RW: “There are many ways of expressing what a ‘Salvific’ message is. For some people coming through the substitutionary [atonement] view, there are actually other ways of expressing it. I actually think in New Zealand secular society, grace is a very powerful message to tackle people with, ultimate grace: rather than talking about the cross straight away, or sin straight away. I don’t think necessarily that many younger people have a great awareness of their sins.”

I did ask him whether he meant it as tailoring each message to the relevant community – Richard felt that it’s “Legitimate for different parts of the body to promote different parts of the Gospel”. I’m fairly certain Richard preaches repentance – like Brett says, just not straight away.

His approach to a non-Christian of course is totally different to say, Ray Comfort. But it’s fair to say that both win souls.

http://www.marshillchurch.org/

Totally inspiring.

Possibly because I really enjoy people getting to the point with me (I dislike vaguery) I like to be upfront.

So let me have a go at what I would say to a person who didn’t know Jesus…

“Our God is an awesome, loving, powerful God. You look at creation; you look at people and you see that. And then you look at us and how we screw everything up; in big ways, with wars, with how we treat other cultures, with what we do to the environment, and in more personal ways, in our relationships, in how we hurt people, in how we do wrong when we want to do right.

We do that stuff because we are born in sin. It’s our condition. Show me a person who hasn’t sinned, and I won’t believe you. And God, being Holy, cannot tolerate sin. And so we are totally deserving of his wrath, and his judgement. The reality of that means an eternity in hell, separated from God.

Except God actually loves you. And he didn’t want it to be that way. So he sent his Son Jesus to earth. And Jesus lived a sinless life, and taught a bette way to live. And yet he was hung on a cross to die. He took our sins upon him, and paid the price for them. He satisfied the completely just wrath of God. He rose again, victorious over sin and death.

If you believe in Jesus, and believe he took your sin in your place, as a subsitute, you are made righteous before God. That means you get to spend eternity in His presence, and that means the Holy Spirit lives in you now, teaching you to live in the way of Jesus.”

So, after all that, what I guess I would say, is that for me it is about being clear as to what we are really all about. But in practice, I’m not qualified to make any substantial judgements on how things play out for any person with this, having only my personal experiene to go on.

On a broader scale though, it is my conviction that the “Evangelical” church is drifitng towards a felt needs-based gospel.

I didn’t take that from the interview at all. What I read was in answer to the question at the end: Jesus offers life in all its fullness. Which is surely the answer? Jesus offers life with God?

Now, in another section on the gospel, aka how do people get there? He says I wouldn’t always start with sin because people don’t always have an awareness of that – not that its unpopular, but that its foreign. It doesn’t mean that you don’t get to sin. In order to share the gospel, you sometimes have to back the truck up to theistic worldview and in that sense the gospel starts in Genesis 1.

That’s how I read the interview anyway and indeed Paul’s method in Acts 17. Did you get the impression William that Rev Waugh was denying the centrality of an orthodox gospel that requires that we deal with our sin before God?

So let me end this on a postive: what would you say is the most important thing to tell someone who isn’t a Christian?

Haha, for me it’s a no brainer – John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It’s bold, and perhaps Christians shy away to refrain from clichés… but it’s still the Gospel for me.

Your last question absolutely got my brain going. It would be a great question to ask every Christian!

You could have probably guessed that I would say this, but the idea that because the concept of sin doesn’t sit so well in our society (and I think NZ is far from alone in that), we should refrain from mentioning it up front or attempting to convict people of it… well, I don’t know, it just doesn’t sit right with me.

I think of similar times in scripture, when the people turned away from God or fell into sin and refused to acknowledge it (Noah’s time, things Moses experienced, Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees), etc, etc. And then, I try to imagine the Prophets God sent into situations like those adopting an evangelism practice based on being appealing, rather than causing offence or saying something that would seem confrontational. I can’t!

Of course, you could balance that by mentioning how Paul preached at Mars Hill (sans Driscoll AND sans Rob Bell!). But, even then, Paul called for repentence and mentioned judgement, which didn’t go down too well with some listeners (Acts 17).

…I don’t know, maybe I am just being too fundamentalist.

So let me end this on a postive… what would you say is the most important thing to tell someone who isn’t a Christian?

I even liked what he said about cession|community and the emerging church:

“cession|community would almost drop into that category, much as they might resist being boxed together”

He knows us too well!