The problem is Unchurched Joe isn’t looking for a 5-minute Christian infomercial. His need is not for information about Christianity; he needs a demonstration of it. He knows about the scandals surrounding evangelical celebrities… He hears that evangelicals get divorced at about the same rate as the general population. He may be aware that in evangelical subculture people often wear a “Victory in Jesus” façade.

I’m waiting for somebody to write a book called “Why Johnny Can’t Evangelize.” I was raised in a non-religious household. My parents weren’t anti-God; he just wasn’t part of our conversation.

In high school I attended the local Baptist church where the pastor screamed at us; I was known to sleep through his sermons. The church kids were indistinguishable from other kids.

In college I lived in a fraternity house and got into alcohol. I remember us sitting around and saying nasty things about Christians. One day a Campus Crusade team approached me in the student union. They led me through the 4 Spiritual Laws and I prayed the prayer at the end. I tried giving them my address and phone number and said I’d go to church if they’d pick me up. They just said, “See ya in church,” and walked off; I made no attempt to find their church.

I “got saved” 3 years after college (I’m sure I’d be dead now if Jesus hadn’t found me). Shortly thereafter my church got involved in the Bill Bright “Here’s Life America” telephone program. The idea was to call people at their homes in the evening and go through this flowchart thing. Most people responded to me the way most people respond to telemarketing. I’m not aware that “Here’s Life America” was ever attempted again.

Years later, as a member of another church, we tried the D. James Kennedy Evangelism Explosion program. It involved going to the homes of people who had visited the church, asking them two questions about their beliefs, and when they failed to give the right answer, which was reciting Eph. 2:8,9, we were trained to go through the EE outline. I went through 3 semesters and 2 summer clinics, and never saw anybody get saved. I suspect we frightened off some prospective new church members. Visionaries like Bill Bright and D. James Kennedy, anointed as they were, seemed to forget that not all Christians are Bill Bright and D. James Kennedy. If they were, those pre-fabricated programs would be unnecessary anyway.

The problem is Unchurched Joe isn’t looking for a 5-minute Christian infomercial. His need is not for information about Christianity; he needs a demonstration of it. He knows about the scandals surrounding evangelical celebrities like Dinesh D’Souza and the televangelists. He hears that evangelicals get divorced at about the same rate as the general population. He may be aware that in evangelical subculture people often wear a “Victory in Jesus” facade, while people in bars and secular support groups can open up about the issues they face. The charge of hypocrisy is all too often true. His question isn’t, “What does Christianity say and is it true?” His question is, “What difference does it make?”

Could it be that we need to do a lot more in-reach before we are successful in out-reach? What if it were okay to open about the realities of our lives? We struggle with weight gain, we can’t quit smoking, our marriage is shaky, we have other obsessive/compulsive issues, junior has behavioral problems, etc.? Why haven’t arrived at total “Victory in Jesus” yet? At loving one other? At supporting one another? At rejecting the culture’s values? At trading our Lexus with the GPS for a second-hand Ford Focus in order to have more to give? At churches building less sumptuous buildings and to give more to charity and missions?

Last night after my 10-year-old kid’s swim team practice, I waited impatiently for him to get in the car so we could go home. When he finally got in, I expressed displeasure at having to wait. He said, “I was talking to my friend. He has problems. He’s being raised by his grandparents. I was telling him about the Lord.” “Oh,” I said sheepishly. And a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6).

A Franciscan Benediction

 Amen

From Prayer by Phillip Yancey (I got this from my friend, Dr. Perry Jansen, founder of Partners in Hope in Malawi.)

Larry Brown is a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a member of Central South Presbytery, and serves as Professor of church history, world history, hermeneutics and missions at the African Bible College in Lilongwe, Malawi.