Communicating the good news of Jesus in the West in 2020 is challenging. Christianity is often portrayed as irrelevant, out-of-touch, even unjust and toxic. And like it or not, that’s got to shape how we communicate the Christian faith.

In light of this, I’ve been exploring some different imagery for ‘connecting and confronting’ with the good news of Jesus in our cultural moment. In part, it flows from the ‘rubber hitting the road’ in everyday conversations. In part, it flows from working on a Mission & Apologetics module I teach locally.

You could think of these as like five different tools on a Swiss army knife – five approaches for beginning to help people consider the relevance and goodness of the gospel and the Christian worldview. They’re certainly not everything, but they’re perhaps useful ‘ways in’ as we consider our gospel communication in 2020 and beyond…

1. Putting a Stone in the Shoe

At the time, there’s nothing worse than a stone in the shoe! Yes, you can try to keep on walking, probably because you can’t be bothered to stop, but it’s not going to be comfortable if you do. Ultimately, you have to do something about it.

As evangelists we want to provoke in such a way that people can’t carry on the same as a result. I’m pretty sure I got this phrase from Dan Strange – and I’ve found it very helpful to consider – particularly in settings where we’re more limited in what the context might deem to be appropriate. For example, if you’re writing a newspaper column or giving a segment on the local radio, where anything too overt is going beyond your invitation. So it’s helpful to think: what one thought can I leave people with that will surprise – and cause an eyebrow to be raised?

I say this because often when we’re sharing the gospel we can feel a great pressure to say ‘everything’. And yet how often in the book of Acts do we hear of people demanding to hear more from the apostles? Let’s speak words of truth and grace that awaken a hunger in people, as when you begin to smell the satisfying wafts of a hearty feast and can’t wait to tuck in! Or to put it another way, put a stone in someone’s shoe!

2. Opening the Curtains 

There’s so many unhelpful stereotypes out there about Christianity, which means we need to help people to see what the Christian life is actually like. What difference does it make to believe in Jesus? When the pressure is on. When life is hard. In a sense, this is answering the question, ‘why would I bother becoming a Christian?’

As such, I find it useful to think of part of the evangelist’s job as ‘opening the curtains’ onto the Christian life. We need to show it’s about more than going to church and believing certain propositions. It’s not quiche, cold tea and mumbling to a few dirges. This is a whole new life, a whole new way of thinking, feeling, living. It’s faith, hope and love. It’s ‘Christ in me, the hope of glory’. Open the curtains, let the sunshine in and show people the new reality.

But in doing this, make sure it’s connected into real life. Not a pious unrelatable vision of life, but rather completely earthed in the nitty-gritty. A case-study, personal quote or testimony may help to do this.

3. Draining the Bath

Sometimes when I’m giving my kids a bath, there’s that horror moment when I’ve drained the water and you see all the muck that’s left at the bottom.

Tom Holland’s latest book, Dominion, has powerfully shown the way in which the culture of the West is indebted to the Christian gospel. We wouldn’t be where we are – whether it’s art, law, human rights, etc – if it wasn’t for Christianity. So let’s not be ashamed of that.

Draining the bath means showing people how empty life without God is. When we strip everything back, what are our values built on? For example, one of the big themes throughout lockdown has been that of hope. But where can hope be found? And what about dignity or peace? Or satisfaction and forgiveness? Often our experiences show us that the places we look for these things leave us disappointed. And yet it’s amazing how short-term our memories are. The evangelist can join the dots – and therefore drain the bath of a life without God.

4. Tracing the Sunbeam

Augustine is famous for saying that part of the nature of sin is to worship God’s gifts rather than the divine Giver. We take the good things that God has made and we treat them as ‘god things’, idols, ignoring the One who made them.

The language of idolatry is a powerful diagnostic tool to help people see the ways in which we’re all worshippers. But it’s also helpful to then trace the ‘goodness’ of those good things back to the Giver himself. Every sunbeam that bursts into our lives and brings truth, beauty and goodness, comes from a God who is True, Beautiful and Good.

And so, rather than simply expose the ugly folly of idolatry, we can also acknowledge that our desire to value these things comes in part from a recognition that they have goodness in them. But rather than treat those good things as ends in themselves, as if they would truly satisfy, we’re to help people trace the sunbeam back to the Sun, to their Triune Creator, the One who alone is worthy of all worship.

5. Capturing the Longing

Whether it’s the longing for justice or for relationship or for something beyond death, I believe part of being made in the image of God means we all have in-built longings. This is innate to being human. These desires reflect the divine purposes for which we were made.

We’re not just molecules, bones and blood, on some evolutionary journey – and I think people deep-down both recognise this – and want to hear this. Longings aren’t simply a way of ensuring the survival of the fittest. Does that really fit with what we feel so deeply? For example, why do we care so much about injustice, when it rarely benefits ourselves?

And so as an evangelist, surely part of our calling is to articulate those longings, so that people can identify that within themselves – and show how the Christian gospel makes sense of them and fulfils them. It’s almost like we’re holding a mirror up, and saying, ‘You know those feelings you have – that deep desire for something more… well, here’s why’.

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I’ve found these helpful to keep in the back of my mind in various contexts and situations. Do you have similar ‘tools’ you pull out when seeking to ‘take every thought captive’ for Christ?

Do you know this Book?

Most Sundays I get the privilege of preaching its Treasure, the God who is Father, Son and Spirit, revealed in the gospel.
Through the week I’m helping others listen to its Author speaking as part of Grace Church Barrow.
And personally, I daily need the light and life it brings. It’s food for my soul.

I had the opportunity this week to hear a presentation from Osoba Otaigbe of Bible Society about their Lumino Research Project on attitudes to the Bible. I’d heard the research referenced in passing, but this was the first time I’d looked at it in detail.

If you’ve not come across it, the research is based on YouGov polling, commissioned by Bible Society, which saw 20,000 people interviewed at the end of 2018 about their attitudes to Christianity and the Bible.

This data has then been analysed and the population has been accordingly mapped into 8 ‘personas’, from ‘Bible Loving’ people to ‘Bible Dismissive’ people, but crucially with a whole range in between (Bible Nostalgic, Bible Uncertain, Bible Conflicted, Bible Indifferent and Bible Infrequent).

It’s Bible Society’s belief that around a quarter of the population are ‘open to the Bible and finding out more’ – and the research seeks to draw out these attitudes that we might better engage with these personas as churches.

One of the neat features of the Lumino website is you can enter your post-code and see how your local data compares with the national average (I don’t know how accurate this can be with 20,000 people polled, but it’s interesting nonetheless). Interestingly, Bible Society have undergone a deliberate change in emphasis in their mission, which is to now be a partner with UK churches in mission – and this is key example of this.

Having looked at brief sketches of the data, here are 5 initial reflections:

1. Many professing Christians have a confidence problem when it comes to the Bible – which means asking some hard questions. According to the data, uncertainty and a lack of confidence about the Bible amongst professing Christians is very common. The slice of people that the Bible Society deemed to be ‘Bible Loving’ was slim (5%). They attended church very regularly and were generally older than average. In contrast, those who were ‘Bible Infrequent’ (8%) still attended church quite regularly but tended to feel they weren’t sure about the Bible or worried about ‘being wrong’. There were then various groupings that identified as ‘Christian’ but had an increasingly removed relationship with the Bible. For those of us who are church leaders, we need to ask some real questions about how we’re growing confidence in the Bible. Are we facilitating personal engagement with the Bible outside of church services/meetings? Are we leading services and preaching in a way that helps people to read the Bible for themselves? Sadly, this is particularly for pointed for those of us in the Church of England. Bible Infrequent people tended to be Anglicans. Ultimately, closed Bibles on a Sunday at church will surely lead to closed Bibles Monday-Saturday at home.
2. We face some real challenges in our cultural moment. Nearly half of the people surveyed (47.5%) said they were ‘not at all interested’ in discovering more about the Bible. Nearly another quarter (23.4%) said they were ‘not very interested’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, reasons given included being ‘not religious’, previous experience of Christians/church, and time capacity. That leads us onto…
3. There is a clear need for Bible apologetics. The most common words that people associated with the Bible were Outdated and Contradictory. Other negative though less popular words were Judgmental, Homophobic and Anti-women. How do we respond to these preconceptions? Of course, our lives as Christians should hopefully do a great deal to challenge these, but it strikes me that we do need to tackle these ‘head on’. In our preaching we need to name them and show we understand and identify with them. Rebecca McLaughlin’s excellent book, Confronting Christianity, is a stunning example of this. All that said, 37% of people stated they believed the Bible wouldn’t be relevant to them – which strikes me as an opportunity to prove people wrong!
4. Bible Delight has to be at the Heart of the ‘Answer’. I think there’s a strong sense that these perceptions and beliefs about the Bible are only going to be transformed as people ‘taste and see’ for themselves that the Bible is life-giving and life-changing, ultimately because we encounter God through it. If that’s not a church-goer’s weekly experience, then why would they look for that in their day-to-day experience? And why would they expect to see anything different in their unbelieving friends? Preaching and opening up the Scriptures with people isn’t absolutely everything that a church leader is called to do, but it is absolutely essential. Are we working on our preaching? Are we seeking feedback? Are we giving it the time it deserves?
5. Moving from Familiar Stories to Finding Our Place in The Story. I’ve written about this before, and I think it’s fair to say I’m passionate about it. Biblical illiteracy is not going to simply be solved by ‘more Bible’. I think the real challenge of biblical illiteracy is moving beyond familiarity with Bible stories to introducing people to the Bible’s big story. It’s always dangerous to make sweeping statements about preaching, but I think bad preaching can make matters worse, failing to help people read the Bible well. We rip verses out of context and don’t help people locate themselves within the vast story of Scripture. And the goal of good preaching isn’t just so that people know how Genesis to Revelation all fits together. We’re doing it because this story of God is the very thing our fractured world needs right now. As an article in the Irish Times put it a few years back, our crisis of identify shows we’re desperate for a ‘meaningful narrative about who we are’. In other words, as we feel the disorientation of a growing cultural unfamiliarity with the Bible, our response shouldn’t be to champion the Scriptures for the sake of Bible trivia, but rather because we want people to see  in this book we have the only story of reality that can bear the weight of our personal struggles for meaning and substance.

Come across the Lumino data? What d’ya think?