Sunday, November 04, 2007

• And now, with every eye closed and all heads bowed

  This past Saturday, a young Christian AsiAm artist invited me to attend the opening of his short evangelistic film in J-Town.  I especially felt obliged to go because three years ago, he'd come to see me, wanting my thoughts about his dream of making short films with Christian messages.  This was his second film; I missed the first last year.  With the full support of his church and his denomination's network of SoCal churches, he raised enough money to write and produce an evangelistic film set in 16th century feudal Japan.  I'm still in awe of his ability to pull off an evangelistic period piece with Japanese/English subtitles! 

  But I had a secondary reason for attending the film's premier.  My young friend had also invited me to consider having our church make next year's evangelistic film and for me to be the closing evangelist.  Last year, they brought in a former intern and friend of mine to fill that role but I never heard how he fared.  This year, they brought in a locally-well-known non-AsiAm pastor from a large church.  Given the fact that I had been asked to fill that role next year, I listened perhaps a different filter than the rest of the 500-plus people there.  Several things soon became obvious to me: a) he had the gift of evangelism, b) he'd done this "closing evangelist" thing many times before, c) he'd preached this basic evangelistic message many times before, and d) I am not going to accept this invitation to do it next year.

  I haven't had a chance to relay my response to my young adult friend, but I've been mulling over my reasons in anticipation of that conversation.  Frankly, I initially feel sort of "weird" about my reasons, but if nothing else, I'm convinced that they are valid for me.  Let me practice laying them out for you so I can make myself clear to him whenever we get around to talking:

  • While some who know me quickly characterize me as an 'evangelist' I am extremely uncomfortable with that label in its typical usage.  Given where I find myself these days, I am not eager to confront unconvinced sinners with the claims of the gospel as the preacher did last night.  Is it because I don't believe "people need the Lord" (one of the most maudlin songs EVER!)?  Not at all.  It's just that I feel much stronger about evangelizing the too-comfortable-Christians!  I had my eyes closed (as instructed) so I couldn't actually see how many in the crowd raised their hands at the end to confess their faith in Christ, but it sounded like about ten responded.  That's great, of course.  But I couldn't help thinking that if I was on that theater's stage next year, I'd be calling the 400-plus Christians to repent of their apathy towards poverty and injustice, their capitulation to racism and other forms of dehumanizaiton, their pride in their doctrinal correctness and their exclusion of the obviously broken and battered.  If I ever am a part of doing an "evangelistic movie" it would be more confessional in nature, asking forgiveness of the unconvinced for our spiritual conceit and our lack of compassion. 
  • The evangelist last night laid out the "God-shaped hole" (evangelists use so many cliches--sigh) that only Jesus can fill and it sounded like (my eyes were closed, remember?) a number of people were moved to invite Jesus to fill that emptiness in their souls.  But I couldn't help thinking "Okay, Jesus has forgiven my sins.  Is that it?"  Typically, that is it.  If it were me, I couldn't help but go on to explain that Jesus now wanted to be Lord of every part of the rest of their lives.  He didn't just forgive their sin of, say, being a closeted racist; Jesus now wanted them to start cleaning up their racist thought-patterns, their racist jokes and vocab, and to propel them into reconciled relationships with people they dislike or fear.  If it were me, I'd also tell them that Jesus has designed a redemptive community where all of us forgiven sinners can learn together how to live more like obvious apprentices of Jesus.  Yes, the local church.  To his credit, last night's evangelist ended by encouraging all new believers to seek out a local church ASAP, and the host-pastor reemphasized this point.  But what if many of our local churches are satisfied with being natural gatherings of nice people instead of redemptive communities that are obviously inspired by God's kingdom and fueled by a supernatural source?  There's a church in Japan in the same town that's home to an orphanage that was begun over 50 years ago by one of our members.  This summer, we jointly hosted several of the teenaged orphans in hopes that they would become Christians.  To our knowledge, none did.  But I was thinking: What if any of them did profess faith in Christ?  When they left the orphanage and had to fend for themselves at age 18, would that church--would any church in Japan--take them in and love them in ways that transcend the prejudices of Japanese society?  In a society that insists you must have a strong family tie and a degree from a prestigious university, would these still be the prevailing values of those churches?  I'm afraid that they would and thus I would be hard-pressed to direct any persons with obvious "defects" to go there.  This is why I have dedicated the rest of my life on earth to preaching to the comfortably converted.
  • Lastly, it's been my experience that many unconvinced persons are drawn to a repentant church that is humble enough to confess its own shortcomings and sins.  As the church learns to surrender itself to the ongoing redemptive work of God's Spirit, there are those who find this refreshing and intriguing.  As I was hanging around the sanctuary after church ended today, a young adult approached.  He told me that he'd been coming off-and-on for a year, that he wasn't a Christian, but that he really was drawn to the person of Jesus and the substance of his teachings.  He said that what he especially liked was how our church was trying to live out Christ's teachings in real ways and that we didn't come across like Pharisees.  Yes!  Even with all of our imperfections, even with how far we still have to go down this road, I've been meeting increasing numbers of thoughtful unconvinced people who are being drawn to Jesus through the experience of our church. 

  So don't look for us to do next year's movie at this event.  And don't look for me in the role of crusade evangelist.  When we do make a movie, it will probably be on youtube.com.  And I've been called to evangelize the self-satisfied in the church.

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