Mission-Shaped Evangelism
Listening to God in the cultural context
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Double listening
Two ears one mouth
Use accordingly in mission
To the Mission Context
To the essence of the
Christian Inheritance
Failure to enter the other persons world
leaves us like the tourists who keep
speaking louder in their own language
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Post-modernity?
Modernity
to
Postmodernity
I tell my story
I choose my beliefs
I buy my identity
The logic of
consumerism
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Post-Christendom?
Church attendance 2005
100
finding faith today 1992
This section of
the population is
older and
decreasing over
time
90
percentage of population
76% of New
Christians Come
from 26% DeChurched
80
under 15
65% Non Churched
70
60
50
40
30
26% De Churched
20
10
9% monthly
monthly
0
0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Age in 2005
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Post-Christendom?
Not just about church attendance
– Grace Davie,
- Believing without belonging and vicarious faith
• But changing belief
• Fading of occasional office
• Decline in Christian identity
– Stages in the decline of Christendom not a new
way for it to persist
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Belief in God
100
90
80
life force
70
60
50
personal
God
40
30
20
10
0
1947
1981
1990
2000
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Infant Baptism C of E 2007
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
percentage of births by year
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Church Weddings 2007
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
percentage of marriages by year
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Christian Affiliation UK
100
percentage of population
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
date
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Christian Affiliation 2001
100
percentage of population
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Age in 2001
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Christian Affiliation
90
80
70
60
50
15-29
30-49
50 +
40
30
20
10
0
1981
1999
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Builders (born 20s+30s) in 2005
100
90
80
70
life force
60
50
40
personal
God
30
20
10
0
raised in
church
now
christian
raise
believe in
attend affiliation children
monthly +
to believe
in God
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Boomers (born 40s+50s) in 2005
100
90
80
70
life force
60
50
40
personal
God
30
20
10
0
raised in
church
now
christian
raise
believe in
attend affiliation children
monthly +
to believe
in God
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Gen-Xers (born 60s+70s) in 2005
100
90
80
70
life force
60
50
40
personal
God
30
20
10
0
raised in
church
now
christian
raise
believe in
attend affiliation children
monthly +
to believe
in God
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Gen-Yers (born 80s+90s) in 2015?
100
90
80
70
life force
60
50
40
personal
God
30
20
10
0
raised in
church
now
christian
raise
believe in
attend affiliation children
monthly +
to believe
in God
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Post- Secularism?
• Post-modernity - multi-faith in a post-secular age
– Post-modern move from truth as fact to truth as
experience - From universal truth to true for me may be
different to true for you.
– Rejection of objectivity for subjectivity
– Personal belief re-enters the public square
– Any and every belief …. All are equally unprovable
– All of this much to the annoyance of Richard
Dawkins…….
and Christians?
– Religion once more on the agenda but any religion with
no way back to Christendom …..indeed is Christianity
disadvantaged compared to the alternatives?
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
‘Spiritual’ experience in 2000 Vs 1987
1987 48% report a spiritual experience - 2000 risen to 76%
55% saw a patterning of events – up 90%
38% felt God’s presence – up 41%
37% had answered prayer – up 48%
29% felt sacred in nature – up 81%
25% the presence of the dead – up 39%
25% the presence of evil – up 108%
But what are they experiencing?
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
The ‘excluded middle’
• Paul Heibert
– Many traditional religions have a sacred
dimension about the Gods and secular dimension
to do with the non-spiritual but also a middle
ground of the superstitious and everyday
spiritual. He saw this as missing from Christianity,
– This area very much addressed by new
spiritualities
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Believe in an afterlife
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Believe in restless spirits
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Believe in Karma
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Experience of fortune telling, Tarot,
astrology, psychics, palmists
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Australian Gen Y – like Britain?
Non
believing
14%
Includes neo
pagans and
followers or
frequent
participants in the
esoteric/occult
Rationalist
humanist
Moral relativism, pick
‘n’ mix, truth in all
religions but not just
one, something ‘out
there’ occult and
paranormal
experienced
Floating 46 %
‘new spiritual’ 23%
Religious 17%
BUT open rather
than committed or
seeing as important
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Japan
Britain
100
90
80
70
annual
60
50
festivals
40
30
monthly
20
10
0
religious
attendance
reigious
affilitaion
belief in
God
religious
attendance
religious
affiliation
belief in
God
percentage population 2000
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Consumer Christianity?
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Consumer Christianity?
• God the cosmic therapist?
• Cruise liner – or Battleship?
John Wimber
• Church shopping?
– Looking for what I get out of it
– Looking for the one that does things my way
• Buying religious product?
–
–
–
–
Baptisms & weddings
Rosaries
Retreats
Christmas Carols
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Mission-Shaped Evangelism
Listening to God in the Christian tradition
Steve
Hollinghurst
Steve
HollinghurstNov
Oct 10
10
Jesus, mission and other faiths
• The Vision of the kingdom of God (cf Luke 5-8)
– Radical values of inclusion leading to transformation and
reversals of status – the sinful, the unclean, women, the
non-Jew ( in spite of Jesus claim to only be sent to the ‘lost
sheep of Israel’)
– The use of parables
• Making disciples who will make disciples
– The parable of the sower (Luke 8) followed by sending of
The 12 (Luke 9) and 72 (Luke 10) as Jesus has been sent
(John 17) (apostolic church). To make disciples in all
cultures (Matt 28)
• Weakness and vulnerability the marks of the
missionary
– Sent to be the guests of those they are to witness amongst
– Becoming as servants and children (Mark 9)
– The small things leading to great change – mustard seed
and yeast in dough
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Crossing culture - The Early Church
• In Jerusalem
– The Pentecost Sermon to Jews Acts 2
– The Jerusalem church Acts 4
– The Hellenists – fresh insight & Persecution
• In Judea and Samaria
– The dispersal of the Hellenists
– Philip – the Samaritans & Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8
• To the ends of the earth
– Peter and Cornelius Acts 10
– The Church in Antioch Acts 11
– The Gentile mission from Antioch
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Paul does ‘double-listening’
• Acts 14 – Lystra
– After healing a crippled man the crowd think Paul and
Barnabas are Hermes and Zeus.
– Paul reasons from nature not scripture to explain his
faith….and struggles to communicate
• Acts 17 – Athens
– Paul goes round the temples learning about Greek belief
– we see the results in his address to the Areopagus.
– He debates with the philosophers in the market
place….and struggles to communicate – they call him a
‘spermalgos’ – someone who doesn’t know what they are
talking about!
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Paul’s two sermons
Jews …….and…….Greeks?
• Jesus is the expected
messiah who will fulfil the
prophets and law
• He was killed as a sacrifice
but rose
• He has been appointed
judge and we must now
change the directions of our
lives
• We are all searchers after
God
• The God of the universe
doesn’t live in temples
• That God has set a day to
judge the nations so we
must now change the
directions of our lives
• The judge will be Jesus who
was raised from the dead
Mission in Christendom is like Jewish Mission
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Paul and Paganism
• Following the Jewish legacy
– God can be found in Pagan religion but is revealed to be
more than those religions show and not all of it is to be
accepted.
• This can be used to aid mission
– eg Lystra, Athens Ephesus
• The issue of food sacrificed to idols (I Cor 10)
– ‘Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of
God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do,
not seeking my own advantage, but that of many so that
they may be saved.’ (vs 32-33)
• The Roman approach to religion must be avoided
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Incarnational mission – Phil 2
Jesus as part
of Trinity
Takes on the form of
those to whom he is sent
All must kneel
before him
God exalts him
How might this passage influence our thinking on mission?
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Incarnational mission – Phil 2
• We take off our current form and put on that
of those we seek to reach and affirm their
culture
• We die to ourselves in incarnation in order to
be obedient to God
• God will use this to exalt Jesus
• All must come to accept Jesus as Lord and
this will involve challenging culture as people
become like Christ.
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
The limits to incarnation
1 Cor 9:19-24
– Though free I have become a slave in order to
win people (Philippians model)
– As a Jew to Jews, as a Greek to Greeks
– All things to all people so by all means I might
save some. For the sake of the gospel…
• But
– As an African to the Africans…as a Goth to
Goths…as criminal to criminals…as a prostitute
to prostitutes?
• Jesus like us in every way but without sin
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Mission: shift to Christendom
• Early Church incarnate in local culture
–
–
–
–
–
Greek Church - Paul uses poetry to Zeus
Roman Church - Jesus as Orpheus
Coptic Church - the image of Isis becomes Mary
Celtic Church - Jesus the Druid (Columba)
Germanic Church - the Heliand
• Christendom one faith one empire
–
–
–
–
The Saxon Church and the war band
Synod of Whitby - the date of Easter; monks hair
Mission ends within empire,
becomes conquest beyond it
• Modernity evangelism recovered in Christendom
– Individuals called to belief in a Christian country
– Aimed at intellectual conviction and crisis conversion
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Mission-Shaped Evangelism
In the twenty first century
Steve
Hollinghurst
Steve
HollinghurstNov
Oct 10
10
A new Reformation?
Eternal Gospel
400 BC
Judaism
Early
Church
600 AD
1500 AD
2000 AD
Christendom Reformation
?
Changing expression – David Bosch ‘Transforming Mission’
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Mission in Christendom
• Mission (abroad)
– Cultural export Vs Inhabiting
local culture
• Evangelism (at home)
– Calling people back to ‘the
national faith’
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Learning from foreign mission
• “Do not call people back to where they were
(they never were there)
• Do not call people to where you are, as
beautiful as it may seem to you
• But travel with them to a place neither of you
have been before”
Vincent Donovan – ‘Christianity re-discovered’
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Changing Mission?
• From: sharing the
Gospel in “come to us”
mode
• To: Exploring Church in
“go to them” mode
Church Missions
Courses
To boldly go where no
church has gone before
‘Seeker’ Services
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
From individuals to all creation
Restoring the whole story of salvation
creation
sin
salvation
Individuals saved
New
creation
All creation saved
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
God’s Mission & God’s Kingdom
• The transformation of people linked to the
transformation of creation – Romans 8, 2 Cor 5
– Reconciliation as a reversal of the fall
– Humanity restored to God’s image as missionary to
creation
• Social transformation linked to evangelism
– Any Gospel that does not proclaim and seek to bring
about God’s Kingdom fails to understand Jesus and God’s
mission
– Any Gospel that does not set people free from sin will
never achieve social transformation
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Three levels of mission community
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or..
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or…….Centred Set?
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Who are on the way?
Bounded set ? Or…….Centred Set?
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
A new apologetics?
• Hearing – relating to what is going on in people’s lives not
assuming a pattern
• Holistic – not just brains but people drawn to God
• Hopeful – assume God is at work in others, ‘see what God is
doing and join in’
• Humble – we have a lot to learn too from God and others,
including those of other faiths and no-faith
• Hidden – the parable tradition – people ignore the obvious
answer but explore the open ended.
• Heavenward – focus on where we are going and invite
people on the journey
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Lessons for sharing faith
• People increasingly come to faith through experience rather
than changing thinking
• People want to grow spiritually and will take support in this
seriously
• Sharing faith is welcomed. Telling others what they share is
wrong simply closes the conversation
• People aren’t interested if Christianity is true but if it is
inspiring and life changing
• with the internet everything is public be consistent
• We need to know how we will handle issues of gender, the
environment, evil, other-faiths
• Avoid Christian language like sin, salvation, redemption etc
people don’t understand it or misunderstand it – but we still
need to talk about them but with different words
• We need to live as if what we say really does work
• Remember God transforms people not Christians
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Resources
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10
Evangelism is…..
• Not getting people to Church ………………..….……..
but getting people to be Church
• Not taking God to people …………………………………
but seeing what he is already doing in their lives
• Not first about getting people into heaven ……………
but getting heaven into people
• Not saving people from the world ..…………………..
but allowing God to transform them
as part of a plan to transform the world also
Your Kingdom come your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven
Steve Hollinghurst Nov 10