I haven’t had the time to elaborate from my late-night thoughts about this ministry, so I’ll try to tidy up some of the things in my mind and present it in a sort-of-meaningful manner.
What Yeahshow does successfully is to make Christianity accessible to the masses. It’s unfortunate that Christianity has often been shelved as an “established religion” and so people can choose to brush it aside and avoid the “important” questions altogether (is there a God? What is he like? What is the meaning of life? etc). An event like Yeahshow is effective in forcing people to think about these issues.
What I think isn’t so successful about events like this is in providing the answers to the big questions, or at least, I think the message that it delivers is extremely compromised for the sake of entertainment (in the form of comedy, music etc). The visitor is introduced to the questions in life, and is entertained in the process. When asked whether he/she accepts Christianity as the solution to the questions in life, he/she reflects on what he/she has heard over the night. He/she bears no ill feeling because he/she was entertained, and so accepts Christianity as having the ultimate answer.
A simplified illustration is as follows.
- A man who has family problems comes to an evangelical event
- He is entertained by the event (either through its music, the comedy value etc)
- The pastor on stage challenges him about his family problems
- The pastor says “believe in Jesus and you will have no more family problems”.
- The man considers the message, and finds the pastor trustworthy because of the entertainment he has received
- The man “commits” to Jesus with the motivation of getting his family problems solved
- The man leaves the event in pure joy, thinking in his heart that Jesus will solve his family problems
- Disillusionment sets in when the man realises that there is no “magic answer” to his problems, and that the pastor that day oversimplified the solution
- Man leaves Christianity thinking that it’s all a farce
What the? That’s not how evangelism is supposed to work! But that is what happens a lot of the time. What’s the missing link? What is required to keep the man going in his walk of faith instead of suffering from disillusionment?
The answer will be revealed in my next post, or perhaps you can enlighten me with what you think.
pray for man, god has a plan for man. Pastor can say whatever he want to encourage man to turn to Christ, that is evangelism. Evangelism isn’t convincing someone to turn to Christ, but the act of spreading the gospel.
It is hard, but i dont think man was looking for religion. He found an interesting intellectual toy, played with it for a while and got bored. If they aren’t looking for spiritual guidance, then they just aren’t buying what you’re selling. Man finds that the toy just didn’t match his expectations..
Disillusionment is an interesting phrasing, but probably accurate. The man was under the illusion of understanding and believing the meaning of God, and yes over time, he was disillusioned.
Remember, God is the one who does the converting. We are called to just be witnesses to his word.
I think events like these can play two parts. One, it does give people a chance to see Christianity in a different light, as opposed to just a church building, with people in funny robes and strict rules. Two, it encourages people to think and ask the bigger questions about life, who we are, why are we here? Those kinds of things.
Yes, some people might hear and “accept” and be a lot like the seed that falls on shallow soil. But like Mario said, pray that God continues to nurture them and continues to challenge them to ask and discover. That through the journey of discovery they will come to know Jesus.
While things have the possibility of turning out badly, remember God also uses the bad to further His own glory.
There is so much one could do in such a confined space and time. It would be near impossible to fit every single sort of Christian/religious debate in order to convince every non-believer that Jesus is the truth, the way and the life. That is asking too much.
The issue is as you have probably highlighted, that people find Christianity is so established that its so out-dated, or it simply doesn’t apply to their every day life at all.
You may perceive events like Yeah Show may be seen as something that compromises or dilutes the gospel so it can bring entertainment. However, I would respectively disagree and see that it bridging the gap and drawing a connection between what the non-believer sees as the “far-too-perfect-to-be-practiced-in-this-world” values that a church may be teaching with their everyday lives. Far too often, non-Christians cannot see how God’s wisdom is applied in their 21st century lives. They do not see they are going through a pointless pursuit for some ultimate wisdom or goal in life when this goal is in fact what is recorded in Jesus’ life.
Expecting Pastor Lam would do the entire process of sowing the seed and watering it, or the whole evangelism process as you may call it in a short 2 hours would simply being thinking beyond reality. Pastor Lam has done his part in sowing the seed in a non-believer so that other limbs of the church could take up the opportunity and “water” the seed so that the seed may grow in their heart.
I thank the Lord that Jot and I have the opportunity to invite almost a total of 60 friends to Yeah Show. Indeed it was a miracle. Without Yeah Show as an excuse, there is no way I would be able to meet at least over 30 new friends. Without Yeah Show as an excuse, we would not be able to easily invite them to fellowship and let them see what Christian life is like. Without yeah show, we would not be able to take them out to dinner after the event to let them have a greater insight of Christianity and what the true message is all about. Without that dinner, our non-Christian friend probably still would not be challenged to think about the existence of God and would still be the good girl that listens to her mum and occasionally go to temple and burn incense.
Bill, I know you are blessed to have in-depth knowledge of the bible. Having such a privilege in being such a very useful limb in the body of Christ, you could do much more in watering the many seeds that have been sown than to highlight the negatives of what could go wrong. Before the seed dries up and withers away, or get eaten by the (evil) black bird, there is much that could be done as the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
As Christians, we should all be part of the Great Commission, to spread the gospel to every corner of the earth. If you feel that there are non-Christians out there that has heard a “diluted” version of the gospel out there, as a Christian, we should have the responsibility to go and fill them in so they have the 100% concentrated true version of the gospel.