Synagogue Fishing

Paul did his homework, prior to engaging the Athenians; he didn’t waltz in assuming an automatic audience. He studied their culture, their poets, their way of thinking, found a place of commonality, and went from there. He didn’t leave out hard concepts like the Resurrection, but he also didn’t begin there. He started where they were: so afraid of leaving something out that they had made an image to “the unknown god,” just in case!

We need to do like Paul, and start from the page of those we’re trying to reach. In ministering to modern-day Americans, we can make points with the church crowd if we start out by attacking the moral values of the surrounding culture, but we’re not going to connect with the broken people of this age that way. Their minds are on the economy, their messed-up relationships, their loneliness, lack of purpose. Music. Their kids. Sports. Entertainment. I can’t believe many of them go around thinking about how to get forgiveness for their sins. They want help, but “a Savior who died for them” doesn’t compute. This doesn’t mean they don’t need Jesus; it just means they don’t yet know why they might need Him.

The Church needs to listen, then start from where people are, not where we think they should be. The help we offer should be within their reach.

There is still a place for church ministry from the pulpit, but very little evangelism is taking place in sanctuaries in America, anymore. It’s like fishermen waiting back at the house for fish to come find them. Successful fishermen go out. Likewise, successful evangelists. If we reach this generation, we need to haunt the marketplace, because they just aren’t coming to find us, no more than the Gentiles were tracking down the Jews and trying to be converted to Judaism, back then. Sitting in our synagogues is not working. It’s time to go to the marketplace, on purpose, and spend the days there, not marketing the Church like another commodity, but listening to a hurting world, helping them find their place in God’s Kingdom by starting where they are, not where we think they should be.

We don’t all fit in the same spot, but we all fit, somewhere. And whatever we do, we need to approach America as the mission field it is, rather than sitting in our synagogues expecting the world to beat down our door, anytime soon.

Dave Ness

The Bottom Line: We reach people by starting where they are.