By Pastor Kerry Nelson
Connecting with increasing numbers of new people, disciple-making, opening our front doors, is “evangelism”. Evangelism is congregational outreach, congregational mission. (Tending to those within the community is disciple-shaping, closing our back doors, congregational inreach, congregational ministry.)
There are many angles into the question of “evangelism.” For the purposes of this article, let’s start with a working definition of evangelism and the possibilities of the concept of a “target audience”.
My working definition of evangelism is as follows:
Evangelism is connecting relationally with people who live with a kind of wishy washy, ill-formed, myth-ridden shadowy-Sunday School spirituality, with the goal of helping them to a new place where they identify themselves as Christian, actively participate in Christian community, and express their new faith in some form of personal ministry.
A shorter definition: Helping people discover a faith that works in their lives and makes a difference in the world.
Defining evangelism is the easy part and not terribly controversial. Actually doing it is the challenge we face.
The sad fact is that evangelism is one of the “four letter words” of the faith among many of our people. (Stewardship is the other.) Evangelism is, for most of our people, saddled with images of judgmentalism, self righteousness, door knocking and shame. Not a pretty picture. No wonder we don’t do it. And when we try, don’t do it well.
Now to the question of a “target audience”.
The idea of a target audience, at first glance, hardly seems biblical. Abraham and Sarah were blessed to be blessings to all nations, to the whole world. Jesus called his disciples to go into the whole world to make disciples. At first glance, the idea of a target audience, of carefully doing what it takes to intentionally connect with some, according to their particularities in culture, taste, comfort, lifestyle, gifts, etc. seems much more tied to Madison Avenue than it does to following Jesus.
Unless we listen to words like:
“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel…” Matthew 10:5-6
Or, repeated again five chapters later:
And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” Matthew 15:24-25
Or, from the marching orders of Jesus to the fledgling new church in Acts:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8
(Although it helps), we don’t have to be experts in the Bible or church history to understand that there were stark and significant cultural differences between those living in Jerusalem and those living “to the ends of the earth”. Unless, of course, you believe that reaching the “ends of the earth” meant only connecting with the Jews of the Diaspora who were pretty much just like those in Jerusalem. In that case, a one-size-fits-all approach to the Christian faith might have worked…but probably not.
But the Bible doesn’t allow us to go there. Clearly, (Galatians 1:16), Paul understood himself as having been specifically set aside to carry the message of the faith to Gentiles. They were his target audience.
The point here is that there is biblical warrant and justification for the idea of focused effort to connect with a specifically targeted group of people.
The Rick Warren’s, Bill Hybel’s and the non-denominational world have been comfortable with the idea of target audiences for many years now. Drawing upon one of the principles of the church growth movement, the principle of homogeneity, (that birds of a feather flock together), they intentionally study their local demographics and construct their ideal church member.
Usually this is some form of “Saddleback Sam” and “Saddleback Sally”. Anglo, middle to upper class, married, well educated, doesn’t shop at WalMart, two children, a house in the suburbs and a dog. Nelson Searcy, a product of this school of thought, went to Manhattan to build a congregation among “young, urban, single, professionals.”
Ministry, especially all that goes into worship, is then carefully tailored to the “felt needs” (the culture) of the target audience. So Nelson Searcy began the first worship services of his congregation, Journey, in a comedy club. It made perfect sense in his goal of connecting with his target audience. Of the 26 people who attended his first worship service, he made a very targeted special effort to connect with four of them because they alone represented his target audience. He invited everyone back but he invited those four into his inner circle and invested his time and energy deeply into them.
Traditional Lutherans find this repugnant.
Traditional Lutherans tend to think that, regardless of demographics and sociology, there is a “one size fits all” way of doing the Christian faith together. Not only that, but they are SUPPOSED to do it that way. Ministry done that way, including worship, ought to be good enough for everyone. Ministry targeted to specific folks should happen somewhere other than worship in the life of a congregation.
Traditional Lutherans generally don’t like the idea of a “target audience.” They find it offensive. They like to think that their audience for what they offer, in worship and every other part of congregational ministry, is for everybody.
Yet reality tells us that this is not the case. If what we do really is for everybody, and if that idea is working for us, then it seems to me we should be seeing the results of effective evangelism among us – growing Christians, growing congregations, growing diversity. But it isn’t. We’re not. We’re growing older and smaller and have been for a long long time. A few congregations that ARE growing and doing effective evangelism stick out, but generally we’re not.
Looking deeper (which we seldom do), we might realize that we really operate with a subconscious sense of who everybody is – frankly, people like us. We carry our own sense of Saddleback Sam and Sally without really realizing it. We don’t SAY that our target audience is “white, English-speaking, hopefully German/Norwegian/Swedish/Danish, who love organ music, traditional liturgy, Sunday School modeled after secular education and potluck dinners.” We don’t say it…but that is what we do.
We tailor what we do to our own personal tastes, regardless of its evangelical impact in the real lives of real people in ways that are really effective.
We offer organ music because organ music is our tradition, our heritage, what we are really pretty good at. Besides, we like organ music. In our heart of hearts, “worship” means organ music to us. (I’m picking on organ music here but could easily add classic hymns, vestments, paraments, pews, candles, communion ware, acolytes, choirs, flowers, hospital visits and everything else that traditional Lutherans revolt against removing, reforming or adapting.)
Our target audience, for worship and much of our ministries, therefore is…US. Ouch. No wonder we are getting older and smaller.
But what if, far from being anti-biblical, Madison Avenue hype, we rethink the idea of a target audience? What if we discovered that it is precisely in being VERY intentional in defining our own sense of target audience, and then tailoring what we do to reach that target, we might discover the very renewal and evangelistic effectiveness that we seek?
In defense of the idea of a target audience, it is simply true that the more carefully we “aim”, the more likely we are to hit our target. The more conscious we are of what we want to accomplish, the more likely we are to align our strategies and actions to our goal.
Therefore, when I talk about evangelism with people, I like to come at this question, the question of a target audience, in such a way that it brings traditional Lutherans into the conversation. Stay tuned next week for Part 2.
