Hi Tony,
Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. Can anyone clarify for me whether the Roman Catholics are involved in the Sydney campaign? They’re not officially listed as one of the supporting denominations in Sydney, but I think they have been involved when the campaign has run elsewhere. I’m not sure it would be helpful having a ‘Jesus all about Life’ Banner outside our church, and having a similar banner outside a local Roman catholic church which preaches a different gospel. It would send a confusing message to those in our church who have been converted from Roman Catholic or Orthodox backgrounds, as well as to outsiders. Any thoughts?

Tony, I think you are right both the advert (understandably perhaps in the context) and the follow up material are fairly soft sell.

Sympathetically, it’s encouraging people to give consideration to the person and teaching of Christ. Don’t forget that the key and dominating part of the follow up material is the Gospel (of Luke from memory), and that’s got to be a good thing.

Another thing is that the Bible Society does not require participating churches to use their material. They are very open about that. So we are certainly going to use <i>The Essential Jesus</i> as the follow up, which I think is better.

Thirdly, another important factor is the people and relationships involved in delivering the follow up.

Lastly, for Kevin’s info, the involvement threshold is the Nicene Creed and that means many Roman Catholic Churches and even whole Dioceses are participating.

That is a given with the Bible Society, and the campaign is going to happen regardless. So we have to decide whether we ignore the opportunity, or whether we make sure evangelicals energetically grab it. (My limited experience is that the Roman Catholics are still exhausted after World Youth Day last year.)

If we seize the chance, then we can choose what we judge to be better follow up resources, and we can train people not to undersell the the hard or demanding side of the gospel.

For mine, it will provide an enormous boost for us when we come to systematically offering <i>The Essential Jesus</i> street by street (hopefully after other systematic and sensible contact activities) in our Diocese’s Connect09 year.

No offence taken, Albert! I was a little nervous about posting these thoughts for exactly the reasons you mention. However, I ended up posting them for the kind of reasons Ian mentioned!

Jeremy, yes that’s exactly the right question. I think the answer the NT gives is that we should be flexible and ‘contextual’ (if that is the word) about the wrapping paper while remaining inflexibly plain-speaking and honest about the gift inside. It’s the Paul of 1 Cor 9 who is all people to all men, and the Paul of 2 Cor 4:1-6 who renounces anything underhanded or cunning, and refuses to tamper with the message, but plainly and openly declares that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now I think Paul may have had to defend himself against charges of inconsistency in this connection, and it can sometimes be perceived that way if you don’t understand the principle underlying it—which is that some things are easily variable for the sake of our hearers (what we eat and wear, the building we meet in, the language we use to describe incidental things, etc.), but that other things shouldn’t be mucked around with to make the whole package seem (to us at least) more ‘sellable’. 

So is there a place for defying or subverting people’s expectations of us, or subtly dealing with apologetic or cultural barriers before they are even raised? Of course. That’s one of the things I like about the JAAL ads themselves. I’m with Sandy on this—when the ads go to air, it will be a great time for conversations and evangelism.

TP

I wrote a lot about martyrdom as some already know… and it has influenced my evangelism! When Jesus calls us, he calls us to come and die! I think it is an important test of the authenticity of the message: would you face the lions in the arena on the basis of it? Or is it just giving you a sweeter earthly existence?

Yeah - just one thing: if you jump down someone’s throat the moment they express dissent, then you’ll find that discussion dries up… I think Albert was entitled to say what he said, even as I think Tony was. Isn’t a bit of robust debate good for us?

I have two concerns with the JAAL Hunter campaign:

My concern is that with the JAAL campaign, while Baptists may carry the lion’s share of the financial support (10 -25%?), from the direct contact counselling, we shall only receive 1% of the counselling referrals (since referrals shall be organised according to denominational affiliations). The vast majority of referrals will go to the Anglicans (23%) or Catholics (25%),  Uniting Church (15%) etc.  Umm would someone like to do the maths?

You Sydney Anglicans SHOULD join the campaign, you’ll get at least dollar value!

My real concern is that the adds will be largely counterproductive to the majority of people in our secularised society. 

When the different presenters in the add say something like “it’s not about religion”, and reject religion as a category, they are, in fact, identifying what the society perceives as Christian. They are saying that “Christianity as an institutionalised religion is decrepit”. And that is what the society is saying: “Why should I go to church?  Even Christians are saying now that Church is decrepit! See, I knew I was right; it’s all hogwash!”

The presenters themselves are contributing to the ascendancy of relativism in the secularisation of our society .

Overall, this would contribute to the alienation of a large percentage of Australians from the Christian church.

The churches may pick up a few folk on the brink of the church who are asking for a relationship with God (oops, the adds don’t even offer that, just some nice principles from Jesus!) instead of “religion”.  But instead, the majority of secularised Australians will be affirmed in their conviction that its all rubbish anyway!

I believe a better approach more worthy of funding would be for every church to engage in training members for personal evangelism.