Getting away from a salesforce approach to evangelism

 For much of the last 15 or 20 years, people like John Drane (but not only him -even I have noted it on this very blog: here, here and, for example, here ) have been saying that in the mission of calling disciples to Christ, the western church has been suffering from a credibility gap at the level of spirituality: for many spiritual seekers, Christians don't seem spiritual enough -there's no mysical dimension apparent. It seems that the RC church has now decided that this is probably correct.

 If the Church does not offer instruction in the spiritual life, believers will not give up their desire for it. Often they will seek it in a non-Christian setting, looking to New Age teachers or Far Eastern religions.

In fact, that quote talks about believers, but I suspect that the thrust of what is being said is that it applies to seekers too. Part of the issue, of course, is that it is Christians ourselves who need to be sensed to have a 'mystical' inner life  in order that seekers might infer that at the heart of our faith is a real encounter with a transcendent other.



Part of the report is also about (re)connecting this dimension of mission with the monastic dimension of church life, noting that such communities are resources for mission in this field.

We hope, too, that
monasteries in the West may regain their historical status as cultural
centers, places of pilgrimage and spiritual direction. Eastern
Christians are well equipped to help the West recover its heritage in
this regard.

It does all point, also, to encouraging and enabling ordinary Christians to value and develop this dimension of faith. I fear that many Evangelical churches, by making a primary goal of evangelism, are actually ending up forming a sales force rather than well-rounded people who have an attractive spirituality which would draw seekers 'naturally'. I note that there is actually little exhortation to share faith in the NT -mostly it happens because Christians' spirituality evokes curiosity and admiration (and the flip side: discomfort and anger by those invested in counter-gospel ways of life).



The problem is that there is a cultural resistance to sales and marketting at a personal level and that the framing, in effect, of the gospel as a product is inimical to the real message. We need to be taking a more oblique path in mission: forming communities of generous and lively spirituality who will be a 'hermeneutic of the gospel' (I think that phrase is owed to Lesslie Newbiggin)

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