Whatever programs the church may offer, the community needs to be led gradually, across the months or years, to see that the church cares.
—Calvin Miller
Suburbia: the push-button Zion of those who have made it and therefore have it made. There, amid the water sprinkling systems and lava rock landscapes, rises the new Eden with little need for God: Paradise Found, where churches ulcerate themselves trying to sell self-denial to the pampered.
Can the urgency of the Cross ever be made real to those who cocoon in front of an entertainment center and insist on defining hell as dandelions and heaven as the proper side of town?
Two women from our church once made a church visitation call to a suburbanite. They were fearful but brave and wanted to extend the gospel to someone in need of Christ. They were convinced their “prayed up” status would deliver them from the mouth of the lion. They walked up to a door, rang the chime doorbell, and waited beneath a plywood-goose wreath that said WELCOME. It seemed a good omen. But all too soon they were met by a swaggering young muscle man—body by Nautilus—clutching a can of beer in one hand and a remote TV control in the other. Clad only in bikini briefs, the suburban chieftain spoke brusquely. “Yeah?”
“We’re from the church,” the tentative women offered. They had intended to say something more evangelistic, but as they observed privately to me later, “It’s hard to witness to the nearly naked.”
The young Adonis, framed in his own middle-class doorway, blurted out a string of profanity, telling them that he wasn’t interested in “the church.” His profanity and near nudity crushed their spirits. There seemed nothing to do but mumble a “thank you” and say good-bye as the door slammed shut. The plywood-goose wreath lied! They returned to their car, sat down, shuddered, and shed tears over the crushing encounter.
As they told me of the experience, I felt a bit hurt and responsible. After all, as their pastor, I had encouraged them to go into the community and “share the gospel.” And for most of us, sharing the gospel is the important part of reaching the unchurched. We want to see the unchurched commit themselves to Christ and become a part of the church. These women hadn’t shared much of the gospel they had worked to learn in our evangelistic training class. They had found little joy in an event that I had promised would likely be joyous.
I was reminded that the word witness and the word martyr were originally one, and while their martyrdom was not as terminal as Saint Stephen’s, I could see that it was likely to be terminal in terms of their ever being coaxed into sharing again.
This exhibitionist, loin-cloth secularian has remained for me a symbol: handsome, self-confident, complete in himself—living between the TV control and suburban good times. His needs, as he would likely define them, are more Dow Jones than spiritual. Jesus is not even a remote part of his imagined necessities.
The twins of outreach
Reaching the unreached can be done in many ways, but outreach usually falls into two categories. The first is confrontational evangelism. Both the church and the community quail before this kind of evangelism. The reason we so fear this confrontational approach is because the confronted secularian sometimes confronts back. We are thus intimidated by the rude treatment we shall receive, or (more truthfully) the treatment we imagine we shall receive. The intimidation is so strong that many pastors have given up altogether on the idea of such direct neighborhood encounters.
Perhaps because of fear, many Christians have created their own ghetto in today’s society. They have their own language—with clichés well understood and oft used by those who worship in the new temples that ring our growing cities. Temple language, full of “Praise the Lord” and “Bless you, brother,” seems alien to the Wall Street Journal-ites, who live in places named Wedgewood, Leawood, Applewood, and Pepperwood. And people who speak a strange language are often feared. Thus the fear extends both directions.
But it’s more than the language of Zion that frightens suburbanites. Evangelicals have their own concert artists, radio and television networks, and publishing empires. They have their own subculture heroes, few of whom are well known by the world at large. To those outside the church, all this makes these Christians seem to live in another world.
So what happens when these opposite worlds meet on a Thursday-night evangelism call? Inner terror—on both sides of the door. The worlds have so little in common that bridging becomes a matter of near panic. The suburbanite who lays down his Forbes magazine (or his Playboy) to answer the door and finds literature-armed churchgoers on his stoop is terrified! These evangelists may be gentle in their confrontation, but the terror of the event is nonetheless great.
The second category of outreach is more relational than confrontive. This bridge-building method still emphasizes reaching out, but replaces confrontation with initial friendship. This gentle approach says we must wed the spiritual needs of suburbanites to their sociological needs, giving the first emphasis to sociology. We reach them best by bringing up the eternal issues only after we have talked about softball, barbecues, and committee slots. In other words, we must socialize before we evangelize.
But perhaps you, as I, have seen what can happen to churches using this softer approach. As pastor, you find yourself on a treadmill of a thousand “new ghetto” activities. To the brotherhood, you become the fry cook; to the Cub Scouts, umpire; to the ladies, bazaar auctioneer. Without a strong sense of personal spiritual discipline, you can become the bishop of the busy, and “busianity” may replace Christianity.
The church that leaves off the nasty business of urgency may wind up “many but not much.”
The strokes of different folks
We’ve wrestled with the challenge of reaching out to suburbia in a way that maintains the urgency without mounting a campaign that’s too terrifying for both the church and the neighborhood.
We started by realizing that while unchurched suburbanites may seem to be alike and have a single system of values, they are as different as those already in church, and so they respond to different methods of being reached.
Some of those who never go to church may be reached by the church’s annual Christmas pageant or Easter musical. The athletically inclined are more likely to respond to the church’s softball league than its junior choir program. And, yes, we’ve discovered that some people still respond well to a knock on the door.
So we still do visitation (while trying to eliminate as much of the fear factor as we can). And we offer a variety of ministries (while trying not to fall into a pointless busianity).
We’ve observed that whatever route a person takes to faith, he or she tends to stay in that pattern. People who come to Christ through confrontational means seem to make more earnest visitors than those who gradually come to faith through “sociological absorption.”
Rick, for instance, became a Christian through Evangelism Explosion, and now that he’s a deacon, he remains a firm believer in structured evangelism and is immensely involved in outreach.
Peter came through the subtle and sociological relationships of the church softball team. Now his temptation is more toward busy Christianity.
My challenge as pastor is to help both see the full scope of the Christian life.
The care of community
Community concern sells, even in suburbia. Whatever programs the church may offer, the community needs to be led gradually, across months or years, to see that the church cares. This means public relations, or, to put it biblically, letting your light shine.
I’ve been interested to see in recent years that major corporations, from AT&T to Exxon to Hallmark Cards, have built empires around advertising slogans that say “We care.” Our task is similar: to get the local unchurched to associate our congregation with an image of people who care for one another and the community.
Care has two sides. One is the informal, low-profile, and personal kind of care. A young man, who with his family had just moved into our community and visited our church once or twice, had to have emergency gall bladder surgery. One of the Bible classes in our church heard about it. Class members took casseroles to the family and cared for the children so the wife could visit her husband. As a result, this couple joined our church and quickly became part of the ministry.
The other kind of caring is structured, open, and public. Our youth group went through two neighborhoods of West Omaha a few weeks ago to collect food for the downtown mission and gathered more than a thousand cans. They not only helped the mission, but they also made our community aware that our church cares about the needy.
We also advertise. We have on our signs: “We’re there; we care.” Sometimes a disgruntled member will say, “Either give me more attention or take that off your sign!” But the message is essential.
We produced a thirty-second television commercial that shows me in front of Methodist Hospital, reminding the community that the staff of our church enters that hospital several times a week in a genuine effort to care about those who are in pain. While I admit TV and radio can lead to caring that’s flamboyant and proud, it can be a legitimate way to remind our community of our calling.
Some time ago, I got a call from an elderly woman who had just been told by her doctors that she was dying and possibly would not survive the night. Through the media, she had heard Westside’s humble boast that we care. She told me I was the only pastor she knew and asked if I could come to the hospital to see her.
I went. We talked, and I read Scripture and prayed.
She survived the crisis and eventually recovered fully. She is now a faithful member of our church and a close friend.
The focus of family
Whether suburban marriages are harmonious and the children are adjusting, all couples want their families to work better. They are looking for ways to help maintain the family unit.
The gospel offers a lot to people who crave family togetherness. Much of what the church offers is met with warm interest by individuals who believe that families are still a good idea in the world where homes are often falling apart.
This has two implications in our setting.
The first touches the pastor’s own family. I realized my family needed to be an example, to be seen reaching out. So my wife, Barbara, and I work together on visitation night. Every Monday evening, Barbara and her coworkers prepare a meal that will allow other members to come directly from their offices to eat before they receive the classroom instruction and assignment cards. Without this meal, many would not have time to go home and eat and make it back in time.
In addition, we practice hospitality, not just with longtime members of the church, but also with those who are new.
But there’s a second implication with the families being reached. I’ve made it a practice (and I teach this to others) to speak with the man of the family. In a day when sexism is a possible criticism, I do this not because I believe one parent is more significant than the other, but because I believe that in most homes, the man is the key in reaching the entire family. Perhaps it’s because he’s often the most reluctant; perhaps because he often has more influence on the choice of activities for the whole family.
When I do visitation, I ask if I can meet the whole family. I work at including both the husband and the wife in the conversation, but when it comes to asking for commitment (whether praying for salvation or simply indicating their willingness to visit the church), I ask the man for his commitment first. If he agrees, it’s easier for the rest of the family to make the same commitment.
As a result, on most Sundays as many men as women attend our church (and Bible study hour).
The wait of glory
Waiting on the secular family to be interested in the church’s message demands patience. Sometimes it’s directly related to need. At seasons of great need, most people are interested in God. If the pastor can lay down the church’s availability through advertising or general reputation, when those needs come, the families who thought they were not interested suddenly are.
This posture is not a lazy waiting but an eager waiting to help those who find themselves crying out for help.
We discovered this with one family. I visited them several times over the years, and the husband, an Air Force officer, was quite willing for his family to go to church but never saw a need for it himself.
Then he received a yearlong remote assignment overseas and had to go without his family. When I stopped by, he said, “It’d be nice, Reverend, if the church could stop around and see how my wife and kids are doing every once in awhile. I’d be grateful.”
While he was gone, church members helped in a variety of ways. When the automatic washer broke down, we arranged for its repair. Some of the members helped out with home maintenance.
When the year was up and the husband returned, he came to church! One Sunday morning, his face streaked with gratitude, he made his commitment to Christ.
Caring and waiting eventually paved the way to faith. He went on to become a strong member of our congregation.
The fuel of effort
Love is the fuel of our evangelism. Pastors cannot, without loving Christ, find a desire to witness. Without loving people, none of us would stay long at the job.
But pastoral love, whenever it occurs, can prompt the most rigorous sort of action: Love reaches for the hurt and takes bold steps without self-interest. It can accomplish unbelievable things merely because it is so void of self-interest.
Some time ago, a teenager, Arthur Hinkley, lifted a 3,000-pound tractor with bare hands. He wasn’t a weight lifter, but his friend, Lloyd Bachelder, 18, was pinned under the tractor on a farm near Rome, Maine. Hearing Lloyd scream, Arthur somehow lifted the tractor for Lloyd to wriggle out.
Love was the real motivation.
We become the most like Christ when our motivation is distilled love. And that agape works—even in the suburbs.
Copyright © 1996 by Christianity Today/Leadership
