In my experience, adding new members to the mission is best accomplished by keeping current members healthy. I think our mission has come to believe that ultimately it is God who plants new seeds in our mission, and that our responsibility is to provide good soil. We can get the word out there, we can advertise and announce our presence, but, generally, the folks who have found their way to us are those who had been looking all along – looking for an expression of Christian faith dissimilar to popular culture, with lasting and time-tested beliefs and practices. Getting folks through the door has largely been outside our influence; greatly within our influence, however, is what they find when they arrive….
Often, inquirers come to our door through means we did not devise: maybe a priest or members of another parish will refer someone to us. What that inquirer finds when he comes to our door, in our experience, influences his decision to continue with us. So, striving to become a loving community has been important. We believe that the kind of growth that we can manipulate is probably not the kind of growth we want – those folks may not last for long. Instead, we emphasize striving for genuine community, and that seems to be attractive to inquirers. Helping converts adjust to the reality of Orthodox life – one where the glow wears off eventually and that necessarily involves struggle – has become important…. —Fr. John Oliver (source)
Though not framed explicitly so, this passage from Tennessee mission priest, author, podcaster and friend Fr. John Oliver illustrates an essentially localist approach to evangelism. In order for human persons to come into communion with Christ within our current culture, the Gospel cannot be treated as a piece of information to be advertised. We are not selling something.
What we seek in evangelism is precisely the communication of the Gospel, which cannot be accomplished independent of community. Though some images of the Apostles would envision them as essentially traveling about to spread a piece of information, they rarely traveled alone, thus bringing community with them, and where they went they typically sought out existing communities of believers in which to do their work, even if those communities were still centered on the synagogue and not the church. Indeed, all of the written communication we have from the Apostles is addressed to believers, as are most of the accounts of their preaching.
I regard the work of building an evangelistic church as being the development of “spiritual infrastructure.” The localist is defined by his attention to what is next to him and by knowing how to live with the consequences of his decisions, rather than formulating grand designs to impose from afar or to impart as a singular datum without incarnate relationship. Though not typically stated in Orthodox patristic ecclesiological writings, this truth is assumed, that Christians and their leaders live with and among the community to whom they bring the Gospel. That means they will care about their place and about the people in that place.
It truly is God Who sows the seed. My experience is that advertising does little but raise availability and that evangelistic outreach events have as their primary effect the invigoration and training of the faithful. (Most of the people who attend such things are not seekers.) Neither are particularly noteworthy for their bringing in those who are not yet among the faithful.
Father,
Truth be known, I’m still a bit perplexed as to just what evangelism is in Orthodox understanding. But I like the term you use, “incarnate relationship.” It reminds me of what I’ve longed for all along, Jesus with skin on. We are to be Jesus to one another and to our neighbor. What could be more attractive, more drawing than that?
While I think quite a bit of the technique I used in evangelism as a Protestant Evangelical (PE) had its weaknesses, even its serious defects, my heart was to love others by allowing Jesus to love them through me. It was, after all, a PE with the “baggage” all that encapsulates, who first reached out to me with the love of Christ. This was at a time when I was living in utter despondency and on the verge of ending my life. So God used him, even though he did not have the “fullness” of the faith.
Somehow, I think there is a blessed and balanced way in which to evangelize and it lies somewhere between the way the Orthodox and Protestant Evangelicals “do” it. IOW, both need to learn and improve and very, very possibly can learn from each other.
And now I’ll go back to my cave and be quiet for awhile. 🙂
My own experience is that evangelism is anything which brings the Gospel (the good news that we can be in communion with God) into people’s lives. That will necessarily involve some “go and tell,” but how one does that does not have to be limited to some specific method or programme. Going into a West African village and announcing to all your relatives (i.e., the whole village) that you’ve heard the good news will be received there differently than it would be in Northeastern America. This is one of the reasons why I think a localist approach is needed to live the Gospel—know where you are, and fit the approach to that place.
Good post, Father. After 11 years and helping with 4 Missions this is very true. “Events” have brought us basically no one. People just seem to “wander in” and we keep them or we don’t.
“Though some images of the Apostles would envision them as essentially traveling about to spread a piece of information, they rarely traveled alone, thus bringing community with them, and where they went they typically sought out existing communities of believers in which to do their work, even if those communities were still centered on the synagogue and not the church.”
All true. So, is it presumptuous to think that, perhaps, we should view the non-orthodox churches as the new “synagogues” or communities of faith when we consider undertaking evangelism? And, to Fr. Andrew’s point (of strengthening ourselves within first) all the more, will we find ourselves outdone by the quality of community we find outside the Church?
Posing the question…
So, is it presumptuous to think that, perhaps, we should view the non-orthodox churches as the new “synagogues” or communities of faith when we consider undertaking evangelism?
I have no problem with that. I will go wherever I am invited, and I may even try to get myself an invitation.
And, to Fr. Andrew’s point (of strengthening ourselves within first) all the more, will we find ourselves outdone by the quality of community we find outside the Church?
Often, I think this is true, though of course, there are a lot of ways of measuring “quality.” Many Orthodox churches are places where people are serious about loving Christ and each other. Some are less so.
It should be noted that I am not suggesting that strengthening our own communities means that we should become parochial, isolationists, etc. Rather, it means that we should pay attention to our own salvation a lot more than most of us do. We should build the infrastructure well and become not isolationist but assimilationist.
Yes. S-P and I were discussing working on ways to secure such invitations at a local level. Multi-denominational symposiums addressing “questions of the day” was one idea. We’re convinced that, if we can avoid placing hot-button issues like the Theotokos and Icons out in front, that serious non-Orthodox will actually find the Church’s tradition and teaching compelling in the “free marketplace” of Christian dialogue on issues such as human sexuality (a big topic these days), ecclesiology, worship, prayer – etc.
Obviously, there’s some long-term relationships that need to be developed apart from motivations of “objective” evangelism, but acting as community servants, such as helping the poor and attending civic-sponsored prayer-breakfasts and such can help raise the profile of the Orthodox community and its respective leadership. There’s no substitute for hard, servant-like work…
To your comment about being isolationist – it seems to me that many Orthodox, clergy and laity, do in fact keep to themselves and do not seek out the company of non-Orthodox – convert-laden communities included. Each community might need to consider how to dispel this perception.