Real-Time Gospel Articulation

I was talking with a student some time ago. He had just been summarily dumped by his girlfriend and was trying to figure out what it meant to trust the Lord, to recover and heal.

In the mean time, he had been talking with a hallmate about his faith. His hallmate was talking with him about the recent dumping--nothing too intense, just talking about dating and break-ups and how bad they stink. And the student very wisely and gently said, "And you know, I'm just trying to figure out what it means to trust God with something that I care so deeply about."

Last week I posted on the challenge and the call to live out the gospel in real-time. To actually apply the gospel to getting cut-off in traffic or snubbed by a co-worker or be passed over for a position that you wanted. This is the Christ-follower's call to a life of discipleship.

And what this student did--his real-time articulation of his faith-struggles in light of his break-up--that's real-time gospel articulation. That's the work of evangelism.

For too long evangelism has been seen as the work of experts or of presenting an abstract set of principles. What we're seeing in lots of parts of evangelicalism is an over-correction to an evangelism that serves and cares for people (which is clearly vital and has not always been as front-and-center as it should be) but never actually gets around to doing the articulation: this is what is real, this is the life that I'm living, this is why I'm doing what I do.

What must happen in our communities is that we begin to take Jesus seriously. He's invited us to a life that's recklessly different than our culture offers. It's a life of taking up the cross, dying to ourselves, loving others, living as children of God, not caring what the world thinks about us.

And as we do that in real-time, we must also learn this skill of articulation in real-time. We've got to learn how to articulate our faith as it's being worked out in our lives right now. That's our story. It's the one that God in His gracious sovereignty is working out right now. And in His sovereignty, He's put people in our lives to share that story with. This is our privilege and our joy: that we might tell of His work in our lives, even when we're not sure what it looks like yet.