Tossing Aside The Tract

by Grant English

We were at a student conference getting “trained” on how to witness to
people. I sat and listened with my youth group. There were more than 600
students in the room. The guy up front was walking through a pamphlet I’d
read at least a thousand times.

“Do you know that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?”
I hated that question. It sounded eerily familiar to a former friend of mine
who tried to sell me Amway.

My students were bored. I looked down the row and three of my small
group leaders were nodding off. One of my adult volunteers nudged me
while pointing at the slumbering trio.

“Should we wake them up?” she asked with a smirk. “They’re student
leaders, you know…set an example?” Sarcasm can be a wonderful thing.
After the training ended, we got our packets and headed to the bus to
save the world. The only problem was that we weren’t going to “the world.”
We were going to Pearl Street—where hippies, pseudo-intellectuals,
druggies, homeless, college students, and liberals hang out in Boulder,
Colorado.

I gathered my students around in an alley, took the pamphlet in my hand
and said, “I’m going to give you the best advice for reaching people in
Boulder.”

Then I threw the pamphlet over my shoulder.

Amid the laughter and high-fives, I then realized I had about two minutes
to communicate what had been brewing in my heart and mind for years—it
was a collision of culture and theology.

Cultural Collisions

Most of our evangelism methods are filled with assumptions about our
culture that are no longer true.

Further exacerbating the problem is the manner in which these dated
assumptions are trotted out. Often we’re either surprised or offended or both
when someone doesn’t agree with us—and therefore a central concept to the
Christian faith such as “God is love” is undermined by the very way we
present God’s story.

In other words, God loves you, and so do I! Now shut up so I can shove
this piece of literature down your throat.

Of course unpacking all of these concepts takes time. More time than it
takes to walk through a well-meaning tract. It takes relational time. Time for
those to whom we’re relating to ask questions such as, “Is this person legit?
Is he telling me the truth? Can we talk about this without getting
combative?”

Plus, our culture is no longer simply asking, “Is it true?” It’s also asking,
“Does it work?” In other words, “What does following Jesus look like in the
real world? Can God forgive what I’ve done? Can God really heal these
hurts? What has this relationship with Jesus done for you?”

Can any of those questions be answered sufficiently through the kind of
hit-and-run evangelism we’ve so often touted as “the” way for students to
share their faith?

Theological Collisions

I figured that studying Scripture would make Jesus easier to follow, easier to
accept, and easier to explain. I seriously thought the more I knew about
Jesus, the better I’d be able to explain the unexplainable and live the
ultimate Christian life. I figured there’s no way my life wouldn’t get better
and clearer.

I wish I knew who was responsible for filling my head with those
assumptions—I’d have a few choice words for that individual.

Disturbing Reality #1

Jesus’ conversations with people in the Bible were disturbing. He talked in
code with Nicodemus. He argued with the religious elites. He comforted the
woman caught in adultery. He confronted personal issues with the rich
young ruler and woman at the well. He told stories to the fishing
communities and laborers and seekers.

In short, Jesus used no “method” when he evangelized. Rather,
everywhere he went, he simply engaged people relationally—and on their
level, with language they could understand. He never started out with set
line or a memorized pitch. If they needed healing, Jesus healed them. If
they needed a listening ear, he listened. If they needed some strong rebuke
or encouragement, he gave that, too.

Disturbing Reality #2

Grace trumps everything. To those who thought they had it all together,
Jesus pointed out that they didn’t—not to hurt them, but to show them that
they, too, needed grace. And to those who “knew” they were beyond
redemption, Jesus showed them otherwise. Whenever Jesus engaged
people, he led them from where they were to his grace.

Disturbing Reality #3

Jesus wasn’t in a hurry. He didn’t press people for commitments of faith. In
fact, he was really comfortable letting them walk away. (Can you imagine
that encouraged at an evangelism conference?) The terms Jesus used to
invite people to “believe in him”—e.g., “follow me,” “pick up your cross,”
“walk with me,” “put my yoke on,”—all pointed to the idea of a process or
journey. Even in the Great Commission the command was to “make
disciples”—i.e., learners and apprentices—not super-Christians-one-rungfrom-
perfection.

I believe part of the reason Jesus wasn’t in a hurry was because he knew
that people didn’t need another system or method or “secret” to live life
well. He knew they needed him.

In spite of all the academic, theological, and political questions and
problems people faced, Jesus knew they needed more than answers to those
questions.

Just him.

Needed him for the moment…and for eternity.

Disturbing Reality #4

Lastly, for those who chose to follow Jesus, life often got harder, not easier.
Does Jesus redeem our messes? Yes. Does he heal? Absolutely. But none of
those processes are necessarily pleasant or even easy. (To be fair, those
who’ve gone through redemption and healing are typically happy when they
come out the other side in better shape—but you’ve got to wonder if they
had that same perspective in the middle of the process!)

Too Much Energy, Risk, and Time?

I’d spent a majority of my life training students to be sound-byte believers.
Who knew how to deliver cherry-picked goodies from God’s massive story
and sell Jesus like Amway.

Why?

Partly because that was how I was trained. But mainly because to do the
hard, relational work took too much time and too much energy, was way too
risky, and didn’t produce results fast enough.

Along the way our culture changed (doesn’t it always?). And not only
have the ground rules changed, but non-Christians have been seeing
through our self-serving style of evangelism for years. They crave real,
honest answers to their hurt and loneliness, but we’re too often content to
sell them a plastic Jesus—a tin god that could never deal with any of that.
Non-Christians need the real Jesus—the one who’s more beautiful, more
difficult, and more complicated than even his followers can hope to know
this side of heaven. They need the Jesus who can deal with all their pain and
hurt and loneliness—and indeed the Jesus who will probably make their lives
harder and more complicated, not easier or pain free.

Meanwhile, Back on Pearl Street…

I would unpack all of this later with my students. We’d learn how to listen to
others. We’d learn how to be great friends with people who didn’t know
Jesus—making sure our only agenda is loving them. We’d learn how to
communicate our story of what Jesus is doing in our lives—not just
communicate what Jesus did in the Bible.

But what could I tell them in this moment that would help jumpstart that
realization in their hearts, souls, and minds? What could I tell them after
playfully tossing aside the cookie-cutter tract—which was also a handy
safety net—that they could use as we turned them loose in one of the most
hostile places in America to the gospel? Was there anything useful I could
utter?

Then I did.

Your mission today is NOT to witness to anybody. Your mission is to make
as many friends as you can. Listen to their spiritual journeys, their stories.
Find out what God’s doing with them, where God’s already working in their
lives. Just listen. Listen to the Spirit as well. If given a chance, tell what
Jesus is doing with you right now, too. But first just listen to them, love on
them a bit, and see what happens.

Then I unleashed them.

And I’ve never regretted it.