I AM AWED AND INSPIRED BY THE SPIRIT THAT was at work in the Apostle
Paul. He was so much in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, with the gospel
and with his own Jewish people that he could say, "If it were
possible for me to go to hell that Israel
might be saved, I would be prepared to do
that.”
I
believe that, in our generation, there must arise young African American
men and women with that kind of intensity—committed Christians who are
so in love with Jesus and with African American people that they'd say,
"If my going to hell could lead to the salvation of my people, I am
prepared to go." Now is the time for African American Christians in
this country to rise up and take their rightful place in the body of
Jesus Christ—to open up and receive all that God intends for us to
have as a people.
I
also believe, however, that it's crucial to go to any people in the
right spirit of evangelism. But before we consider what that means, we
must examine a more basic question: Why has evangelism to African
Americans been largely ignored in
America
?
MISS
LIBERTY
TURNED
HER BACK
I
must place my statements in an historical context.
America
, we must recall, was founded to be a
haven, a place of refuge for people who were escaping all sorts of
oppression in other parts of the world. Miss Liberty stands in
New York
harbor as a glaring, testimony to the
commitment of America
's early fathers to be available to those
people seeking freedom from religious and political oppression. She
stands there as a promise that America is a land where these people
would be offered hope.
But
what remains unnoticed—as Miss Liberty has stood there in New York
harbor, facing towards
Europe
, welcoming all those European immigrants
who came to
America
seeking refuge—to this day, her back is
conspicuously turned to
Harlem
. Her promises apparently have not
included certain people who were already here, whose backs were broken
to build this new world.
Now
these people—not immigrants, but slaves—brought the man-muscle
energy that fueled
America
's Industrial Revolution. While white
immigrants from Europe were moving into northern port cities, slaves
from Africa were being sold in the South, to develop cotton fiber. It
was this all-important fiber that was shipped to those northern ports to
be finished off and exported to Europe. This system allowed a balance of
trade to develop that would make
America
a great economic power.
You
may well say, "That's history. What's that got to do with winning
African American people to Christ today?"
Everything!
Because we must understand how we came to the position we are in today
if we are to escape it.
The
fourth and fifth generations of those European immigrants who built the
northern cities began to accumulate wealth and power. But the
descendents of the slaves did not. And as African Americans migrated
north, the wealthier whites moved out to the suburbs and the country,
leaving behind the urban ghetto.
It's
urgent that we understand what happened to the churches of these cities
as whites moved out.
THE
SHIFT FROM URBAN TO SUBURBAN
Earlier in this century, we still had in our cities what was known as
the parish church. By definition it was simply a church that ministered
to a defined community. Its leaders chose a community where they would
locate to exalt Jesus and to meet the needs of the people. The
parishioners lived in the surrounding community, and thus they walked to
these places of worship.
But
slowly, as the century progresses—just as African Americans were
migrating from the South—whites were beginning to move farther and
farther out from the center city. Integration began to be defined as
that period of time between when the African American family moved into
this city and the last white family moved out.
Still,
for several decades, suburbanites continued to use the old places of
worship. They would drive from suburban communities into the downtown
neighborhoods they’d left, to worship on Sunday morning. Now they
needed a parking lot, and so it was appropriated in the church budget to
build around the church building a parking lot that would accommodate
the people who were now driving great to worship on Sunday.
And
when the service was over, there would be the announcement:
“Immediately following this morning’s service we will retire to the
fellowship hall for a time of fellowship”—which meant tea, coffee
and cookies. Then immediately after that, everyone moved into the
parking lot and began to drive out—with no contact at all with the new
residents of the neighborhood.
And
the people who had moved into the old neighborhood never saw the
commuters because they were still asleep when the commuters drove in to
worship, and they were just rising when they left. There was no
relationship between them.
Now,
if this downtown church was a wealthy church, it was able to hire a
special staff whose ministry during the week was to try to do something
to reach these people in the surrounding neighborhood. But the church
itself had no relationship and no contact.
Finally,
everyone decided it was too inconvenient and too expensive to be driving
back and forth. “Why not build a worship sanctuary in the
neighborhoods where we are?” Thus the churches packed and left,
leaving avoid as far as the witness of the Christian church to the
inner-city. Eventually, the city would become a symbol of abandonment,
guilt—a “problem.”
EVANGELISM
AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS—A CRACK IN OUR LEGACY
In the meantime, among those people migrating into northern cities were
my own parents who, during World War II, came up from
Greenville
,
South Carolina
, and settled in
Harlem
. They discovered that the patterns of
segregation were not that different from the south, and they were faced
with enormous problems in adjusting to these urban centers. As
Christians, the question for them and many others became: “What of the
Christian witness in our cities?”
Not
that our community was devoid of churches. We had them. But somehow the
issue of evangelism—that is, reaching out and declaring the Good News
in word and deed so as to influence people to put their absolute trust
in the person of Jesus Christ—was gone.
In
African America, we were not devoid of churches, and we were not devoid
of preaching, but we were weak on spiritual witness—this throwing out
of the net, this calling people forth to a personal encounter and
relationship with Jesus Christ. Evangelism was occasional,
not permanent among us.
In
fact, the gift of the evangelist was not widely known or understood. Or
else it was somewhat distrusted. Generally, all preaching was done by
pastors, and then only gift we knew was the gift of the pastor. When I
was growing up, whenever we had what might have been termed
“evangelistic campaigns”, it required that my father—who was
a pastor—send for another pastor
from another city to preach that meeting. The reason for this was that
evangelists were thought of as sheep stealers. They were men who came to
town, pitched a tent, stole people from the churches and started their
own church.
Anybody
who was called an evangelist was suspect and not to be trusted. So the
gift of the evangelist did not thrive and develop among us. And even as
you examine great preaching which came from the African American
minister—who is the great preacher symbol of our time—there is one
crack in our legacy. That crack was always the ability, after a
magnificent preaching, to cast the net out and call people home to the
person of Jesus Christ.
Rather,
we opened the doors of the church. We called people to membership in the
institution, but we had difficulty calling people to Jesus.
ON
THE OTHER HAND…
Meanwhile, our white brothers and sisters ensured that from the cradle
to the grave, the gospel would be heard by their children. Along with
strong, local churches, they developed parachurch
ministries.
Child
Evangelism grabbed those young
white kids when they were preschoolers and evangelized them. When they
got to school, they had Bible
Clubs. In high school they had Young
Life and Youth for Christ.
When they got to college, Campus
Crusade, InterVarsity or the Navigators
picked them up. After college, they were grabbed by Women's
Aglow,
the Christian Businessmen's
Committee, or the Full Gospel
Businessmen's Fellowship or the
Executive
Christian
Ministries
.
But—do
you know that I went through
Harlem
looking for these groups? And I went
through the south side of
Chicago
, through the hill district of
Pittsburgh, through the south side of
Philadelphia
, and I went to
Watts
to see if I could locate these
ministries. And they were nowhere
to be found!
Now
I know a lot Of African, American Christians who get mad at these
organizations for not reaching out to our people. But I don’t hold
this them failure against them. They were doing what they were supposed
to do—reaching their
generation and their people
with the gospel. It just didn't include us.
What
is sadder, from my viewpoint, is that some young African American
evangelists have come along—but they felt the only way they could have
credentials and authentically do the work of evangelism was to hope that
some of those white agencies would hire them. And they never saw that they
could reach their own people with the claims of Christ.
And
so, my brothers and sisters, there's a lot of catching up to be done in
our generation if the truth of the gospel and the kingdom is going to
become alive for our people.
FILLED
WITH THE SPIRIT
What is the work of
evangelism that we have to be about? Who is going to do evangelism among
the African American community? Who are the people who are going to
spread the Good News concerning Jesus Christ in such a way—by word and
by deed—so as to influence more of our people to put their absolute
trust in the person of Jesus Christ?
Scripture
makes it very clear that all of us are called to the work of evangelism.
All of us are called to have a passion for the lost. But who are
evangelists—the called ones? By what signs will we recognize them?
I
suggest to you, first of all, that effective evangelism requires that a
person be filled with the Spirit.
There
is a lot of discussion, even debate in some circles about this and about
what the manifestation of the fullness of the Spirit would look like. I
won’t enter that debate here, but when I read scripture, the Bible
tells me that an evidence of the Spirit’s fullness is this: “They
spoke the word of God with boldness.” (Acts
4:31
)
Whenever
people were filled with the Spirit they were fearless in their
proclamation of the Good News. And whenever they were filled with the
Spirit, others immediately identified them with Jesus. In fact, it
became unmistakable when a person is filled with the Spirit that there
is a relationship between
them and Jesus.
This
was true of the apostles—and it was mind-blowing to the Jewish leaders
to witness the spirit of the apostles because they thought they had
gotten rid of Jesus. They’d nailed him to a cross, buried him in a
tomb, and rolled a stone over his grave. They were sure Jesus was dead.
But
suddenly they were confronted by a new, bold Peter—and they saw Jesus.
They looked at John, and they saw Jesus. They looked at the other
disciples, and they saw Jesus.
Our
greatest argument for the resurrection of Christ is not our ability to
argue it from an exegetical point of view. No, it is that the world
should look at us and say, “These people have been with Jesus.”
Today,
if you’re going to do the work of the evangelist, your first
qualification should be that you have been with Him.
GIFTS
OR FRUITS?
I hasten to add that there is a distinction between the fruit
of the Spirit and the gifts
of the Spirit. We need also to understand this as it pertains to the
evangelist.
Quite
often we become enamored with gifted people. And we often assume that
because they are gifted, that they are also spiritual. We say, “Wow,
that sister can really sing. She’s a great woman of God!” But the
fact that she can sing does not make her a woman of God. We say, “Boy,
that brother can preach!” He is not a man of God because
he can preach. The Bible says God gives gifts as he pleases.
For
28 years, I have been preaching the gospel on every continent. I am
gifted to preach. But I recognize it is a gift from God. It has nothing
to do with me. If you judge my spirituality by my preaching, I will snow
you—because there is no
relationship between my gift to preach and my spirituality.
If
you want to find out whether I am a spiritual person, if you want to
find out whether I am filled with the Spirit, you have to wait until I
finish preaching and hang out with me.
The
fullness of the Spirit is not a state of perfection; it is a state of
surrender. It is not a state of sinlessness; it is a state of
abandonment to Jesus Christ—when a person simply says, “I renounce
all rights to myself and I give Jesus the right to do with me whatever
he pleases.”
NEEDED:
A MATURE MESSAGE
What is the content of the evangelist’s message? Let me suggest that
at the basis of the Good News lies the matter of sin. People are not
sinners because they sin.
We
say, “We need to get out there and evangelize our African American
communities because there’s so much alcoholism.” But I’ve got some
upsetting news for you. There are professionals who don’t know Jesus
who are curing people of alcoholism better than some of us Christians.
And
we say, “We need to get the message out to our African American
communities because there is so much drug addition.”
It’s
true, alcoholics and drug addicts need Christ—but they don’t need
Christ because they’re drug addicts. People are not sinners because
they commit sins. Sin is the
absence of the life of Jesus; sin is the failure to put one’s absolute
trust in the Lordship and the authority of Jesus. Sin is unbelief.
It only shows its results as alcoholism, drug addiction, stealing,
murder and so on.
This
point is crucial when it comes to evangelism—because what are you
going to do with the people who don't commit overt, ugly identifiable
“sins”? Who don’t snort coke, fornicate, or go to pornographic
movies?
The
message we convey to "good” people is that they don’t need
Jesus because they don’t do those terrible things any more.
It
has become clear to me why most Christians are always having an
up-and-down spiritual life. It is our failure to preach a mature
evangelistic message.
A
TWO STAGE GOSPEL
You
see, there is a two-stage gospel preached in
America
.
Stage
one: You accept Jesus as your personal Savior. You collect fire
insurance; you get a passport to heaven, along with the guarantee that
if you die you won't go to hell.
Second
stage: Sometime after that—a week, a year, or 20 years later—you go
to a "Deeper Life Conference" and really get into Jesus.
Now
the problem is that you don't see that pattern in scripture. The
apostles preached, "If you will confess with your mouth and believe
in your heart the Lord Jesus” (not Jesus as personal Savior, but the Lord
Jesus) "that God hath raised him from the dead, you will be
saved." In other words, they made it very clear at the outset that
salvation means abandoning yourself to the Lord of a new kingdom. One
who demands total abandonment of all that you are and all that you have
to him. That was the evangel.
Tell
the truth, you Christian leaders who are reading this, don't you watch
too many people go up and down, up and down? They come to dedicate
themselves—and rededicate, and re-rededicate,
and re-re-rededicate
themselves. They never enter in.
The
problem is, these well-meaning people never heard at the outset the
truth: You can’t be a
Christian. You can’t live the Christian life. You have no capability
to be what God wants you to be.
But
the Good News is that God, in Christ, has borne on his own body your
sin. He alone has all power given unto him. He alone is able to be
himself in you.
AFRAID
OF "WORLDLINESS"
Where does that get preached? Historically, we have stood on the
doorsteps of the church and waved people in to hear our preachers. We
have invited people to come to our revival meetings and our evangelistic
meetings—in church.
The
most wonderful testimonies I’ve ever heard were in church. And I often
wondered, wouldn’t it be wonderful if somebody could hear that
testimony at the 21 Club? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that mighty
message could be preached down in the red light district outside a house
of prostitution? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that testimony could be
given in the local beer joint?
But
you see, we restrict evangelism. The fact is, we haven't allowed it to
burst out of the four walls of our church. We are limited by this thing
called worldliness, because we don't want to go to the places of the
world.
Historically,
we Christians have been afraid of the world. Maybe it is the false
interpretation of all those scriptures we were quoted. "Come out
from among them." "Be separate from them and touch not the
unclean thing."
What
the Bible is talking about is to come
out in your conversation, come out in the way you walk, come out in the
way you live, come out in your conduct. But you have to physically
be in the world.
When
the first deacons were chosen in the Bible, the apostles said,
"Look among you and find seven men filled with the Holy Ghost and
of good report in the community”
(Acts 6:3). In other words, they were to be men filled with the Spirit,
of whom the neighbors say, "These
men have been with Jesus."
MONEY
FOR EVANGELISM
Finally, if African American people are going to reach African American
people, where is the money going to come from?
Part
of what has created such tremendous jealousy and conflict among African
American Christians who want to do evangelism is competition for this
thing called the dollar. The
perception is this: There is only a small group of "enlightened”
white Christians who are willing to give some of their money to support
African American evangelism.
Now
here’s what happens. In order to get that small pot, I must appear to
be the only one who is really
doing the job. So when somebody asks me about the evangelistic ministry
of so-and-so, I say, "Well, you know, he’s a good brother, but
... He doesn't have a real high view of Scripture." Or I say,
"He’s a nice brother—talented and gifted and everything. But we
should pray for him."
I
say it is time that we free ourselves from this nonsense. We are called
to reach our generation. We have
to pay for it.
Can
I talk to you about something? African Americans last year drank $2.1
billion worth of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. African Americans last year spent
$653 million on candy bars. Candy
bars! African Americans last year spent $2.8 billion on domestic
beer—not counting imported beers, just domestic.
We
have gone too long with this nonsense that African Americans don’t
have the money and we can't fund ourselves. We do
have it.
EVANGELISM
IS WARFARE
Finally, an exhortation. Be strong in the Lord, because evangelism is a
warfare! You must equip yourself in the Spirit to tread on Satan’s
territory and stand there in the name of Jesus.
Paul
said, "Because there’s going to be a fight, put on the whole
armor, put on the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of
righteousness—which is the character of Jesus."
We
are not putting on armor to fight each other—the armor is for our
warfare in the world. There are going to be discouragements. But if you
have a passion for the lost, a passion to see people won to Jesus no
matter what the setbacks, then don't give up! If you put the armor on,
and if you stay faithful, and if you love Jesus, your message will break
through the darkness!
Tom Skinner
©
1989 BridgeBuilder. This is a reprint of an article originally featured
in BridgeBuilder Magazine, published in Washington, DC.
