Evangelism in the early Church

Here are a few sentences from a great book I’ve been reading (“Evangelism in the early church” by Michael Green). In them he’s observing what it was about the church in the early church that led to the explosion of the Gospel. It’s a really exciting picture of what the church can be!

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One of the most striking features in evangelism in the early church was the people who engaged in it… Evangelism was the prerogative and duty of every church member… The spontaneous outreach of the total Christian community gave immense impetus to the movement from the very outset.

What is more, this infectious enthusiasm on the part of such diverse people of differing ages, backgrounds, sex and cultures was backed up by the quality of their lives. Their love, their joy, their changed habits and progressively transformed characters gave great weight to what they had to say… Paganism saw in early Christianity a quality of living, and supremely of dying, which could not be found elsewhere.

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Together with this enthusiasm on the part of the ordinary members of the church as well as its ordained ministers to share the good tidings with those who had never heard them, went a deep sense of the seriousness of the issues involved. They really believed that those without Christ might suffer eternal and irreparable loss, and this thought drove them to unremitting labours to reach them with the gospel. (p.380-382).

Should the meeting or the community take priority at the outset? (Part 3 – Understanding “the culture gap”)

This post is one of a number I'm doing for Radstock Minstries blog which can be found here.

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I’ve asked the question whether establishing a church meeting is always the best strategy for building church community, or whether there are contexts where other approaches are more appropriate.

To make the point I’ve suggested two “extremes” of church planting strategies: A meeting-led plant (whose immediate focus is to establish a public meeting) and a community-led plant (whose immediate focus is to build relationships with the local community).

The two extremes are somewhat artificial - for a church plant in practice, these twin foci will always be present to a greater or lesser extent. (A Christian community seeking to be a local church will inevitably meet. Meetings will create community). But the early days of a church plant are hard - time and other resources are short - so I think it’s worth asking the question: Where should a particular church plant sit between these two extremes?

Here are some brief thoughts as to when each might be more appropriate. For me, the defining question is: how wide is the cultural gap between the planting team and each of (i) the local churched culture, and (ii) the local unchurched culture.

a) Where the context favours a community-led plant

The cultural gap is significant. The watching world is largely unchurched and it will take time to address their misunderstandings and stereotypes through the sharing of lives (1 Thess 2v8-9). Public church meetings are not initially a fruitful pathway into church community. Time is required to contextualise the communication of the gospel and the church’s practices, which will then shape the public meetings when they are established.

b) Where the context favours a meeting-led plant

The cultural gap to either the local churched or unchurched cultures is not great. Church is an appropriate pathway for some in the wider community, allowing the church plant to expand quickly (initially through isolated Christians joining the church or through some transfer).

Where the wider cultural gap is significant, the church will need to listen to the local joiners and be critiqued by them. The perennial question will be: “What differences are gospel and what are not?”. (The challenge is not to conform local people to the likeness of the church planters, but that both groups would be conformed to the likeness of Christ!).

Where the cultural gap between the planted community and the wider community is not great, it may be appropriate to duplicate many of the practices of the planting church. I would suggest these practices need to be held with an open hand, and intentionally reviewed to overcome cultural inertia.

(Aside: The benefits of “rent-a-crowd”

There may be contexts where a public church meeting is appropriate, but where the size of the planting team makes such a meeting practically difficult or simply odd. (e.g. if the pastor is preaching to his wife and two others, the atmosphere is somewhat intense/intimate for anyone joining off the street and expecting a “service”!).

We faced this difficulty on a central London social housing development. The issue was addressed through the support of the network of churches of which we are a part. Our sending congregation encouraged it’s members to attend our public meeting (which ran at a different time) and to support aspects of it’s practical running. These volunteers were essentially “rent-a-crowd”. The meeting became less intense (because it was 12-15 people not 3!) and local people joining experienced something more like “church” as they were used to it. The outside support meant the church planters who had moved to the area were freed up (from practical aspects) to chat to visitors and build relationships.

The “rent-a-crowd” joined on the understanding that they remained committed to another congregation as “their church” (i.e. barriers to commitment were much lower than the core planting team). As the church grew, they were able to reduce their time commitment. After three years, some of the original “crowd” have made the plant “their church”, the majority no longer join us on a Sunday. We are however massively thankful to God for all they did to help us establish a public meeting early on which proved to be a suitable pathway into Christian community for many in the local area).

Should the “church meeting” or the “church community” take priority at the outset? (Part 2 – A “community led” model)

This post is part of a number I'm doing for the Radstock Ministries blog, which can be found here.

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COMMUNITY-LED CHURCH PLANTS:

Under this approach, the church planting team focus on community formation through strengthening relationships within the team, and building new connections with the community they seek to reach. Their concern is to commend the depth and quality of Christian relationships to the watching world, and to listen to the new culture before establishing a public meeting (if ever).

Again, this approach has a number of immediate positives:

• Creates a strong & immediate emphasis on relationship building: The church plant is established with a culture that is all about mission through relationship building (as opposed to a “hold a meeting and they will come” approach). The business of mission is more likely to be understood as a deliberate pattern of life rather than a something limited to times in the week.
• Energies are devoted to relationships which then act as a pathway into Christian community. In the early days (when resources are limited) energies can be given over to spending time with other Christians (e.g. house church, team bible study and prayer,…).
• Builds a strong awareness of local culture before committing to forms/styles of public meeting and teaching. Delaying setting up a meeting, delays the first impression until it can be more tailored to the context.

However, this approach also has potential limitations:

• Delays creating a potentially important pathway into Christian community: In many (sub)cultures, a church meeting remains an normal/acceptable thing to do, and an easy way, low commitment way to “check out” a new church plant. Likewise, it delays “flushing out” Christians in the community the planters seek to reach.
• The danger of intensity: A small group of people who know each other well, and share important common features (e.g. a lifestyle shaped by the gospel, middle class accents, everyone in work…) can be intimidating for newcomers. A public meeting provides a degree of distance and freedom to opt in or opt out. A private gathering does not.

These portraits of meeting-led and community-led plants are simplistic (even caricatured) to emphasise the contrasts. They do I hope serve to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of the two extremes.

The question then is: How do you establish a right balance in a particular context?