WE live in a time where the church has a great opportunity to be the answer to the postmodern question. To be this answer we must understand how people in the surrounding culture think, what they value, and how God will be received. Christians must be bridge-builders with a foot firmly planted on biblical truth, and the other foot firmly planted within culture to understand how people attain their attitudes and beliefs.

These days it is no longer enough to just present the truth of the gospel. In a postmodern world, truth is viewed as a relative social construct.  If Christians want to effectively communicate the gospel, they must understand and be open to those in the surrounding culture and present the truth of the gospel in a way that makes cultural sense.

Communicating Christ in a postmodern world starts with “relationship”, not the modern “message” method.  Rather than a set of truths to be believed, Christianity must be presented as a personal relationship with Jesus Christ lived out in community. To some people, a rational Christian message presented by someone they do not know is a bunch of noise to be ignored, and is not a spiritual message at all.  Despite having the answers to the very things secular people are looking for, the Christian message is often presented in ways people won’t listen to.

The Church needs to start telling the old old story by asking others to consider the plausibility and authenticity of the gospel, not by making a rational defence of its credibility. Credibility has to do with coherence and is difficult to prove. Plausibility, however has to do with beauty and satisfaction, and is often discovered outside the walls of the church as Christians build relationships with others.

Quality time must be invested in people we naturally come into contact with through our social or occupational lives. If we look down on people who are different to us, how do we expect to reach them? If we are looking down, we are not looking up – instead we are taking on the role of master instead of servant. We may even fear or despise people because they are different, yet we should not just be forming relationships with people just like us.

The church is not very good at making relationships a high priority. That’s because it does it’s speaking first, and then if a secular person accepts that word, they are welcomed into the community of faith and a relationship starts.  But what if we did our relating first and then the speaking? What if we reversed the order to encourage people to belong to a community of faith so they would be in a familiar environment when they chose to embrace the beliefs of that community? They would not only be more likely to feel like they belonged in community, they may be more likely to take on board the beliefs of the people within the community. 

In order to evangelise today’s postmodern culture the church must evaluate its ministry and mission in the 21^st century, so that the Christian community can embrace those who are searching for truth. Then they will expose people to the positive truth without the negative vibes that religion has. They will also be aware of what questions secular people are asking – and, more importantly, what they are not asking.

Our whole approach to apologetics needs to change. Not only do the questions need to be changed, but also our method and approach. No longer is the question “is there a God?” but “which God”? Not “is the Bible truth?” but “is there truth?” Rather than telling people what to believe, we must lead them to discover truth through a more Socratic approach.

That’s if we even get off first base. It is a rare thing for Christians to dialogue their faith in the real world. Christians find it easier to use a methodology that will fit comfortably into a church setting. However, you can be sure that the more comfortable the methodology is in a church setting, the less effective it will be outside the church walls where tougher and more penetrating questions are likely to be asked.

Answers to some of the questions can be surprisingly simple. Yet we deny the obvious. I was at a meeting of Christian leaders who were listening to a speaker on the subject of communicating Christianity in creative ways. A question was asked: “Why did Jesus die?” The answers were what you’d expect from a bunch of pastors: To save us from our sins, he was crucified on a cross, he was the only sinless person so the only one that could die for our sin. Words like atonement, sanctification, propitiation and other “ation” words were mentioned. But is that why Jesus died?

There was only one reason Jesus died: He stopped breathing. It’s obvious – so obvious in fact, that not one of the pastors in the congregation thought of it. Sometimes we have to think outside the cultural box to communicate our faith just so we do not deny the obvious. These days creative communication may well be about rephrasing the bridge to life and the four spiritual laws to a postmodern world, but it should not be at the expense of stating the obvious as well. I’m reminded of an age-old proverb: Three frogs sat on a log, all three decided to jump…so how many were left? And of course the answer is three. They decided, but they didn’t jump.

It’s time to get back to basics. Living among Christians and speaking Christianese with each other makes it increasingly difficult to communicate with those outside that subculture we insulate ourselves from as we limit our contact with and move in separate realms to those we are called to reach.

But many people avoid sharing their faith as they don’t want to give an answer to tough questions. Yet you are not required to give an “answer” to your theological belief system. Rather, you should to be prepared to give an answer to people who ask why you have a hope. Now that’s easier to respond to. Today we need to emphasise the hope we have more than the reason. The sad thing about current evangelism in this postmodern age is that many evangelicals are poised to give an answer when nobody is asking the question. We should instead be generating hope and questions about that hope. 

Although these days most people are not asking about our faith or our hope they are looking at our lives to see how we live them out. Sharing your faith is about taking initiative, not about waiting until someone asks you to “give an answer to the hope you have”. Hope needs to be generated in a postmodern context, not merely   defended with a theological belief system.  

These days people don’t want to know why we believe the way we do, they want to know why we live the way we live and what the basis of our hope is.  If they see that we are on to a good thing, they will want to understand what is the driving force behind this hope. Everybody wants hope, but not everybody wants to have a theological belief system. It is up to the evangelist to marry the two together – starting with generating hope in others and culminating in belief in Christ. But if your hope levels are low, or you have given up hope, it is difficult to give a credible answer even if you believe the theology – it will just be head knowledge concerning matters of the heart.

We need to lead people into discovering the truth for themselves, instead of telling them what to believe. Hope is based on story, whereas reason is based on beliefs. Beliefs can be questioned and refuted but personal stories cannot be invalidated.

We all have a story to tell. We all have people to tell it to. Those who need to listen to our stories are not usually congregating in churches, they congregate in the marketplace. Most church-going Christians are failing secular people as they are not comfortable telling their stories to those who need to hear them. They’d rather congregate with their fellow Christians and closet themselves from those in the marketplace.

That attitude has to change. Church leaders need to encourage and empower those in their congregations to fulfill the Great Commission. If they don’t, the Great Commission won’t end up being so great after all as Christians will continue to insulate themselves from the secular people they are supposed to be reaching.