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We’re excited to have author, journalist, and Brown University senior (he’s still a senior!) Kevin Roose blogging with us this week. His new book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University is about the semester he spent at Liberty University. We’ll let Kevin take it from here:
BY KEVIN ROOSE
Unlike their counterparts in the secular world, Liberty students don’t spend their spring breaks drinking and cavorting at Señor Frog’s. But that doesn’t mean they don’t head to the beach. During my time at Liberty, I decided to accompany a group of Liberty students on a spring break evangelism trip to Daytona Beach, Florida, where we attempted to convert drunken coeds to Christianity. For a week, we hit the beaches and nightclubs with gospel tracts in hand, hoping to convert the lost. Needless to say, I had some catching up to do.
1) It Can Be Hard to Wrap Your Head around the Concept
I tried to treat Daytona as a weeklong thought experiment. For one, a little mental distance was the only way I could keep myself from feeling like the Grinch Who Stole Spring Break. But more than that, it’s the only way I found to place myself into the moral space of aggressive evangelism, to try to understand how well-intentioned Christian kids– some of the nicest people I’ve met all semester– ended up on street corners in Florida, shouting about hellfire and damnation.
All week, we heard talks like this one from our group leader Scott: “To me, here’s the motivation to evangelize: If I’m a doctor, and I find the cure for a terminal illness, and I care about people, I’m going to spread that cure as widely as possible. If I don’t, people are going to die.”
Leave the comparison in place for a second. If Scott had indeed found the cure to a terminal illness and if this Daytona mission were a vaccination campaign instead of an evangelism crusade, my group members would be acting with an unusually large portion of mercy– much more, certainly, than their friends who spent the break playing Xbox in their sweatpants. And if on this vaccination trip, you came across a terminally ill man who said he was “late for a meeting,” you might let him walk away. But– and I’m really stretching here– if you really believed your syringe held his only hope of survival, and you really cared about him, would you ignore the rules of social propriety and try every convincement method you knew?
Maybe you would or maybe you wouldn’t. It took me a while to realize that that’s where these students were coming from, but for them, the choice was clear: the risk of being loathed and humiliated was far outweighed by the possibility that even one person would see the light.
2. It’s Best to Target the Sober Folks
“Witnessing,” as Christians call one-on-one evangelism, is much easier when the potential convert is sober. I learned this one the hard way. As the nights wore on, and the secular spring breakers got drunker, I started having more and more conversations like this one:
“Excuse me, sir. Would you help me with an opinion poll?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Who is the greatest person you know?”
“Hmm … gayest person I know … I’d have to say Richard Simmons.”
Funny, perhaps, but not exactly productive. My friend Claire and I had an equally strange experience when we decided to approach a Rastafarian-looking guy sitting on the Daytona boardwalk, wearing parachute pants and a green-and-yellow basketball jersey. When Claire asked him about his thoughts on the afterlife (one recommended conversation-starter), the guy said, “Heaven is a state of mind, you know? You ever watch the Matrix? When Neo went to the Oracle, and he’s like ‘Am I the one?’ and she’s like ‘No you’re not, because you don’t know.’ It’s like that. You gotta know, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” Claire responded. The man walked away, and Claire turned to me and said, “I think that man was on drugs.”
3. The New Tricks of the Trade (Gastro-evangelism and the Bait and Switch)
As I learned in Daytona, methods of evangelism vary widely from group to group, and my group of Liberty students was hardly the only Christian presence on spring break. While we were proselytizing outside a nightclub one evening, we ran into another evangelism group, a youth team from a Florida church, who had set up a shaved-ice machine to make sno-cones for the clubgoers, which almost seemed like cheating. (Some Christians call this “gastro-evangelism.”)
Another group, which was affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ, has done something sneakier. A well-funded national organization, Campus Crusade rented the ballroom at a hotel next to a big night club and set up a fake party inside, complete with strobe lights, a security team, attractive models paid to stand outside the hotel and gossip loudly about the great party inside. When would-be clubbers entered the room, they quickly realize they’ve been duped– instead of a bar specials and trance music, they get gospel tracts and a salvation message.
4. Learn to Evangelize like Kirk Cameron!
By far the most effective witnessing technique I learned while in Daytona (and the easiest to put into practice), was the “Way of the Master” evangelism program, which was formulated by a New Zealand-born pastor named Ray Comfort and marketed by Growing Pains actor and evangelical pitchman Kirk Cameron. The Way of the Master is based on a four-question sequence designed to demonstrate systematically to a non-believer that he or she is not, in fact, a good person – that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God:
– “Would you consider yourself to be a good person?”
– “Do you think you’ve kept the Ten Commandments?”
– “If God judged you by the Ten Commandments, would you be innocent or guilty?” (Judgement)
– “If you’re guilty, where do you think you will spend eternity – Heaven or Hell?” (Destiny)
The program even gives you a mnemonic to remember the order of the questions: WDJD (”What Did Jesus Do?”).
5. But Just How Effective is It?
I thought when Scott was teaching us to evangelize that we’d be told to do some sort of follow-up with successful converts, if we had any. But there was no such procedure. If a new believer backslides, Christians are likely to believe that he wasn’t really saved. In the book that accompanied the Way of the Master program, I found several sobering statistics about the percentage of apparent converts that stay involved. Peter Wagner, a seminary professor in California, estimates that only 3-16% of converts at a Christian crusade will stay involved.
Those were good stats for me– they mean that even if I had managed to convert someone with my bad evangelism, there was only a slim chance it would matter in the long run. But the false conversion rate is profoundly depressing if you believe in this stuff.
As we drove away from Daytona and crossed the city limits, I asked my friend Brandon if he thought we made a difference. His response: “I mean, anything can happen when the Lord is involved. But personally, I don’t think us being here was very productive.”
Kevin Roose’s excellent book The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University goes on sale nationally next week, but that shouldn’t stop you from pre-ordering it today! If you missed Kevin’s post from yesterday (on 5 Rules at America’s Holiest University), be sure to check that out here.
Comments (32)
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I’m loving these articles. Can’t wait to read the book!
posted by bedhead on 3-19-2009 at 12:17 pm
That “way of the master” logic is so flawed that it stings. It requires that the non-believer forget for a moment that they don’t believe, and somehow suspend this nonbelief while simultaneously applying the arbitrary judgment of the 10 commandments.
It reminds me of catholic guilt in which you convince everyone they are horrible people, but soften the attack by saying if you admit your a heathen, you are actual not so bad afterall.
Same tactics they use in AA/NA meetings.
posted by eXo on 3-19-2009 at 12:43 pm
I have to agree, this is great stuff. I look forward to reading the book.
posted by wjamny on 3-19-2009 at 12:48 pm
Sounds like an interesting read. A journey into the social aspects of a religion, without the overbearing ham-handed zealotry.
posted by Gauldar on 3-19-2009 at 12:48 pm
1.) the 10 commandments are a lousy way to judge someone a good person or not, the first three have nothing to do with morality, and sometimes the father and mother are unfit to be parents (if all parents were fit to parent, we wouldn’t need CPS).
2.) i am a fairly tolerant individual, but I have no patience for proselytization.
posted by the creature on 3-19-2009 at 12:58 pm
I too am excited to pick this book up! It’s really piqued my interest.
The idea of an evangelism trip to Daytona during Spring break is not only sadistic, but kind of annoying as well. Like the guy who comes to the interpretive dance showcase or the foreign film festival and just rags on it the whole time. Some of us are trying to enjoy our women dancing like birds/Swedish rom-com/drunken sinfest abroad!
Evangelism seems like a worthy cause, but why subject its constituents to such difficult scenarios when there are higher education campuses, libraries and conferences everywhere filled with inquiring minds who will at least listen and most likely take you seriously?
posted by Lynn on 3-19-2009 at 1:16 pm
Roy Comfort has built himself a nice pseudo-empire preaching to the choir. His evangelism is consistently the most bizarre and easily thwarted of the major proselytizing hacks out there.
His four questions skip an important question #2: Do you believe that the 10 Commandments are the definitive guide to being a “Good” person.
Only two types of people would answer “yes”: those who are already converted and those who forget about the creepy isecure neroses such as “Though shalt have no God before me”
Those who would answer “No” are completely immune to the rest of the line of questioning.
And for a real laugh, search for Roy Comfort Kirk Cameron creationism banana.
You’ll find a video in which Comfort tries to refute evolution by pointing out how gosh darn convenient bananas are. Hysterical!
posted by EMStoveken on 3-19-2009 at 1:25 pm
Recaptcha: Scholar Learning! i win?
Lynn they do it because “Christians” seem to think that spring break brings out the worse in people and you can use some total depravity (no one is good) from Calvin to help your cause.
In the end most of it is extremely ineffective, and i say this as a Christian/Pastor.
Some of the best evangelism is done over months to years of relationships. the issue with trips like these is it is no longer about the people it is about numbers.
Instead of being a doctor with a cure to a deadly disease the students are turned into nursing assistants giving flu shots, at best.
posted by Charles on 3-19-2009 at 1:32 pm
Personally, I think evangelism is much more effective if you build a relationship with a person rather than accosting a stranger and telling them they’re going to hell. True Christianity is about a way of life, which non-believers can only see if you take time to show them. Like the article said, very few of the people “converted” on short-term mission trips like that actually make any kind of lasting change in their lives. The only real effect is make Christians look belligerent and insensitive.
posted by Kelsey on 3-19-2009 at 1:32 pm
This book looks fascinating. Can’t wait.
@Lynn: I think it’s because the drunken naked people are the ones who need Jesus the most… or so that the evangelists have some sort of entertainment while being reviled by the masses.
posted by adrienne on 3-19-2009 at 1:34 pm
My beef with the Way of the Master is that it runs counter to standard Christian teachings. The foundation of salvation, last time I checked, was belief in Jesus. He says so himself, “No one comes to the Father but through me.” So question #3 is moot by virtue of Jesus’ very existence. In addition, how many people (including people who attend church regularly) can even name all 10 commandments?
posted by Chris on 3-19-2009 at 1:41 pm
I am a Christian, have been since I was 17 (we won’t go into how long ago that was), and I have to admit we can be pretty wierd. Especially to those who do not believe or even understand the faith (and a LOT of people think they understand God when all they have been exposed to is a church/denomination, which is NOT the same thing). There have been times I myself have been creeped out by someone witnessing to me.
Witnessing is such a difficult task, essentially telling people what they don’t want to hear. And interrupting their lives while telling them. As a Christian I deplore the “Party” technique. To try to win people over to Christianity by lying to them?!?! Wow. I’m pretty sure Jesus never did that!
I don’t think He and His disciples ever waylaid anybody and made them squirm while they exoplained their message, either. They went to the synagogues and marketplaces and explained themselves to crowds who could either walk away or engage them in conversation. Maybe that’s why so many poeple “convert” and then fall away; they weren’t really convinced, they were doing what they had to do to get the crazy Christian to leave.
Anyway, what I really wanted to say was “Thank you,” for these articles. I read the first one (about Jerry Fallwell – a man I have never respected) expecting to read yet another article about how Christians are really all crazy/hateful/hypocritical child molesters who believe the Earth is flat. I have been pleasently surprised to instead read thoughtful articles written by someone who, while he doesn’t agree with them, at least has some respect for the people he is writing about.
Thank you.
posted by Reboot on 3-19-2009 at 1:41 pm
At the Christian college I attended, we were strongly discouraged from doing the “casual evangelism” described here. If we wanted to witness to someone, we had to be willing to get to know them first, become friends, find out how they viewed the world, and see if they were interested in talking about God. If they didn’t want to have that discussion, we were to back off; it was their choice. And if we did make a convert, we were required to follow up with them.
posted by Kessie on 3-19-2009 at 2:24 pm
I, too, am loving these. The doctor metaphor was actually rather eye opening. We had groups occasionally come to campus (U of Delaware, a large, very secular public university) and stand on the street corners preaching and trying to give out pamphlets. Some of them angered me so much (I don’t particularly enjoy being told what to think about certain controversial issues while I’m on my way to my 9am class, thanks), but the doctor metaphor does kind of put it in perspective. I still don’t believe in that sort of thing in the slightest, and I’m sure I’d still be offended if I encountered a group like that again, but it’s always interesting to see things from the other side.
posted by Kate on 3-19-2009 at 2:27 pm
Who was it who said, “Just because I’m on a different road doesn’t mean I’m lost.” Evangelism is only going to be effective with those who WANT to believe as you do.
posted by Judy on 3-19-2009 at 2:39 pm
I think that even if they didnt convert anyone at least they told the message. Sometimes people have to hear the message for years and years before they convert (if they ever do). I would say that it was a success just to have someone hear the message for the first time.
posted by Becca on 3-19-2009 at 2:50 pm
Interesting stuff… did need to take a moment (in reply to ExO) and say I’ve never seen this type of tactic at any of the AA meeting I go to…
posted by Wes on 3-19-2009 at 3:39 pm
Hey Chris!! Here they are (paraphrased)…in order…no peeking. And all of the 4, 5 and 6 year olds in my class (and all of my classes for the last 13 years) at church can say them too.
1. Have no other gods before Me.
2. Make no graven images.
3. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Don’t kill
7. Don’t commit adultery
8. Don’t steal
9. Don’t lie
10. Don’t covet.
And to “the creature,” whether or not your parents are fit to be parents should not preclude you from honoring them. Even if they suck…they gave you life. Sometimes we can honor our parents only by praying that they find God themselves.
I’ve not heard the vaccine metaphor. I always liken it to a blood transfusion. You’re sick and you’re going to die. The doc says the only thing that will save you is a blood transfusion. You can accept it and live, or decline and die…it’s your choice. Obviously the blood is the blood of Christ, and the illness is sin. And BTW… not believing that you’ll die if you don’t receive the transfusion, doesn’t make it any less true.
posted by Heather Dawn on 3-19-2009 at 4:23 pm
I spent two years as a missionary. The experiences you describe are very, very familiar to me. It’s comforting to see that, regardless of your denomination, your reception is similiar.
The hardest part about “witnessing” (to use your word), is to not argue. If you can’t have a polite, open conversation, you won’t get anywhere – move on.
As AA was referenced earlier, I’ll continue the comparison – Just like AA, Christianity works best on principles of attraction, and not compulsion.
posted by Holger Dansker on 3-19-2009 at 4:28 pm
Heather, it makes it less true if you believe in another religion. Every sect thinks theirs is the one truth.
posted by A Dean on 3-19-2009 at 5:07 pm
ah.. this brings back unpleasant memories. something about my demeanor apparently screams “person going to hell”, i get witnessed at all the time. even once when i was able to pull a bible out (from the center console in my car) to show them that i’m not “damned”
i hate god propaganda…
posted by tami on 3-19-2009 at 5:45 pm
There is a video by Penn Gillette that you can find on youtube that has an interesting perspective. Penn (of Penn & Teller) is a very outspoken atheist. After one show, someone who he had all up on the stage as part of a trick the previous night gave him a New Testament. His reaction is basically, if you believe that there is an afterlife, and that you know the way to get there, you would have to hate somebody to not try to proselytize them.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 3-19-2009 at 5:49 pm
This is what I don’t get about witnessing…Jesus didn’t chase people down and guilt or scare them into following him. He preached and people either stopped and listened or they didn’t. And of the people who stopped and listened, they either decided to believe or they didn’t. End of story. It seems to be a case of casting your pearls before swine…which Jesus outright told you not to do.
posted by Sarah Marie on 3-19-2009 at 8:53 pm
I have been a Baptist my entire life, so I’m quite familiar with “spreading the good news” and all. However, the manner in which people spread the good news seems to be open to interpretation. Good grief, I get a little weirded out when complete strangers walk up to me and start to witness, so I can’t imagine what that experience is like for someone who is not already a believer. I’m concerned that the random, more aggressive styles of witnessing may have the effect of turning people off to Christianity for good.
I agree with some of the other posters that witnessing is more effective when an interpersonal relationship has already been developed, and the other person is at least open to listening to what you have to say. Then, they can choose to accept or reject this. In the end, the friendship should not be conditional on whether they become believers.
Oh, and I can’t stand it when scare tactics are used, especially on kids. I was on the receiving end of one of these lectures on burning in Hell for all eternity when I was about 8-9 years old. Despite having already been “saved” a year or so earlier, this experienced caused me to panic that perhaps I missed a step somewhere in the whole salvation process. Though my parents assured me that it was rather difficult to skip a step, I think I ended up going through the entire process all over again at least a half a dozen times, just to be certain.
I must have missed that Bible story about the time Jesus sat all the little children down and scared the crap out of them.
posted by Melissa on 3-19-2009 at 10:04 pm
The best way to proselytize (no matter what your beliefs) is to live your life honestly according those beliefs. If your message is worth spreading, you can spread it best by your actions and example.
posted by gibson8or on 3-19-2009 at 10:42 pm
I have always found it interesting that a nonbeliever is often unwilling to subject themselves to the high standards that they place upon Christians. Should a Christian slip up (which we all do – Jesus told us that we do and his blood sacrifice paid the price so that these “slipups” would not be counted against us), many times they are immediately attacked for not constantly living a perfect life. Jesus told us that nothing we do or how we live can earn us the kingdom of heaven. It is only through Him and through the cross that we are washed of our sins and can enter into God’s presence cleansed of all our sins. If someone truly believes and lets Christ live through him or her, the way they live and the actions they take will speak of goodness of God. However, selfish and sinful people used and still use Christianity as a tool for their personal and worldly gain. To return to my original point, I have met some very wonderful atheists and some very selfish “Christians”. I just ask that everyone be willing to be measured with the same ruler that he or she measures others with. As Jesus said: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
posted by Bluejay on 3-20-2009 at 1:18 am
Those kinds of evangelism don’t work and are a waste of time. People get turned off when it’s thrown at them and when they’re duped into it. Instead of walking into a phony club and being curious, they’re gonna be pissed. Tracts are meaningless. If you’re gonna make disciples, do it like Jesus did: by having a relationship with people and living a life acceptable to God. Not by killing trees for dumb tracts or shouting about how people are bad and sinful. Make friends, not enemies.
posted by Cory on 3-20-2009 at 1:54 am
I had a coworker who would call me into his office for cookies in the afternoon. Then one day he called me in and gave me religious tracts instead. Now I know there is an official name for the practice! Geez, I’m living in West Africa and the locals are trying to convert me. The irony!
posted by amanda on 3-20-2009 at 7:25 am
I really appreciate your transparency in this posting, Kevin. I am founder and host of a street-level outreach radio and TV program in Canada called “The Cross Current” and our team also equips churches to be Christ’s witnesses using law/grace evangelism. I was schooled in several US cities under WOTM and it definitely “works” because I believe it’s biblical – and the Bible “works”:). Having met both Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, it’s been my experience that they are very humble followers of Christ who have simply contemporized the same law/grace witness we see in the ministries of preachers such as Spurgeon, Wesley and Whitfield, and in Scripture. Ray’s teaching and ministry have been a tremendous blessing to me. His reformed emphasis on relying on the Word of God and not pragmatic/gimmicky outreach ideas has revolutionized my own personal life and witness. I had served for many years as a pastor and God convicted me BIG TIME about teaching/preaching sermons and running evangelism but never personally sharing my faith! I, too, would say things like “you need to have a relationship with the person first” or “preaching hell at people doesn’t ‘work’”, but the truth was that I had no idea what I was talking about. A quick read of the book of Acts (our template for Church life and witness) convinced me that Christ is just calling us to be faithful to share the Good News everyday, everywhere, with everyone…family and friends? Yes! Strangers? Yes! Simply “every creature” (Mk. 16:15).
Over the past couple years, our team has shared the Gospel with thousands of people – including family and friends using law/grace. It amazes me every time how you can freely share tough terms like sin, judgment, wrath, and hell as long as you share the biblical Gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-11) in grace and truth. In fact, it’s been our experience with the more intellectual (academic) types, that if we fail to first biblically identify them with Christ’s death on the Cross using these types of terms with palatable illustrations, then they cleverly accuse God of “cosmic child abuse”! Why? Because sharing a message of God’s amazing love apart from their sin God’s awesome wrath just doesn’t make sense!
Anyhow, I would encourage anyone who is reading this to visit our blog at http://www.thecrosscurrent.com/blog to experience more recorded encounters and more praise reports of God’s faithfulness when we simply open His Word and share His Gospel in love, grace, and truth.
PS: Keep sowing and water that seed, bro!
For His Glory,
Cory M.
posted by The Cross Current on 3-20-2009 at 9:20 am
I lived in Denver CO for about 10 years, in the 70’s We had members of the (I won’t mention the name) Baptist Church CONSTANTLY trying to get us to attend. They once had a contest where children were encouraged to invite others to attend services. They kept a record of how many each kid invited and at the end of the contest, the winner got to throw a creme pie in the bus driver’s face!
Now THAT’S evangelism!
or maybe
Carnival evangelism?
posted by Leroy on 3-20-2009 at 9:29 am
First of all God Bless you all.
As I am going through some of this comments, some say ” people get mad when they are told they are going to hell.” This is what many “christians” are afraid of doing, telling the truth.
Hell is real and people are just sugarcoating everything and keeping it lovely, we are giving people what they want to hear not what they should hear. Jesus told us to go out to the nations and preach the gospel, he came to help the sinners not the rightous ones. The one’s in the alley ways shooting up drugs, the ones coming in/out the night clubs, homeless. These are the lost souls, that need to hear about Jesus Christ & Salvation. People who are hurting need that person who is brave and will go out and preach the good news to those who are in need. Is not about trying to convert somebody right away or shoving your beliefs down anyone’s throat, it’s about the seed you plant in their lifes. After all you are sharing the Gospel Jesus left for us to share, at the end it is the persons choice to believe, accept, and follow. Jesus is the way, truth & life. ( If we don’t do it who else will? ) Don’t let the enemy convince you that sharing and going out to spread the word of God, or handing out tracts, is “dumb, or a bad way to reach non-believers. Let the Holy Spirit Guide you and Do the will Of the Father always. (JOHN 3:16)God Be With You All.
posted by Jimenez on 8-10-2009 at 2:04 am
” Freely you have received, freely give ” (Matthew 10:8)
“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
( Jeremiah 3:15 KJV)
Life in the way of “Jesus Christ”
Hi God bless you dear Friends
Me Ravi Daniel from Faisalabad Pakistan .
Dear brothers we have a big security team in Pakistan and my Father is a
In-charge of security team .
We Invite you that you come in Pakistan city Faisalabad and organized your crusade and all your activity about life in “Jesus Christ” .Give chance see our work in Pakistan.
And we provide all type of security and all type of things .
We are waiting your reply.
Jesus give you a way Please pick a way and work in Jesus Christ.
Thanks
God help you every time
Pakistan needs Jesus and it was among the Christian that I found air I could breathe and peace that was real.
posted by Ravi Daniel on 11-13-2009 at 12:23 am