I write about the presentation of the Gospel here.
I have been to many churches that have altar calls, or nowadays challenge people to pray at their seats. What seems to be the norm is to follow the script below:
- Preach a sermon that is not really salvation-focused.
- Do not explain to the audience Who God is.
- Do not explain to the audience Who Jesus is.
- Maybe, or maybe not mention that Jesus died on the cross. Do not discuss the atonement.
- Do not tell the audience that God raised Jesus from the dead.
- Tell the audience that religion is bad, and that they do not need religion.
- Tell the audience that they need a personal relationship with God or tell them they need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Offer the audience some sort of emotional comfort if they become a Christian.
- Have the audience repeat a prayer that mentions Jesus, asking Him into their lives.
- Tell the audience if they believed what they prayed, they are born again.
Some of you may say, "They don't do this with the altar call/ sinner's prayer at my church." I hope this is the case. I think a lot of Christian's churches do this, and they aren't paying attention to what the pastor says. I think a lot of these pastors aren't paying attention to what they say, either.
Problems with the Modern Evangelical Approach to Evangelism
1. It leaves out the Gospel.
The problem is that the 'Gospel' presentation above is so different from the Biblical Gospel. Take this example from Paul's writings
I Corinthians 15
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
We see in the apostle's sermons in Acts, that they preached the death of Christ. They preached the Lordship of Christ. The evangelistic sermons pay special attention to the resurrection of Christ.
You can believe Jesus died on the cross without being saved. Caiaphas believed that. The pagan Romans who beat Jesus and saw Him crucified believed that. Those who mocked him on the cross believed that. Believing that He rose from the dead is the controversial topic. And also a quite essential one.
Romans 10:9-10
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
When I was a child, I heard plenty of 'sinner's prayers' based on this verse where the individual confessed Jesus as Lord and that He rose from the dead. It seems like there are a lot of pastors who just follow a religious script they heard from other preachers about religion being bad and needing a relationship, who, if you asked them point blank that someone has to believe that Jesus rose from the dead to be saved, they might say 'yes', but they do not pay attention to the fact that they are not preaching the Gospel.
2. Telling People Not to Be Religious and How 'Personal' Everything is Not Particularly Helpful
American Evangelicals have redefined the word 'religion' in my own lifetime to be something bad. When I was a kid, church people did not have a problem with the word 'religion.' There was an old song, "Give me that old time religion." Then some evangelists started saying that religion is men reaching out to God, but Christianity is God reaching out to men. By the 1990's, I heard a preacher say religion is bad and not to be religious.
The typical unbeliever has no clue what these evangelicals are talking about. If religion is bad, why are they in church?
Then you have all these people out there who don't want to be 'religious'-- so there are people who oppose scheduled prayer times. There are people who do not go to church maybe because they heard that 'all that matters is your personal relationship with Jesus' and they believed this unbiblical message. There are people who call themselves 'not religious but spiritual'. They won't discuss the Gospel with you because "It's personal."
Isn't it a shame when preachers add unnecessary stuff to the Gospel and unbelievers throw it back in our faces.
3. Our Relationship with God is the Result of Our Believing the Gospel
We can have a relationship with God because we believe the Gospel, that Christ died for our sins and that He rose again from the dead. We pass from death unto life. We don't get people saved by telling them they can have a personal relationship with God without preaching the Gospel whereby they can be saved.
4. The Ritual Replaces the Biblical Role of Baptism
In Acts 2, Peter preached about Jesus dying on a tree and being raised from the dead, that He was both Lord and Christ. When his listeners were smitten to the heart and asked what they should do, he told them to repent and be baptized. We see this all throughout Acts. Peter decided the Gentiles at Cornelius house should be baptized. The Samaritans received Philip's message and were baptized. Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. Paul baptized the jailer. Many Corinthians were baptized.
In the Great Commission, Jesus did not say to go into the world and tell the nations to repeat a prayer accepting him. He did want the apostles to preach the Gospel, to baptize the nations, and to teach them what He had commanded. No wonder Peter baptized.
The ritual of repeating a prayer after a preacher came into widespread use through Billy Graham. There was a gradual evolution of evangelistic technique. Finney had the 'anxious seat' and even acknowledged that it occupied a similar role as baptism in the Bible. Why would those who do not believe in infant baptism not just baptize when they get to that point? Other evangelists would have audiences respond by shaking the preacher's hand, fill out cards, or pray with counselors. Billy Graham crusades had counselors. The counselors had a prayer to repeat. Eventually, as the crowds grew, Billy Graham had the audience repeat the prayer after him. Many evangelicals copied this method.
A generation or so later, I actually heard a preacher say, "If you have not prayed that prayer, you are not a Christian." What crazy false doctrine! As if the saints in the early church who lived before repeating a prayer weren't Christians. What started as a tool to help people confess their sin to God while at the same time confessing faith that Jesus is Lord and that He rose from the dead was treated as a ritual that saved. Now, many preachers strip their sermons and sinner's prayers of the Gospel content-- the atonement on the cross, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lordship and Messiahship of Jesus, and have the audience repeat a prayer. The ritual of repeating a prayer after the preacher is treated as the means of salvation.
I have been to many churches that have altar calls, or nowadays challenge people to pray at their seats. What seems to be the norm is to follow the script below:
- Preach a sermon that is not really salvation-focused.
- Do not explain to the audience Who God is.
- Do not explain to the audience Who Jesus is.
- Maybe, or maybe not mention that Jesus died on the cross. Do not discuss the atonement.
- Do not tell the audience that God raised Jesus from the dead.
- Tell the audience that religion is bad, and that they do not need religion.
- Tell the audience that they need a personal relationship with God or tell them they need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Offer the audience some sort of emotional comfort if they become a Christian.
- Have the audience repeat a prayer that mentions Jesus, asking Him into their lives.
- Tell the audience if they believed what they prayed, they are born again.
Some of you may say, "They don't do this with the altar call/ sinner's prayer at my church." I hope this is the case. I think a lot of Christian's churches do this, and they aren't paying attention to what the pastor says. I think a lot of these pastors aren't paying attention to what they say, either.
Problems with the Modern Evangelical Approach to Evangelism
1. It leaves out the Gospel.
The problem is that the 'Gospel' presentation above is so different from the Biblical Gospel. Take this example from Paul's writings
I Corinthians 15
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
We see in the apostle's sermons in Acts, that they preached the death of Christ. They preached the Lordship of Christ. The evangelistic sermons pay special attention to the resurrection of Christ.
You can believe Jesus died on the cross without being saved. Caiaphas believed that. The pagan Romans who beat Jesus and saw Him crucified believed that. Those who mocked him on the cross believed that. Believing that He rose from the dead is the controversial topic. And also a quite essential one.
Romans 10:9-10
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
When I was a child, I heard plenty of 'sinner's prayers' based on this verse where the individual confessed Jesus as Lord and that He rose from the dead. It seems like there are a lot of pastors who just follow a religious script they heard from other preachers about religion being bad and needing a relationship, who, if you asked them point blank that someone has to believe that Jesus rose from the dead to be saved, they might say 'yes', but they do not pay attention to the fact that they are not preaching the Gospel.
2. Telling People Not to Be Religious and How 'Personal' Everything is Not Particularly Helpful
American Evangelicals have redefined the word 'religion' in my own lifetime to be something bad. When I was a kid, church people did not have a problem with the word 'religion.' There was an old song, "Give me that old time religion." Then some evangelists started saying that religion is men reaching out to God, but Christianity is God reaching out to men. By the 1990's, I heard a preacher say religion is bad and not to be religious.
The typical unbeliever has no clue what these evangelicals are talking about. If religion is bad, why are they in church?
Then you have all these people out there who don't want to be 'religious'-- so there are people who oppose scheduled prayer times. There are people who do not go to church maybe because they heard that 'all that matters is your personal relationship with Jesus' and they believed this unbiblical message. There are people who call themselves 'not religious but spiritual'. They won't discuss the Gospel with you because "It's personal."
Isn't it a shame when preachers add unnecessary stuff to the Gospel and unbelievers throw it back in our faces.
3. Our Relationship with God is the Result of Our Believing the Gospel
We can have a relationship with God because we believe the Gospel, that Christ died for our sins and that He rose again from the dead. We pass from death unto life. We don't get people saved by telling them they can have a personal relationship with God without preaching the Gospel whereby they can be saved.
4. The Ritual Replaces the Biblical Role of Baptism
In Acts 2, Peter preached about Jesus dying on a tree and being raised from the dead, that He was both Lord and Christ. When his listeners were smitten to the heart and asked what they should do, he told them to repent and be baptized. We see this all throughout Acts. Peter decided the Gentiles at Cornelius house should be baptized. The Samaritans received Philip's message and were baptized. Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. Paul baptized the jailer. Many Corinthians were baptized.
In the Great Commission, Jesus did not say to go into the world and tell the nations to repeat a prayer accepting him. He did want the apostles to preach the Gospel, to baptize the nations, and to teach them what He had commanded. No wonder Peter baptized.
The ritual of repeating a prayer after a preacher came into widespread use through Billy Graham. There was a gradual evolution of evangelistic technique. Finney had the 'anxious seat' and even acknowledged that it occupied a similar role as baptism in the Bible. Why would those who do not believe in infant baptism not just baptize when they get to that point? Other evangelists would have audiences respond by shaking the preacher's hand, fill out cards, or pray with counselors. Billy Graham crusades had counselors. The counselors had a prayer to repeat. Eventually, as the crowds grew, Billy Graham had the audience repeat the prayer after him. Many evangelicals copied this method.
A generation or so later, I actually heard a preacher say, "If you have not prayed that prayer, you are not a Christian." What crazy false doctrine! As if the saints in the early church who lived before repeating a prayer weren't Christians. What started as a tool to help people confess their sin to God while at the same time confessing faith that Jesus is Lord and that He rose from the dead was treated as a ritual that saved. Now, many preachers strip their sermons and sinner's prayers of the Gospel content-- the atonement on the cross, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lordship and Messiahship of Jesus, and have the audience repeat a prayer. The ritual of repeating a prayer after the preacher is treated as the means of salvation.