Tag: Evangelism

My Review of Rod Dreher’s ‘Living in Wonder’

I am happy to share with you that my review of Rod Dreher’s newest book, Living in Wonder, was released this week over at Mere Orthodoxy. I hope you’ll check it out. I really enjoyed Dreher’s book but also concluded that it presented some stumbling blocks to widespread appreciation by Protestant evangelicals. I tried to get both of those elements across in my review. I was a bit surprised to see that TGC’s review of it was so thoroughly critical, without recognizing that there are imbalances and weaknesses within Reformed evangelicalism that Dreher’s book actually helps us to address.

That was the direction I wanted to take my review. After noting my criticisms, I focused in what evangelicals can take away from the ideas in the book. This dovetails with my larger project in recent years to think through the nature of evangelicalism and Protestantism, the state of the culture with regard to spiritual matters (re-enchantment and the demise of modernity), and gleaning the best insights from the sharpest minds wherever I can find them.

While I’m a thorough-going Protestant, or rather because I am settled in my rejection of key, fundamental historical claims made by both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic authorities, I feel free to read and engage with them without fear of being drawn in. I do not feel threatened by them, and I think it inevitable that each branch of Christendom, especially to the degree that they are shaped by sharp polemics aimed against other branches, will be imbalanced and in need of continual course correction. This is necessarily an endless process of discernement, reformation, and renewal. The end goal is always spiritual renewal, walking with the Spirit, and having the mind of Christ.

I also believe deeply in true small-c catholicity, the Biblical principle of affirming wherever possible, without dishonesty or sentimentality, the true spiritual unity we share with genuine believers which are scattered in many different institutions. It was a bit of a dodge when Billy Graham resolutely refused to pronounce who was in and who was out when it came to salvation, but there is something good about being slow and hesitant to pronounce on such matters when we take into account the incredible human capacity for inconsistency, and the mystery of genuine Spirit-wrought faith. I also recognize that for many people with busy lives and a simple faith, it’s not possible to navigate, assess, and discern all these things and they need trustworthy authority figures in their lives who can do a lot of that work for them.

These things shape my vocation as a writer and thinker for the church. I want to hold my convictions firmly and deeply, and yet be able to converse fruitfully with people from a wide range of perspectives. I want to offer helpful insights into culture, literature, and arts, and yet always make sure to remain in touch and appreciative of simple, hard-working, hands-on people. I want to continually hone my ability to write clearly and creatively, saying what I have to say with a dash of style that makes it enjoyable to read. I have a long way to go in each of these respects, but that is the direction I am aiming towards.

I have been mulling over once again the idea of moving this sleepy little blog of mine over to Substack, the it-place for writers. If I do, I would keep it free and try to move my previous articles and my subscribers over.

In coming days I should have a piece coming out at TGC Canada that I have been working on for quite a few months called Why We Need Beautiful Churches. It’s an attempt to piece together a whole bunch of reading and thinking on aesthetics, beauty, architecture, and the evangelical church. As always, I’m grateful for readers who take time out of their busy lives to consider my words. I don’t take that lightly, and I hope it’s a blessing and benefit to you. And if you do enjoy my writing or glean some benefit from it, I hope you’ll pass it on to others, share widely, and maybe even let me know.

Thoughts on Hamilton Impact

This past week, our church was running Hamilton Impact – a one-week intensive Evangelism training program. Three churches in Hamilton partnered together to make it happen: West Highland Baptist Church, Hughson St. Baptist Church, and Lightway Church – which is a plant out of Hughson. These events started in Toronto, and are a partnership between a church and Operation Mobilization, which provides teaching on evangelism and various world religions. For example, this week we studied Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism, and visited a mosque, a Sikh gurdwara, and a Hindu temple. In the evenings the participants go door-to-door in the neighbourhoods around the partner churches and go through a simple survey with people which often leads into spiritual conversations and an opportunity to clearly share the gospel.

I learned a lot this week. First, I learned that door to door evangelism, despite suffering from a major image problem, does work. I was able to clearly share the gospel with quite a number of people that I’ve never met, leave quality literature with them, and have truly meaningful interactions that I would never have had in the normal course of my daily life. We are still compiling statistics, but it was pretty clear that the more affluent and more Canadianized the people were, the less they were open to talking. But thankfully the neighbourhoods around Lightway and Hughson St. are full of an amazing diversity of peoples from literally all over the world. This kind of diversity can be easily found in Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton, Montreal, and other major gateway cities in Canada. It seems to me that these people are for the most part not on the radar of conventional churches in those cities.

During the week we met people who had Christian neighbours and yet who did not actually know what a Christian Bible was, who Jesus is, or anything else at all about Christianity. And, even more amazingly, they were eager and curious to find out more about this Jesus.

I have read and listened to a lot of pastors and urban church planters in the USA and have actually never heard anyone mention reaching out to Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, or Buddhists. After this week, I’m blown away by that fact. I don’t know the demographics of American cities, but it’s quite possible that they don’t nearly have the immigrant population that we have in Canada. If that’s the case, then we Canadians need to make sure we don’t take all our cues from our American brothers, but that we seek the Lord and develop strategies that are appropriate and effective for our specific context. More and more, I am convinced that the Canadian context demands that churches in the cities be intentionally multi-cultural, and very discerning to avoid causing unnecessary cultural offense. Christians need to be educated about other cultures and other religions, and taught to extend hospitality and love to new Canadians. Instead, I often see fear-mongering and ignorant email chains about how the Muslims are taking over our government and schools. We need to do better than this. As one participant this week commented: ignorance breeds fear and intimidation, but knowledge brings empowerment.