WORLDVIEW: Shout or whisper: Whatever it takes to deliver the Good News
RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--"In my day," wheezed the way-over-40 boomer, "the ultimate sound system was a bank of Marshall amplifiers -- cranked all the way up."
That's what Jimi Hendrix used at Woodstock when he woke half of upstate New York with his soaring version of "The Star Spangled Banner." Pete Townshend smashed his amps with his guitar at the end of Who concerts. If you couldn't blow out at least one speaker with feedback in the golden age of rock festivals, you didn't have any business getting on stage.
"Those were the days," grumbled the former hippie, rubbing his wrinkled forehead. "No wonder I'm going deaf."
OK, OK, so I'm the aging boomer. Marshall amplifiers also have become antiques. The car stereos that now shake my house from two blocks away are louder. I get mad when they come rumbling by, just like the neighbors used to get mad (and call the police) when my three-chord garage band kicked out the jams 30 years ago.
Embarrassing middle-aged nostalgia? Sure. But I also remember early Christian rockers like Larry Norman and Phil Keaggy. They helped pull me and a lot of other young rebels away from drug-induced oblivion -- and toward Jesus Christ. We weren't ready to listen to George Beverly Shea, but we listened to them.
In college I played briefly in a Christian rock band. When we appeared at our own church, the pastor's wife -- a great pianist, if you like offertories played in the style of Liberace -- got up and walked out in a huff. She felt we shouldn't be presenting the Gospel at that volume. But we delivered the message loud and clear to lost kids in schools and other places -- kids who wouldn't have dreamed of walking inside a church.
Sometimes God speaks in silence -- or in a still, small voice. Sometimes He speaks through thunder. Whatever it takes to get the attention of the varied people groups who need to hear His voice.
Jesus used different approaches with the rich young ruler, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. The Apostle Paul employed different styles and settings to preach to Jews, Greeks and Romans.
Missions professors have a fancy word for this: contextualization. It essentially means translating the unchanging truth of God not only into the language of the people you hope to reach, but into their culture, experience and worldview as well. Since they will "decode" your message through their view of reality, you need to "encode" it with their reality in mind -- not yours. "At this point true missionary communication begins," explains missiologist David J. Hesselgrave.
A huge case in point: Two-thirds of the world's population belong to primarily oral cultures. That's more than 4 billion people who couldn't adequately comprehend the Bible in their own language if they had it. Of more than 6,000 world languages, most have no written forms. How do you get the gospel to them in a form they will understand -- and pass on?
One exciting answer is "Following Jesus: Making Disciples of Oral Learners," a CD series that shows missionaries how to use Bible "storying" methods to disciple new believers and train church leaders in oral cultures. The material is being developed by a Southern Baptist International Mission Board team in partnership with other Great Commission organizations.
"When we put discipleship and leadership training into stories, we will see an explosion as people keep passing the old, old story from one person to another and from one village to the next," says Avery Willis, IMB overseas chief. "I believe we are sitting on the next wave of gospel advance."
Another example: It is often unwise, and sometimes suicidal, to preach openly in cultures where local believers are violently persecuted. So Christian workers often wait until God leads them to a "person of peace" who will quietly open his or her circle of influence to a carefully tailored witness.
In other places, God sometimes uses direct confrontation.
Brazilian evangelicals traditionally have packed up and left town each year during the drunken Carnaval festivities that turn their cities into round-the-clock party zones. More and more Christians, however, are staying and sharing the Good News right in the middle of the chaos.
"Throughout the Carnaval celebration this year, [our church] had a 'spiritual help' tent in the plaza next to the wild party and played Christian music, distributed tracts (over 14,000 in three days) and handed out cold water and headache medicine," reported Southern Baptist representative Jeff Dunson from one city. Their theme: "Christ: The joy that Carnaval can't provide."
One night some rowdies showed up and declared they were going to "blast the Christians out of the park." They cranked up the sound in their car.
The church's sound man promptly drowned them out with his big sound system. The rowdies then borrowed a truck with large speakers on top and turned up their music again. The church members cut off their sound at that point and began to pray that God would prevail in the situation.
Shortly afterward, the sound system on the truck caught fire. As smoke billowed across the park, the rowdies "took off like scared rabbits," Dunson said.
"The best part was when several non-Christians approached us later and asked if it was true that some guys were messing with the Christians and that God burned up their sound. God worked a miracle, and it was recognized as such in the community!"
Rock on, brothers, rock on.
Learn more about "Following Jesus: Making Disciples of Oral Learners": http://FJseries.org. (BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: PETE TOWNSHEND.
