In modern Irish society (speaking primarily from the southern context), church-planting is slow work which
involves long term building of trust and investing in relationships. This is not to say we don't use all sorts of ways to communicate the gospel - from events, to big services, to missions - but, for those who come to
faith, relationships and time are the big factors. It is always a miracle because, in reality, people normally
seem to turn their backs. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the state of the world - there are all sorts of genuine barriers and hurdles that the normal person in the street needs to overcome to simply get to that point of realising they must make a choice to
follow Jesus.
I recently interviewed two people who are committed Christians and two people who are not yet believers to
identify barriers which they think hinder people from joining evangelical churches. One was a backslidden
Christian who had some bad experiences of hypocrisy and sin in the church they attended.
They talked of the perceptions people have of Christians, and how negativethose perceptions can be. Words like
‘Bible bashers' came up. There was a perception that the ‘hard-sell' approach to evangelism can be extremely offensive to many. ‘Christians seem more concerned with
adding someone to their church than about the person themselves.' While this may not always be true, it is still a perception.
One interviewee didn't have a negative view- they simply never knew any Bible-believing evangelical churches
growing up. They had no idea until their late 30s, and while they had positive things to say, they felt there is
a tendency for us to ‘keep our heads down and be a bit coy about our faith and churches'.
Another person spoke of how hard it is for people to discover faith because of lifestyle issues. It may be the
pressure of what family would think; it may be an intense social life; or even simply the busyness of work and personal life, which leaves people with no energy for investigating faith.
For another interviewee it took a number of years of searching. They visited churches for months, slipping
in the back, and leaving quickly before anyone spoke to them. Someone said ‘it can be really intimidating to have an intimate welcome when all you want to do is observe from the back'. Taking the step of visiting a church is very daunting even if you've heard good reports. It is so much easier to look up a website or read a leaflet.
To overcome these sort of barriers, a church-planting strategy must allow people time to observe Christians and
churches, without pressure. We also need to acknowledge that there are huge cultural and historical barriers
for the person on the street even to be talking to an evangelical, Biblebelieving Christian, never mind ‘taking
the step of trusting in Jesus'. In the Republic, at least, most people have probably not even met one. There are also suspicions about cults, Biblebashers, TV evangelists, etc. We have to accept that we are small minority and our approach and strategy should surely, therefore, reflect this, and fill us with humility. Why should people listen to us? Probably the place to begin is on our knees before the Lord in prayer and our strategy should be to look to him for miracles.
Evangelism is also for all believers, not the ‘experts'. The best evangelism happens with people with whom we have some form of natural relationship. Maybe it's the person
next door, or a colleague at work. This is where God has uniquely placed each of us and we need to begin by praying for, and seeking to love, people such as this.
Report by Craig Maiden