We need an evangelism epi-pen...

 "We love service, we flirt with peace, and we are allergic to evangelism." -Andre Gingerich Stoner, MCUSA Convention.

This quote resonated with me today during the opening discussion on one of the priorities of MCUSA's Purposeful Plan, that priority being the Holistic Christian Witness.  Quoted below is the outcome we seek:

The church witnesses to the wholeness of God's salvation made possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ via a seamless integration of activities such as:

• Sharing the good news of new life in Jesus Christ
• Planting and nurturing kingdom communities
• Developing a missional identity
• Supporting churches and their witness in many different settings
• Seeking peace with justice
• Engaging in health and human service ministries
• Integrating evangelism, service and peace witness

Over the past couple of days, there's been a lot of discussion about issues of intercultural transformation and missional church but it has all been in discussion around the issues of service, peace, justice, tolerance, and reconciliation.  Now, these are ALL good things, really, but there's something missing.

The quote above hints at the something missing.  We talk a lot about the things that we do as a church that we feel are part of the Kingdom, but when it comes to expressing the reason why we do the things we do, for some reason or another, we have a VERY hard time doing that. 

What's really troublesome to me was that, even with that statement being made before the discussion time around the tables and the open mic time, during that discussion period what did we talk about in regards to holistic witness?  Service and peace.  Where was the evangelism, the church planting, the spreading of the word?  Where was the "seamless integration"?

Again, we talk a great talk about what it is that we do as a church, but we avoid the context of why.  In the post-modern, post-Christendom world, what society does NOT need is another organization focused on service and peace.  In US society, such organizations these days are a dime a dozen and not even all of them have Christ as the center.  By stressing that aspect of our church, instead of standing out as the city on the hill, the light of the world, the salt of the earth, we blend into the background.

At the beginning of the session on holistic Christian witness, a man introduced himself as "A Christian by choice, a Mennonite by conviction".  We need to remember that, first and foremost, we chose to follow CHRIST, not Menno Simons, and that should be what is fore-front in our lives always.

Buddy of mine Scott Roth told me over dinner tonight something on the lines that no Christian would ignore the issues of peace, service, and justice, but they FIRST need to be connected to Christ, the source and center of the love and grace that gives us the PURPOSE behind peace, service and justice.  If we connect people to Christ, everything else will fall into line.

Lesslie Newbigin states in "The Gospel in a Pluralist Society" that we cannot pit words and actions against each other.  We cannot say that the "true" church is about action, or that the "true" church is about words.  They feed off of each other.  Actions must be such that the elicit questions that require words for response.  Words must be followed up with and lived out in action.  However, what I heard today in the delegate session was a lot of talk about actions, about living in justice, about being peacemakers, about serving others, but our statement said "seamless integration" of a list of activities, the FIRST of which is sharing the gospel.

Our allergy made itself felt today.  We avoided the topic.  For some reason, it's way too uncomfortable to talk about.  Meanwhile, Mennonites in the global south have a hard time shutting up about it.  Conrad Kagey gave a presentation resently at the seminary about church growth in the global south and what stood out to me was how eager Christians in those communities were to evangelize and spread the gospel.  Has Christianity become so common-place to us that it no longer excites us?  Are we no longer driven to tell others about this WONDERFUL thing that causes us to act in counter-cultural ways?

Someone pass me my epi-pen, I'm tired of this anaphalactic shock and asphyxiation.  I'm ready to breath the word of God again...  Let's go.