Christians need to be snoops! Not busy bodies, but always watching what is going on around us.
Our task is to bring the Word of God to a world which, because of the world, the flesh and the devil, does not want to hear. Hope lies only in God who opens eyes and ears. God works divinely, but so often through natural means. One such means involves watching our world.
We need to be watchers of the world into which we bring the gospel message for many reasons, but fundamentally because it is God who has given everyone the circumstances of life such as where they live, who they know, what jobs they do, how long they live so that they might have opportunity to be found by God. (Acts 17:26-28). That is why we look at life's circumstances to see ways God has ordered things so that others might hear.
This sort of thing doesn't come naturally to many people, so we have to work on it. But now it begins to get tricky. What do we watch for? The answer is anything and everything.
People can't be broken up in compartments of life, so anything they do and think affects everything else they do and think. It is made more complicated by the reality that what is done and thought is the outcome of world views that are deeply held but usually only be accessed through actions and comments that are not thought through " yet well over 90% of the people we want to reach do not want to, or without thinking about it, don't give Jesus the place He demands. So we need to watch and learn why, and look for opportunities.
So look for where people go, how they spend their time, with whom they spend time, how long they spend doing things, where they get their information from, what are the things that are uncomfortable and stressful and out of control, and what are the things they think are under control, what defines one group as different to another group, in order to work out what makes them tick. Tim Keller, from Redeemer Presbyterian church in New York has a workbook on church planting which devotes a large section to looking at the suburb you want to reach. A section of his chapter appears in the sidebar, and is a good starting point in watching.
When we get a snapshot of the people we are trying to reach with the gospel we are off to a good start. We then need to ask questions like
"¢ what does this tell me about where this group is heading? In what ways is their thinking changing over time?
"¢ what is appealing in the things they do and believe? Put yourself in their shoes. Unless you can see why people hold on to what they do, you will not understand how to help them move from there.
"¢ what are and why do they have the unthought knee-jerk reactions things? This exposes world views more clearly than most things.
"¢ where has God created a gospel opportunity amongst these people so that they can hear of the salvation in Jesus?
A piece of encouragement: the more you do this, the better you become at it, so keep going.
Next month we will look at a particular example of this. What is it that makes The de Vinci Code so widely read and believed?
