My developing ministry (Becker Bible Ministries, Inc.) is focused upon teaching the things of God to the unchurched. Unchurched Christians seem often rough around the edges, and most show through their looks or their behaviors why they are rejected by traditional Christians.
1. Some unchurched are victims of child abuse, and feel themselves so unworthy and so unclean, that they are unable to approach the cross of Christ. The average child abuse victim takes over three years of professional Christian counselling, and a few more years of witness of Christ before they are made whole enough to commit themselves completely to Christ.
Even harder for many of us in this ministry, is the offering of God’s Word to the child abusers and rapists; when they hear God’s salvation, they often rush to the cross, and claim God’s grace quickly. It is a difficult part to witness the ease that the sexual abusers come to Christ when the victims’ salvation is always in jeopardy because of the crimes of the abusers. But, to deny one group, is to deny all groups the total grace of God to offer sinners salvation and hope through Christ.
2. We have the usual outliers of society that do better without a lot of people and programs and institutions in their lives; seldom do they bathe, and always are they armed, and most of the time, willing to listen to the Word of God if the speaker can be trusted. In today’s climate of conservative politics, and a strong focus on the Constitution of the United States and the Amendments that allow the right of firearms, a clear path of these rights must be negotiated with Christ’s message inserted only after trust is gained. To jump quickly into the message of the Gospel usually results in an obstinate cuss walking away to practice shooting his targets once again before the End of the World as we know it comes to his dwelling places. But, when trust is built, these ornery ones turn into some of the greatest evangelists I have ever seen, because they have the ability to develop trust amongst large segments of society that are normally separate from traditional Christian churches.
3. The people rejected and hated by traditional Christianity (sexual deviants that cross normal practices) have tremendous difficulties coming to Christ, because their path is prevented. It is the only group of sinners that I am aware that are expected to drop their sins before they can belong to a Church. These deviant sinners are required to understand their sins, reject them, and commit to do them no more, BEFORE they have a relationship with Christ to help them according to the flawed thinking of misguided Christian congregants.
True Christian evangelism requires the bringing of Christ into a person’s life and the reliance upon the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to guide the new believer to deeper relationship with Him. Most Christian leaders are confident that once a relationship with Christ has been established, a strong-growing faith will eventually help the believer to remove the difficult sins. Sadly, in the current conservative church movement, this is denied them, and they are forced to find a path to Christ unsupported by conservative belief and only guided by the most liberal theologies that deny Scripture as inerrant. So much damage has been done by the conservative Christians to these groups of sinners, that it becomes increasingly difficult to even approach them.
Careful evangelism with the exegesis of the Bible should not even be discussing sins of the sexual nature any more than any other of a multitude of sins people are doing. At the point of beginning belief, we are to teach new believers the things of Christ that connect to sin, judgment, baptism, resurrection, and eternal life. Then we are to move on to the more difficult things contained within God’s Word, confident that the Holy Spirit will guide the sincere believer to His path (Hebrews 6:1-2). There is going to be a great deal of conservative believers that are going to have to answer to Christ as to why one group has been so ostracized from the congregation of Believers that restricted the growth of faith and relationship with Him.
These are just a few, of many examples of seeking Christians that we evangelize to. Each requires a great deal of effort and risk to ourselves in order to teach the things of Christ to the oppressed, rejected, persecuted, ornery, hated, and mentally ill. True evangelism does not happen quickly.
This is a wicked world, and those that are able to be evangelized bring a great deal of baggage with them. It is messy. Sometimes in the midst of the ministry, sincere efforts are attacked and shamed. Evangelists out in the middle of the field without the support of the traditional church get tired, accused, fought, and ridiculed. But, when one of the unlikely outliers comes to Christ with hope, and you can witness the saving grace of the Lord as the sins drop and righteousness seeps into their inner being, you are reminded that you were once just as bad, and now, just as blessed, because God gave us all a chance. Thanks be to God!
