Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Where's the Beef? (Part 3 of 3)

For many people in our churches today, their whole church life can be compared to a wedding rehearsal. They have learned to say the right things, act the right ways, and dress the part. But at the end of the day, it's only been a rehearsal without a life commitment. Their life has not been changed by Jesus.

I think it is safe to say that pretty much every Bible believing congregation has people in it who match this description. We are calling them the religious lost. In our previous blog we looked at this problem from the perspective of a friend of the religious lost and how we can help them find Christ. Today we are asking what we can do as the spiritual leaders of the religious lost to reach them.

I will answer this broadly, then I will try to answer it specifically. The broad answer to reaching the religious lost is this: keep the Gospel in front of them on a regular basis. The Gospel is the power of God to change a life. Now for the more specific answer: give them the Gospel in ways that they aren't immune to. You say, "How can a lost person be immune to the Gospel?" It's not that they are immune to the message of the Gospel. It's that they can become immune to the way we are presenting the Gospel to them.

Often without realizing it, we as ministers tend to get in a rut when it comes to the way we present the Gospel message to our congregants. Let me again clarify my case. The message Gospel is not the issue I am talking about. It's how we are presenting it that can sometimes be ineffective. Reasons for this vary. Regardless of the reasons or circumstances, I believe we will see change in the responses of our religiously lost congregants to the Gospel message when we package it a little differently than perhaps the way they are used to hearing it.

Here are a few suggestions for consideration.

Part of our broken packaging includes the use of "Christianese" language when presenting the Gospel. Here's an example of a typical Gospel invitation used in churches around the world that is full of what we call Christianese. {Pastor or Preacher} "Perhaps some of you here today know that you are lost and need to be saved. If you would like to repent of your sins and receive Christ, please come to the front...or please pray this prayer with me."

While this approach is no doubt well intended, it - or an approach similar to it - is often the most ineffective. Not because people who are lost don't need to repent and receive Christ, but because they don't know what those words mean. They really don't know what they are signing up for. We tend to use words like lost, sin, saved, and repent as if our people know what we are talking about. Here's the alarming truth: Lost people don't understand what they mean and church people have become immune to them because we've overused them.

Possible Solution: Present the Gospel using everyday language that anyone can easily understand. For instance, if you are going to use the word sin, explain that sin simply means running your own life apart from God. It's living for me and not living for the One who made me for Himself. If you're going to use the word repent, make it clear that this means having a change of mind...a change in the direction of your life. It's not merely a commitment to try to do better or make some life changes. Also, Ron Hutchcraft has found after over 40 years of intentional evangelism, that lost people can grasp the concept of "beginning a relationship with God" as opposed to telling them they need to be saved, be born again or receive Christ. Again, these are words the Bible uses and I am not suggesting that we ignore the Bible. But we must clarify what it is we are asking and urging people to do if we want to see results.

Let me close with a specific example of an approach Ron Hutchcraft suggests, and I personally like to use when presenting the Gospel. This "packaging" has resulted in many religious lost people beginning their personal relationship with Jesus. And we are finding it is because they finally understood what they were being called to do. Very simply, we tell them there's a relationship they were created to have (Colossians 1:16 ). It's a relationship they were made to have but don't have because they've run their own life apart from God (Isaiah 59:2 ). And running your own life has an eternal consequence if we die without this relationship (Romans 6:23 ). But it's a relationship you can have because of what Jesus did for you (1 Peter 3:18 ). And ultimately it's a relationship you must choose to begin (John 3:16 ).

We then explain that the phrase to "believe in him" in John 3:16 is the literal picture of a drowning person reaching up and grabbing onto a rescue swimmer as if they are their only hope. People get the picture and realize that while they've given their best religious efforts to please God, they've never placed all of their hope in Jesus alone to forgive them of their sins and to rescue them from an eternity without God.

I hope and pray that you will take these suggestions into consideration and apply them when God gives you the opportunity to do so. It literally could mean the difference in life or death for the lost religious congregants in your care.