Creating a Culture for Discipling Skeptics

ReThinking Witness: Creating a Culture for Discipling Skeptics

Lindy Lowry

by Beau Crosetto and James Choung

When it comes to discipling skeptics and seekers, we’ve found that it’s easier for believers to get involved in evangelism when you have an evangelistic community that supports their endeavors. Not only that, they’ll also be more effective. To do that, you need to address the culture of your faith community. How would you change a church culture so that it supported discipling of skeptics and seekers? Here’s a summary of five (download our new eBook,  Discipling Skeptics and Seekers, for the full text) of six rhythms that can help:
1. Pray regularly for God’s leading.
In my (James) younger days, I might have led a list like this with “cast compelling vision” for proactive evangelism. But I’m older, and at least trying to be a bit wiser. After almost two decades of ministry, I’ve learned that a community can have some momentum by casting, as an early mentor of mine used to say, an “attractive picture of an attainable reality.” But something else happens altogether when people hear God’s leading for themselves.
Years ago, I was part of a campus ministry that was dead set against sharing their faith. Leaders actually said words like, “If I wanted to do evangelism, I would’ve joined Crusade.” Ouch.
To become a witnessing community, the culture needed to shift. We had some early wins, when a handful of passionate staff workers pioneered evangelistic activity with a willing few. Their work began to bear fruit. But still, the vast majority of the students were against our changes to the ministry toward evangelism. Even though we were producing some great fruit, we were also alienating our own community.

It was becoming clear that running with our own ideas without their ownership wasn’t building any more trust and momentum, and was actually creating resistance.

We were stuck.
We had to change course. Instead of merely pressing our agenda, we started to teach people how to hear God’s voice. Then, we created spaces in our student leadership meetings for them to hear God for themselves. Sometimes, we’d just put out an open microphone on a stand for people to share what they heard from God, though we made sure to correct people that we thought were out of line. Other times, we prayerfully worked through an issue affecting our community. We did this every week with our student leaders.
For six months.
But through this process, God uncovered past hurts and broken trust, particularly between the staff and students. Reconciliation started to spring up, and an excitement for those who weren’t in our fellowship began to grow and flourish. After those six months, the student leaders—all 70 of them—were unanimously ready to move forward together as an evangelistic community.

They heard God, and it changed their hearts. In this way, one word from God is worth a thousand sermons.

We can’t just drum up momentum on our own. We need God’s Spirit to breathe life into our hearts and communities over and over again. Especially in the work of evangelism, we will face great opposition—cultural and spiritual. We can’t just work harder in this area. We need God to speak and move.
2. Teach regularly on God’s heart for the lost.
In our culture, evangelism is one of the most offensive things you can do. We’ll have every good reason lined up on why we shouldn’t engage the people around us with our faith. Who wants to be a part of the religious freak show, right? It’s normal to feel that way.

But that’s precisely why we need strong teaching to remind us that God always cares for those who are lost. A God like that isn’t normal, and we need to be reminded to be a bit abnormal in today’s day and age.

When I took a class with Dallas Willard, I remember him saying, “The validity of a religion will be based upon the amount of blessing it brings to its outsiders.” In our world, the veracity of our message is written on the actions of our churches. And if we have a church that keeps engaging those who are on the outside in winsome, humble ways, that will continue to speak volumes.
So make sure you keep talking about it. Otherwise, the arc of church tends to bend back on ourselves, and we get consumed with our own needs or our own agendas, rather than being a church that welcomes those on the outside.
3. Model being a witness
Another way to shape our community’s culture is through living out a witnessing life. Our actions shape culture far more than our words. If our actions don’t line up with our words, then we create a gap in trust. And no one will risk for leaders they don’t trust.
So after you’ve taught on God’s heart for skeptics and seekers, think of ways you can be intentional to connect with skeptics and seekers around you. Throw a block party? Invite your co-worker out to lunch or for coffee? Do an activity with one of your neighbors? What if you spent at least one meal a week with someone who didn’t know Jesus? As a leader in a faith community, your actions will speak volumes. If you’re not doing it, how can you expect the ones that take your lead to do the same? Find ways to take the next loving step. Living out God’s heart for the lost will preach more loudly than what you say, and will have more impact on your faith community.
4. Don’t hide your failures.
Don’t just talk about your successes, though. You may be an evangelistic wunderkind, but the folks who follow you will find you a bit unreachable or untouchable.

You don’t want people to be impressed with your life; you want them to imitate your life.

So create the kind of community where risks and failures aren’t judged or merely tolerated. Create one where they are celebrated. Don’t just show them your successes; show them your failures.
Our church, Vineyard Undergound in Los Angeles, goes out of our way to talk about our failures. John Wimber used to often say, “Faith is spelled, ‘R-I-S-K.’” We should be intentional to show people the risks that we take and how we bomb them. And then we show folks how we get back on our feet. We find that after all that, it may have hurt and we might be emotionally bruised. But we’re still breathing. It lets people know that it’s okay to fail, but it’s not okay to just sit in their seats.
I remember last Labor Day how my wife and I just fell on our faces with our neighbors. We asked them if they wanted to study the Bible with us, and they couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
When I came back to our church community, I made sure to tell the story. I showed them how it didn’t go well. I asked them to pray for that couple. And in it, faith rose. Because if someone like you can mess it up, then it may give someone who respects you the freedom to whiff it, too. And in the risk, faith blossoms.
5. Share stories regularly.
This last one might be obvious, but stories shape a culture. So tell lots of them, particularly about attempts to talk about Jesus with skeptics and seekers. And definitely share the stories where people are starting to walk with Jesus in your community.
And you shouldn’t be the only one telling the story. Let others do it. Give space for those who are just trying. Offer room to those who are leading people to faith. Have people who have recently become followers of Jesus tell their own story. I assure you, all of it will be encouraging.
We’ve heard stories of a young woman starting a Bible study in her advertising agency, or another starting one in her occupational therapy department. We’ve heard a story of an inner-city high school teacher who seeks the Kingdom when she teaches special education kids—how her work is worship as well. When our small church donated volleyballs for the team she coaches, her students asked, “Where did these volleyballs come from?” She replied, “My church bought them for us.” And their curiosity grows about these folks who follow Jesus.
Stories inspire. Sharing stories help the storyteller understand its lessons, and communicate it to the rest of us—helping us see how God moves in everyday life.
This post is excerpted and adapted from the FREE eBook Discipling Skeptics and Seekers: Why Every Believer Needs to Share Their Faith by Beau Crosetto and James Choung. Download it here

About the Authors

Beau Crosetto loves starting new things for God in difficult places. He is the Greater Los Angeles Director for Greek InterVarsity, in charge of seeing “witnessing communities” start in every fraternity and sorority in Greater LA. His new evangelism book Beyond Awkward will be released this October through IVP. Beau is married to Kristina and has two kids, Noah and Sophia.
James Choung has been involved in campus ministries for over 18 years, empowering rising generations of Kingdom world-changers. He currently serves as InterVarsity’s national director of evangelism, and also leads a missional community called the Vineyard Underground. He has written True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In and its follow-up, Real Life: A Christianity Worth Living Out.