Scandalous Waste?

In a recent post, we considered the importance of long term thinking in Christian life. I hinted at the importance of long term thinking with regards to family, as I have done previously in a post entitled Your Most Valuable Ministry.

Recently my wife and I have been reading a book called The Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes. There is a lot of gold in this book, but we were particularly struck by a couple of quotes in the introduction, which I will reproduce here.

We must not succumb to the deceptive mathematics of worldly thinking that considers the pouring out of one’s life on a hidden few as a scandalous waste of one’s potential.

And a little earlier in the introduction.

Society applauds the person who designs a building more than it does the one who attends to the architecture of a child’s soul. Our culture values a face that is known to the public far more than it does a countenance reflected in a child’s eyes. The world sets a higher priority on attaining a degree than on educating a life. It values the ability to give things more than it does giving oneself. This approach to self-worth has been relentlessly sown by modern culture and has taken root in many Christian hearts, so that there is no room for another self – even if it is one’s own child.

Tactics in Evangelism

I read the following in an interesting series on Christian capitalism by Tom Addison. He has a lot of good things to say about how Christians can use wealth for the kingdom, and I really appreciated his antidote to the somewhat negative view of wealth common in evangelicalism.

For too long, Christian donors have been too focused on retail evangelism and not sufficiently focused on what I call intellectual logistics. In war, it is said that amateurs and wannabes study tactics, whereas masters study logistics. Logistics is the art of having the right resources in the right place at the right time so tactical opportunities can be maximally advantaged. Evangelism was simply a lot easier even a generation ago when our culture had a consensus on the reality of God, sin, and man’s need for forgiveness. When a lost person shares those concepts with the church, it only takes a moment of personal crisis, or personal conviction, to make the final leap to a personal saving faith.

This is part of the reason I split my giving. I know some pastors argue that all your giving should be to the church and that church leaders should decide how best to use that for the kingdom. However, it has been my experience that many Christian leaders lack the sufficient wisdom to play the long game. Why are our leaders not pushing Christian education as one? It doesn’t take a prophet to see that we are losing our children and our strength because we are giving our children to the enemy to educate. So why are we not investing in schools that will help us train our children up?

Instead, we aim for low hanging fruit with walk-up evangelism and learned gospel presentations. These are all well and good, but this approach works best when there is a certain cultural knowledge of the historic faith. That time is almost over, and therefore, our strategy needs to develop. Addison goes on to suggest how it needs to develop.

When none of the preliminary ideas are held in common due to years of Satanic propaganda in the media and school – there is no God, no morality, no sin, no life after death – evangelism becomes ten times more difficult. The personal crisis or personal conviction that before might have led to a conversion now simply adds to a general sense of despair and a desire to drown those feelings in entertainment, drugs, or materialism. Before we can reap the harvest, we must sow, water, weed, and cultivate with Christian education and Christian values.

That is why I now funnel a large percentage of my giving into Christian education. Yes of course I still support my pastor and church, but because Christian leaders in New Zealand often do not understand the times we are in, I know that I (and other Christians who do) must put as much money as we can into Christian education. And I know this is having fruit among groups that our churches do not tend to reach. A Sikh or Hindu child who hears the gospel every day for 10 years or more is much more likely to come to faith (humanly speaking) than a Sikh or Hindu university student who has grown up in a government school and is hearing the gospel for the first time. I think it’s time that we Christians who see these things put continuous pressure on our leaders until they get this long term thinking. Imagine the impact the gospel could have in New Zealand if we were providing a quality gospel education for children from all faith backgrounds. Yes it is intensive and takes a lot of resources, but it is long term thinking that will reap long term rewards.

Strategic Evangelism

I recently read of a Gallup poll from the 1980s that looked at when people came to Christ. Apparently, 18 out of twenty people came to Christ before the age of 25. At age 35, one in fifty thousand became Christians, and at age 45, one in two hundred thousand. Now I don’t know the details behind these statistics, but they highlight what many studies of this nature have found, namely that people are more likely to come to Christ at a young age. I guess what would be of significance would be how many of those who came to Christ as children came from Christian families.

Regardless, I think this has huge implications for our evangelistic efforts. Targetting children and students in evangelism seems to be a sensible strategy, not only because of a much higher likelihood of success, but from a long term strategy perspective. People who come to faith early have a much longer time to grow in that faith and let it shape them and how they raise their own families. This should create a positive feedback mechanism.

If this data has merit, it makes me wonder why the church has not latched onto it in a more wholehearted fashion. Kids-ministry is definitely a priority for many churches, and Christian camps are often seen as strategically important, but why aren’t we seeing more churches in New Zealand thinking about starting Christian schools? If childhood is a strategically important time, why wouldn’t we want to make the most of that time? Wouldn’t having Christian Schools attached to our churches make sense? If these were integrated into the life of the church, they surely would provide powerful opportunities for mission and discipleship. Why not talk to your pastor and other key Christian leaders about these truths.

The Long Game and the Short Game

An interesting thing I’ve been pondering lately is the difference between a long term strategy and a short term one. An article that helped me with this is here.

Christians often seem good at short term strategies. One example of this is the huge focus of Christian churches (and here I speak of evangelicals because that is the tradition I am in), on winning converts. Our churches are often geared to seekers and aimed at “Level One” people. We want to win them to Christ, so the gospel message of repentance and faith is hammered. Let’s get those people saved. We tend to be fairly successful.

Another example I’ve personally seen is the ability of entrepreneurial evangelical Christians to get organisations like Christian schools or preschools off the ground. A growth mindset leads to replication and fairly quick growth. We seem to have some skill in getting new organisations off the ground.

Unfortunately, on the flip side, we often neglect long term strategy. One example of this is seen in our approach to child-raising. Scripture is very clear on the importance of family. There are promises that God will show steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who fear him and obey his commandments. Yet for all that, Christian parents are not always faithful in teaching their children to fear the Lord. This can be especially difficult for those who are caught up in ministry. Yet how much better off would the church be if we had not won any converts through evangelism in the past 50 years, but had kept every single child born into a Christian home in the faith. Obviously, this is not a call to abandon personal evangelism, but to acknowledge the history of strategic failure which is having profound ramifications for the Church in the west right now. The door into the faith is wide, but it seems the exit door is even wider. We should stop showing our kids to that door.

A second example can be seen when we return to those Christian organisations that were set up ten to fifteen years down the track, it seems that the original vision is lost. Growth has happened quickly, but holding onto the original mission has come second place to growth. So we end up with Christian schools run by people who think homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice for Christians, or preschools run in exactly the same way as secular preschools. The organisation becomes compromised, and its long term prospects for the gospel are precarious. Perhaps a slower more purposeful growth that considers the long term strategic value of the organisation and its goals would be wiser.

A final example of the church’s tendency to neglect long term strategy is our disengagement with ‘worldly concerns’ in a kind of gnostic dualism. We think that engagement and control of cultural institutions is somehow ‘unspiritual’, and that we should push our children into ‘higher callings’ – ones that are to do with the salvation of souls. Yet how much better off would our world be today, if the Christian leaders of the 20th century had with one voice challenged their congregations to excel in their work so that they could ‘stand before kings’? Imagine if our leaders had with one voice encouraged the laity to get themselves into positions of cultural influence and use that influence for the kingdom of Christ. Perhaps the wide appeal of dispensationalism has had an impact here. Those of a dispensationalist bent are far more likely to consider engagement in the world a waste of time when souls could be being saved. For many, this would be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I think we need to recognise that short term thinking is often the thinking of unbelief. Saul, facing a significant battle, decided to sacrifice to the LORD instead of wait for Samuel to perform this. He was judged. Abraham, instead of waiting and trusting to God’s promises, took matters into his own hand and slept with Sarah’s maidservant. Faithful believers need to be long term thinkers. In fact, the principle of long term strategy is built into God’s world. The yearly harvest typifies this. One sows in season. Despite having immediate use, that seed is made dead to us and buried in the ground, that in a future time it might be raised up producing a fruitful yield. Even Christ’s coming came at the appointed time (Galatians 4:4). God didn’t exactly hurry things, and we must recognise that he is wisdom. Perhaps its time for the church, and especially the leaders of the church to consider what we could do to help the church be more effective in the longterm. What do we need to do now, and keep building slowly over the next 50 to 100 years, that will maximise the impact of the gospel to our children’s children’s children?

As the article I mentioned at the beginning puts it, “To maximize the effectiveness of evangelism, we need not only direct appeals to the gospel, but also a strategic goal to control the organs of culture that determine the presuppositions people bring to the gospel message.” Perhaps we need to be thinking wider than personal salvation, and consider how Christ’s kingship applies to culture and civilizations.