ChuckLawless.com is a blog about Missions, Evangelism and Biblical Church Growth

George Barna has released “megathemes” of the American religious environment as discovered through his company’s research in 2010 (http://bit.ly/eBKWvG), summarized below in bold print. Any honest church leader in America would not be surprised by Barna’s findings. 

Alongside those themes, I have included some of Michael Green’s conclusions in his classic work, Evangelism in the Early Church.  A comparison of these viewpoints is enlightening. 

1. The Christian church is becoming less theologically literate. Basic Christian truths are increasingly foreign, even to believers.

Green: “Primitive evangelism . . . included able intellectual argument, skillful study of the Scriptures, careful, closely reasoned teaching and patient argument.  It was no doubt because of the careful teaching instruction they were giving that the authorities were worried about this new movement: ‘You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.’”

2. Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented. Believers are increasingly likely to be isolated from non-believers.

Green: “The little man . . . was the primary agent in mission. . . . This must often have been not formal preaching, but the informal chattering to friends and chance acquaintances, in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls. They went everywhere gossiping the gospel.”

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This past Sunday, I preached the book of Jonah, the story of a not-so-excited missionary and an incredibly compassionate God.  “The reluctant prophet,” we often call Jonah.  It seems to me, though, that “reluctant” may be too kind.  Simple reluctance doesn’t always result in intentional, unashamed, run-as-fast-as-you-can-in-the-other-direction disobedience.  Nothing within Jonah wanted God to offer mercy to the Ninevites, opponents of Israel well known for vicious treatment of their enemies.

So the prophet ran.  Down to Joppa, down into a boat headed to Tarshish. A great wind arose, and a fierce storm developed – so great that the boat was about to break up. There, in a picture almost hard to believe, the prophet slept soundly while a raging tempest sent by his God terrified everyone else on the ship.  Even the pagan captain was amazed: “How is that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god” (1:6).  The sailors would soon learn that the one sleeping in the bottom of the boat was the cause of their trouble. 

We can only wonder how a prophet called of God could sleep so deeply in his defiance. Perhaps Jonah was simply exhausted from his fleeing; if so, disobedience wore him out. Maybe he was so burdened and convicted over his wrong that his body just gave out.  Little in the rest of the book, though, suggests that was the case.  In fact, the story ends with a dejected prophet more concerned about a dead plant than about human beings.  Whatever the cause for his fatigue, Jonah slept soundly while the people of Nineveh were destined for eternal darkness.  

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Today is Thanksgiving, 2010.  Families are gathering. The feast awaits. Most of us will celebrate traditions throughout this day.  Relationships will be renewed, and memories will be relived. 

But on this Thanksgiving Day, I’m bothered. I probably should have been concerned in years past, but the discomfort is especially strong this year.  I could surmise as to why I’m bothered, but the bottom line is this: I take for granted so much of what I should be thankful for.

Today I give thanks for Randy, my seventh-grade classmate who shared the gospel with me in the early 1970s.  I had never heard the gospel to that point, though I grew up in the shadow of more than 150 evangelical churches within driving distance of my home. Randy loved me enough to be persistent but patient, compassionate yet clear, gospel-centered and grace-filled as he told me the story of Christ.

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