PROMOTINGTHE GOSPELTHE WHOLE OF LIFE FOR THE CAUSE OF CHRIST

John Dickson

PO Box A 287, Sydney South, Australia 1235Ph: (02) 8268 3333Fax: (02) 8268 3357Email: sales@youthworks.net

Promoting the Gospel: The whole of life for the cause of ChristPublished June 2005Copyright Blue Bottle Books 2005 © John DicksonReprinted August 2006, July 2009

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticismor review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may bereproduced by any process without the written permission of the publisher.

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised StandardVersion Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of theNational Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. Allrights reserved.

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. ‘NIV’ and ‘New InternationalVersion’ are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademarkoffice by International Bible Society.

National Library of AustraliaISBN 978-1-920935-77-1

Index of Biblical references prepared by Jenny GlenCover design by Rachel HeriotTypeset by Lankshear Design

For Glenda Weldonwho taught me the gospel

and showed me how to pass it on.

A note about notes

I hate footnotes and endnotes. Apart from appearing pretentious andacademic, they can easily become distracting to the reader. Those whoread all of them can easily lose their train of thought (I know I often do).Those who never read them can begin to worry they might have missedsomething profound in the small print. But to give this book a wideraudience I have decided to include endnotes for each chapter. We’vethrown them to the very back of the book to make them as discreet aspossible. If you are a ‘notes’ kind of person, I hope the extra information,technical references and finer arguments you will find there will satisfyyour curiosity. If you are a big picture kind of reader—and I am sure that’smost of us—please, do not worry. I promise not to put anything in theendnotes that changes the ideas presented in the main part of the book.

Contents

Foreword by Professor Alister McGrath 7

Introduction: Confessions of an evangelist 9

1. The One and the many

Why get involved in mission? 19

2. The many and the One

The challenge of pluralism 29

3. Following the ‘friend of sinners’

The missionary mind of the ordinary Christian 37

4. The hidden mission

Promoting the gospel with our prayers 53

5. Partners for life

Promoting the gospel with our money 67

6. Being the Light of the world

Promoting the gospel through the works of the church 77

7. Being beautiful

Promoting the gospel through Christian behaviour 89

8. The few and the many

Evangelists and the local church 103

6

9. Heralds together

Promoting the gospel through our public praise 115

10. The apt reply

Promoting the gospel in daily conversation 129

11. A year in the life of the gospel

Bringing it all together 147

Appendix 1:What is the gospel? 161

Appendix 2: Gospel bites 191

Appendix 3: A modern retelling of the gospel 199

Endnotes 209

Index of References

227

77

Foreword

Alister McGrath,President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics,and Professor of Historical Theology, Oxford University.

I read this book with admiration and excitement. Rarely have

I seen such a wonderful combination of enthusiasm and

expertise, passion and reflection. John Dickson writes winsomely

and elegantly, drawing his readers into his vision for the future of

evangelism. It is one of the best books I have read on evangelism.

A new star has clearly risen in Australia.

Why is it so good? I think it is the way in which Dickson

inspires the confidence of his readers, explaining the mistakes he

made along the way, and how others can learn from them. Many,

many readers will identify with his concern about technique-

based evangelism courses, which make evangelism into a human

skill comparable to car mechanics. Dickson offers his readers

something very different—a vision for evangelism, opening up

the full riches of the gospel, and allowing its many facets to

radiate through every believer, not just the gifted evangelist.

It is a tribute to Dickson’s experience as an evangelist and skill

as a writer that he manages to combine theoretical reflection and

practical advice. Where some authors leave their readers

wondering how on earth they are going to apply their ideas,

Dickson offers wise advice, clearly based on experience, as to

how best to do this.

His emphasis on the importance of the local church is

theologically astute, and immensely practical. Dickson’s

approach will energize both individuals and churches to promote

the gospel, while emphasizing the importance of the church at

every level in sustaining the ministry of individual evangelists.

His appeal to the worship of the church reminds us that the

power of the gospel lies not merely in its words, but in its

capacity to transform people’s lives.

I warmly recommend this book. I have learned from reading

it, and have no doubt that others will as well. It challenged me,

encouraged me, and often inspired me. And at my age, that’s

quite an achievement!

Alister McGrathOxford, March 2006

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Promoting the Gospel

Introduction

Confessions of an evangelist

For the first couple of years of my faith I was a passionate

promoter of the Christian message. I was 15 years old and spoke

about Christ to everyone who would listen. Without any

background in Christianity I just assumed everyone would want

to hear what I had heard. I shared my new beliefs with my

mother, my friends, my football team, strangers on the street and

even the crowds of other teenagers I met on the holiday camps

my mum used to send me on (regularly, for some reason!).

In those early years as a believer I had absolutely no idea

Christians could be coy about their faith. No one had told me I

was meant to feel awkward about spreading the good news. That

was something I learnt only after mixing with Christians for a

while. But I learnt it soon enough.

Because of my obvious enthusiasm for sharing the Faith with

others, my church decided I should be trained in ‘evangelism’.

I had never heard of ‘evangelism’; I just wanted others to discover

what I had discovered. I did not know there was a word for it.

So, off I went to special classes once a week for several months

where I was trained in one of the popular evangelism training tools.

There I learnt a carefully prepared gospel outline, a set of illustrations

to explain the message, and a list of Bible verses to back it all up.

At the end of the course I was turned loose on the public

of Sydney. I took part in pre-arranged home visits, systematic

door knocking, and even ‘cold turkey’ walk-ups at the local

shopping centre.

Suddenly, my joy and ability at passing on the Faith evaporated.

I had previously delighted in sharing Christ with others, but now

it seemed a burden: a burden on my emotions, on my memory

and, perhaps most of all, on my poor unsuspecting evangelistic

‘targets’. This enthusiastic, natural promoter of Christ had been

transformed into a nervous and unnerving ‘Bible-basher’.

I do not blame the course itself. Many Christians around the

world have been helped by this and other programs. But I suspect

the way the course was run in my church, combined with my

overeager personality, left me with several unhealthy perspectives

on what it means to promote Christ to others. I have since

discovered just how common these perspectives are in modern

church circles.

The curse of self-consciousnessFirstly, I had become self-conscious about reaching out to others

with the news of Christ. When I first became a Christian,

promoting Christ was a perfectly natural orientation of my whole

faith. It was similar to the way I felt about football (or what

Australians used to call ‘soccer’). I loved football. I played it almost

every day. I watched every televised Premier Leaguematch. I talked

about it and asked friends to come up to the local oval for a kick-

around. I never dreamt that football-lovers might be self-conscious

about mentioning it or coy about inviting others to play it.

But after attending this evangelism course, that is exactly how

I felt about my faith. Suddenly, mentioning God and inviting

people to church had become a specialised compartment of the

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Promoting the Gospel

Faith. It had its own name—evangelism—its own propositions

and jargon, and even its ownmulti-week courses. Whereas I once

talked of God as freely as I talked about my favourite TV show,

now I found myself switching into ‘evangelism mode’—where

the heart beats faster, the palms get sweaty and you feel the

pressure to steer the conversation in a most un-conversational

manner. What was once a natural outflow of faith, something

requiring very little concentration, now felt like a cross between

a theological exam, an acting class and a knife-edge rescue

operation. Like David Beckham’s string of missed penalty shots a

couple of years ago, the pressure to perform something that used

to come naturally forced my evangelistic opportunities right over

the crossbar and into the stadium.

Let me reiterate: evangelism courses per se are not the

problem. Many Christians undergo such training without ever

feeling self-conscious; others feel self-conscious without ever

being trained. Nevertheless, I suspect many would agree that this

evangelistic self-consciousness is very common amongst modern

believers (with or without the help of evangelism training courses).

Thankfully my own evangelistic self-consciousness soon

passed. After months of trying to ‘perform’ as I had been taught, I

decided to relax. I forgot about getting it ‘right’, getting it ‘in order’

and getting my conversation partner ‘over the line’. Instead, I

decided to approach my gospel opportunities as if they were

friendly conversations about my favourite topic. It was not long

before I realised again that this is exactly what sharing the faith is.

Part of my hope in writing this book is that a fresh, biblical

look at the topic of evangelistic mission will go some way toward

dispelling Christian self-consciousness.

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Introduction

The gospel ‘download’The second outlook I inherited from my days as a budding

evangelist was equally unhelpful. I began to think that if I had an

opportunity to say something about Christianity I ought to say

everything about it. I had spent months learning a gospel outline,

complete with analogies and Bible verses. I somehow got it into

my head that it was my duty to download the whole thing no

matter how passing the conversation about Christianity might

have been. I don’t know how many poor souls had to endure my

sermonettes before I realised the glazed look in their eyes was

not the look of spiritual wonder!

In reality, most of our opportunities to speak about

Christianity will occur in passing, in the to-and-fro of daily

conversation. It should not surprise us then that the two clearest

passages in the Bible calling on all believers to speak up for the

Lord urge them simply to ‘answer’ for the Faith—to respond to

people’s comments, questions or criticisms with a gentle and

gracious reply (Colossians 4:5-6 and 1 Peter 3:15).

Most Christians are not ‘evangelists’ (in the technical sense of

the word, anyway) and should not be made to feel the pressure to

be something they are not. The Scriptures certainly urge us all to

be open about our faith whenever opportunity allows, but doing

‘the work of an evangelist’ (2 Timothy 4:5) is something God’s

Word asks of only some of us.1

Of course, if you have a chance to explain the whole message

of Christ, go for it! Evangelists don’t have a monopoly here. My

point is simply this: far more frequent than the full gospel

opportunity will be the passing opportunities to offer brief

nuggets about the Faith to those around us—a relative at the

Christmas lunch, a friend at the pub, a parent on the sideline and

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Promoting the Gospel

so on. On occasions like these a gospel ‘bite’ will usually prove

more useful to your hearer than a gospel download.

Reducing the gospelThe third unhelpful perspective I picked up inmy early evangelism

training concerns the gospel message itself. The particular course

I studied summarized the gospel in the theological concepts of sin

and grace. The goal of the presentation I had to memorise was to

convince my hearers (a) that they were unworthy of God’s

acceptance because of their rebellion and (b) that God’s

acceptance was offered on the basis of faith alone, not good works.

The gospel, in other words, was condensed to two doctrines with

little attempt to connect these ideas to the flesh-and-blood story of

Jesus’ birth, teaching, miracles, death, resurrection, appearances

and return for judgement.

Some gospel preaching today—including some gospel

conversations we have with friends—forgets that, at its heart, the

gospel is the news about Jesus as narrated in the Gospels. This is why

the four Gospels are called ‘Gospels’—because more than any other

part of Scripture they tell the gospel. This is why the apostolic

preaching in the book of Acts generally narrates the entire story of

Jesus, including his birth to King David’s line, baptism by John,

miracles, arrest and so on (Acts 2:22-39; 4:8-12; 10:34-43; 13:16-41).

This is why when Paul explicitly summarizes the content of the

gospel in his letters he does so by outlining the key events of Jesus’

life from birth to exaltation, including of course his death, burial and

appearances (Romans 1:2-4; 2 Timothy 2:8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8).

Of course, sin and grace are central to any true gospel

presentation (as they are in the four Gospels themselves) but the

Introduction

13

gospel cannot be reduced to these themes any more than it can

be reduced to a simple retelling of Jesus’ ‘biography’.I will say much more about this in the ridiculously long

Appendix 1, ‘What is the gospel?’. For now, let me just say that thegospel is not a theological idea or two. It is theology grounded inthe actual events of Jesus’ life. The gospel and the Gospels areone. Let me offer a concise summary of what I mean by the‘gospel’ throughout this book:

The gospel is the announcement that God has revealed andopened up his kingdom to sinners through the birth,teaching, miracles, death and resurrection of the MessiahJesus who will one day return to overthrow evil andconsummate the kingdom for eternity.

Underestimating the missionThere is a fourth unhelpful perspective I developed in those earlydays. This one was probably the result of my personality as muchas any training I received. Somehow I came to assume that theonly important means of promoting Christ was talking about him.Reaching out to others became for me an entirely verbal activity.

But perhaps the best-kept secret of Christian mission is that

the Bible lists a whole range of activities that promote Christ to

the world and draw others toward him. These include prayer,

godly behaviour, financial assistance, the public praise of God (in

church) and, as already mentioned, answering people’s questions.

All of these are explicitly connected in the Bible with advancing

the gospel and winning people to Christ. They are all ‘mission’

activities and only a couple of them involve the lips at all.

I do not want to diminish the role of speaking. As I have said

already, the New Testament urges us to be open about Christ in

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Promoting the Gospel

Introduction

our regular conversations. To push our faith below the level of

daily speech is unnatural and a sure sign of Christian ill health.

At the same time, downplaying the range of mission activities

listed in the Bible creates its own set of problems. It can make

those who do not have a flair for speaking feel inadequate in their

contribution to God’s work in the world. Perhaps more

worryingly—and this was certainly so in my case—it can make

those who do have the ‘gift of the gab’ feel they are fulfilling God’s

plans just by talking. The Lord wants more than our lips in the

grand task of taking his mercy to our friends and neighbours.

To think otherwise, as I did for years, is to greatly underestimate

what God’s mission involves.

In light of this, I want to make a distinction throughout this

book between the specific activity of proclaiming the gospel, or

what is properly called ‘evangelism’, and the broader category of

promoting the gospel which includes any and every activity which

draws others to Christ.2 This broader category is sometimes

called ‘mission’ or ‘outreach’ or ‘witness’ but the expression

‘promoting the gospel’ reminds us that at the heart of our mission

to the world is the news of Christ, the gospel.

The concept of promoting the gospel obviously includes

evangelism but it also tries to give a proper place to things like

prayer, godly behaviour, and answering for the Faith, all of which

are explicitly connected in the New Testament with God’s plan to

save his people. Such activities are not separate from the work of

the gospel; they are supportive of it and vital to it. Praying that your

friends and neighbours would come to know Christ is no less a

promotion of the gospel than speaking to them about Christ. Both

activities are evangelistic, even if only one of them is evangelism in

the strict sense. This does not mean that those who pray for their

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Promoting the Gospel

friends need not worry about speaking to them, any more than it

means that those who speak to their friends need not worry

about praying for them. My point is that both activities are full

contributions to the promotion of Christ in the world.

For years, both as a public evangelist and as a personal

encourager, I urged other Christians to evangelise (announce the

gospel) as if this were the only significant thing they could do to

promote Christ. In a sense, I was projecting my ownministry and

personality onto believers in general. I was an evangelist;

everyone else should be as well. That was the logic.

The problem is: God’s Word does not quite put it that way, and

attempts to argue otherwise usually involve stretching biblical

passages beyond their plain meaning. I used to do it myself both

in sermons and (I am embarrassed to say) in my first book.3 The

motivation was honourable—I wanted more Christians to be

more involved in the work of the gospel—but, as with so many

other issues, a worthy goal does not give me permission to handle

the Scriptures poorly. We are involved in God’s mission, and so

we must allow his Word to shape our part in it. The slogan ‘every-

Christian-an-evangelist’ has a noble purpose but it is an

unbiblical way of speaking.

For Christians in general—as opposed to evangelists in

particular—telling the gospel to others (evangelism) could be

described as the icing on the cake of mission. It is certainly the

most conspicuous part and, once tasted, it will often be the

sweetest part too, but for the typical Christian it is not the bulk

of the task. It is not where most of our opportunities to promote

Christ to others will be found.

A central aim of this book, then, is to show just how all-

encompassing is the Bible’s call to be involved in God’s mission.

16

I hope and pray that what follows will inspire you to see

everything you do in life as a tool in God’s hands for the benefit

of those who don’t yet know Christ.

Before we explore the Bible’s multifaceted approach to the

promotion of the gospel, we should stop to ask the most obvious

question: why get involved in God’s mission?

Introduction

17

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