

In the short-term, it works. In the long-term, it has led to the stereotype about used-car salesmen that we all know - that they are insincere, dishonest and unreliable.

Unfortunately, some of our most popular evangelists seem to think that we should share the gospel like used-car salesmen. Apparently, the problem is that some important ‘gospel metaphors’ just don’t connect with our clientele anymore, “God as King, sin as rebellion, and salvation as submission” for example¹. There was (apparently) a time when these ideas resonated “on college campuses in the 1980’s”², but since then Australians have become much more resistant to authority figures. So, to be crass, presenting these aspects of our ‘product’ are just not going to persuade many of them to buy it anymore. Instead, we should focus on the more appealing metaphors like “peace with God... renewal and restoration of this world, especially by bringing Jesus’ love, mercy, justice, and beauty to this earth.”³

One problem with this approach (and there’s certainly more than one) is that ultimately it makes the gospel less believable. When we handle the gospel like a used-car salesman – carefully managing what we obscure or highlight to our listeners – we imply that our gospel is a lemon, and we undermine our own credibility as evangelists.

Instead, we ought to preach the gospel with boldness and enthusiasm - drawing people’s attention to any and every aspect of it. There is no aspect of the gospel we need be ashamed of (Romans 1:15-16), so there is no aspect of the gospel we should downplay. We must not give in to the used-car salesmen approach to evangelism. Even when our good news seems to be falling on deaf ears and veiled hearts, like Paul we must renounce “...disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:1-2).

Notice that Paul does not just state the truth, he states it openly. The whole point is that the way he operates is transparent. There’s no trickery or cunning; no bait and switch, no strings attached, no fine print. Everyone knows what Paul’s about, and how he operates from the very beginning. Paul doesn’t hold off telling his listeners about the foolish cross (1 Corinthians 1:17ff) or the ridiculous resurrection (Acts 17:32) in the name of so-called ‘contextualisation’. And everyone knows he’s trying to convert them (Acts 26:28-29). We don’t trust used-car salesman, because we don’t trust people who just tell us what we want to hear. Likewise, why would we trust evangelists who craft their message to “scratch” where their listeners “itch”?⁴ Instead, we want evangelists who speak clearly and honestly about every aspect of the gospel – starting with the most important aspects, no matter how popular or unpopular these features might be.

And the declaration that “Jesus is Lord”, if I can put it like this, is the engine of the gospel. It is not just another gospel metaphor or aspect – it is not the leather seats or the sunroof. It is actually, when you boil it down, what makes the gospel the gospel. The fact that Australians don’t like authority figures is precisely why they need to hear this gospel and God’s command to repent. If we communicate, either explicitly or by omission, that people can find peace, renewal, love, mercy etc. when they come to Jesus, without submitting to him as Lord, we have not communicated the gospel, and we have lied. We have told Adam that he can keep living in the garden without God. No. Let us be up front and honest about what we’re doing and commend ourselves to people’s consciences. If our listeners don’t understand the value of our gospel – let us explain it to them. The Lordship, Rule, Kingship, Authority, Supremacy of Jesus is good news of great joy for all people!

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¹ Sam Chan, Evangelism in a Skeptical World, 86.
² Ibid. 86.
³ Ibid. 99.
⁴ Ibid. 63. Cf. 2 Timothy 4:3.