No, not me this time. Elisha and I went back to our old TMC stomping grounds to see Hannah (Elisha's cousin) off. While I've got plenty of family within reasonable driving distance, Hannah is the first one from Elisha's side to be nearby.
Pictures follow...
Paperwork and the soon-to-be-famous ID picture
She's in C-Dub
Strolling the campus with the family
Posing first with her WOW leader, then the proud parents
Elisha and I are expecting! Yes, it's true. We're expecting our adopted daughter to be born any day now. To that end, I've acquired a new TLD, copied some bits and am now proud to present to you...[insert drum roll here]... larsenkids.com. While we realize that we currently have zero kids (if we don't count the ones in heaven), and the first adopted kid will not be finalized for a few months, the domain seemed a better choice than larsenkid.com or larsenhope.com.
Now that I've cleaned up 95% of the comment spam problem with my hand-coded blog engine, I may soon begin blogging here as well.
And they say she looks like Jack!
If you follow my wife's blog, you might think it's our soon-to-be-born-and-adopted girl. However, Henry Mayo, my new nameless niece was born. She missed sharing a May 9th birthday with her mommy by just 71 minutes. Elisha and I have been on Jack duty at Fort Hogan, and the three of us are eager to meet her.
How do you bring the gospel, which is authoritative in its very nature, to someone who rejects any form of authority?
Another difficulty in presenting the gospel lies in the prevalent disdain for authority. This is the third barrier to evangelizing post-moderns.
A mindset of unrestricted autonomy will always be opposed to the gospel message. As soon as you start to speak of the imperatives of the gospel, they will say, "Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me how to live. Don't tell me I'm wrong." Ultimately, it becomes, "Don't tell me I'm in danger. Don't tell me I'm going to hell."
Even if speaking on the behalf of God, when you tell them what they must do, they will not accept you. They will try to dispute every statement. They will suspect some ulterior motive, and they will oppose you.
People who hate authority don't want to be preached to. We're so aware of this as Christians that we talk about befriending non-believers rather than preaching to them. This done instead of befriending non-believers so that we would have opportunity to preach the gospel.
On one hand, it's not difficult to understand why people do not want to be preached to. Preaching offends. It has always offended, and God has always known this. In addition, preaching can be difficult to receive because it is not a dialogue. You sit, and you listen. People don't like this. They don't want to listen, but if they don't listen then they won't be saved.
The gospel speaks to all people, even those who do not want to be told what to do. It tells them what they must do. Acting as a messenger of this authoritative mandate can be difficult.
When we speak out about the gospel, we view it as ultimately the most kind thing we can do. We are bringing light to darkness and offering hope to the hopeless. We are speaking the only truth that can save a person's soul. In spite the good reality of the gospel, it is often perceived as quite the opposite.
One reason the gospel is offensive is because it is opposes today's climate of pluralism. This is the second barrier to evangelizing post-moderns.
Your post-modern coworkers have met all sorts of people of different religions. Their Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish acquaintances have been some of the most kind, sincere and generally pleasant people they have met. There seems to be a mutual respect, and relishing diversity seems altogether reasonable. After all, it seems to have worked for them.
Now we bring the gospel. We explain that there is only one true and living God. We explain that we have all rebelled against God and deserve His punishment. Furthermore, we explain that Christ is the only way to be reconciled to God.
Then they ask, "So do you mean that anyone who doesn't believe in your Jesus is going to hell? You believe that you're right and all other religions are wrong?" Though you might try to say "yes" as gently as you can, the substance of the answer is in a certain sense quite harsh.
Another aspect of this problem of pluralism relates to cultural diversity. Maybe you invite your friend to church. During the course of the sermon, the pastor brings the hammer down on homosexuality and promiscuousness. Your friend finds this offensive and promises to himself never to go to a Christian church again. Why the offense? Your friend knows several homosexuals, and they are nice people. Most of his friends are sexually promiscuous, and they too are nice people.
When we tell someone that all these nice people are, in a sense, on God's bad list, we ourselves seem unkind at best, if not outright hateful.
How do we evangelize people without compromising the truth? Certainly, rounding off the sharp edges of the gospel is not the answer.
How do you evangelize people who have no Biblical knowledge? Furthermore, how do you bring the gospel truths to people who question whether we can really be certain about anything?
Too often I am content to become silent if someone resists the gospel and tells me they are not interested or have some other difficult objection. Some recent reading, listening and discussion has caused me to consider more carefully how I might persist. I don't want their excuses to coddle my own excuses for being tight-lipped.
I've been listening to a series by Gary Hendrix of Grace Reformed Baptist Church which discusses some of the barriers to evangelism with the young adults of my generation. In the next few blog posts, I'll present some of these ideas in a (hopefully) condensed manner.
The first major barrier to evangelism has two parts: Biblical illiteracy and post-modern epistemology.
More and more young people are Biblically illiterate. They know next to nothing of what the Bible says, let alone what it means. With respect to salvation, this is an obvious problem. God designed salvation not merely to be seen or experienced. It involves thinking; it involves knowledge. A person must know who Jesus is so they might put their faith in Him.
More and more people have never attended a Biblical Christian church, and many will not come even if they are invited. They don't know the Bible, and they are not willing to go to church where they might learn the Bible.
The second part of the barrier is a post-modern epistemology. I wasn't familiar with the term, but epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief.
We assume that truth is knowable, and we assume knowledge can be communicated by words. A post-modern mindset challenges these ideas. They question whether truth is really knowable and whether we can be certain about anything. They claim that you cannot be certain what a person means; you have to experience a thing for yourself. In schools, the question is no longer, "What do these words mean?" but "What do these words mean to you?"
In this frame of mind, they often reject all dogmatism and all absolutes. They ask, "What makes you think you have it right, and everyone else has it wrong?"
Even when Bible knowledge is communicated, it is received with a deeply embedded skepticism--skepticism that we can know what the Bible meant and skepticism of the dogmatism of the Bible. Even if they half accept Biblical truths, they cannot understand how we would be willing to stake our own lives on it.