This is a little lengthy, but well worth it. It it used by permission from Pastor Andrew Street in Tocsin, IN.
The first thing you really need to understand in this discussion of “what is postmodernism?” is that no one really understands postmodernism. This is the second generation to grow up with televisions and the first to grow up with the internet and cell phones. Life moves at supersonic speed. The fads and trends change so rapidly that it makes it very hard for them to retain any degree of consistency. By the time a study is completed or a book is published about postmodernism the generation has already morphed into another mode, thus defying anyone to “pin them down.”
But there are a precious few significant foundational factors that provide significant clues for this ever-changing culture: Their parents are baby-boomers whose primary values have been (not by what they say, but in how they live) materialistic pursuits. The postmodern child is relatively spoiled in material provisions and is thus relatively miserable.
Another major component that cuts deep into today’s youth is the scar of having endured their parent’s divorce(s).
Their parents have been taught to accept and believe in evolution as a fact and tolerance as a requirement. Now this generation has grown up in a spiritual vacuum, which has given way to cynicism.
What they think:
Rules of logic no longer apply. Tolerance has been the mind-numbingly loud drumbeat for so long that everything is accepted, regardless of logical contradictions. If you start a dialogue with a postmodern by assuming the laws of reason, you’ve already lost. In their minds, something can both be and not be in the same time and in the same respect. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s a fact that we have to deal with.
To borrow from the old cliché, using rational thought and the rules of logic with this generation will be about as productive as using a hammer and nail to fasten down Jell-o. There’s nothing wrong with the wood, the hammer or the nail, but they won’t secure Jell-o.
Thus, when we tell someone that Jesus is the only way, they think they can accept it and reject it simultaneously. This creates major problems for conventional methods for evangelism: Door-to-door, logical argumentation, and the basic plan for salvation will not carry water with this generation. You must understand that it is not merely your theological foundations that they are rejecting, but also your methods for reasoning. Before you can convince them of Christ by the conventional means, you must first convince them of logic; but that will take a whole generation, something for which we do not have time.
As previously stated, they are cynical. If you start speaking of Christian principles and values, they will immediately minimize your dogma. They have no appreciation for history. In their minds, just because something has always never worked before, it doesn’t mean it won’t work this time. Obviously this bodes badly for the future, making the need to reach them all the more urgent. Not only will they self-destruct, but they will also damage those around them, perhaps irreparably.
But there is one thing that will speak to them. The one thing they will accept is the personal story, especially their own. What they live and experience is true because they have lived and experienced it. That is something their cynicism won’t doubt (at least not has much as everything else). They don’t need proofs and theorems because they have “empirically” established (or disestablished) something with their experience. This is a key factor.
How they relate:
They are the e-mergent generation. They grew up with email, emachines and eharmony. They have cell phones, ipods, x-boxes, and accounts on myspace and facebook. They don’t relate; they e-mote. Bearing their empty and grief-stricken soul to another in person has been reduced to a text-message or a “wall-posting.” Life has been completely individually tailored to their myopically selfish little world. They don’t have to respond to relational problems; they just “add new friends” to their account.
They only recognize two kinds of people: The good guys who struggle with everything all the time and admit it, and the bad guys who struggle all the time with everything and don’t admit it. Authenticity is good, until it crosses the postmodern. Nobody has all the answers; that’s arrogance.
Great! So now what?
There are two kinds of responses to this generation: (1) The frequent response of the past 50 years that says, “It’s going from bad to worse and we just have to buckle down and hope we don’t compromise before Jesus returns,” which is wrong. (2) The response that says, “It’s time to up the ante.”
That may seem difficult considering that so much of our training in apologetics, logic and theology and are rendered helpless. How do you fight a battle without weapons? That’s simple: Hand-to-hand.
If you’ll notice what the postmodern accepts (not being distracted by all that he rejects) you’ll see that the original Biblical means for propagating the Gospel is left unhindered. That means that all of the cultural shift that we’re reeling to adapt to is actually a blessing in disguise.
As a whole, the western church has streamlined, systematized and economized the Gospel so much that we have missed the very nature of what Jesus told us to do in the first place: “Make disciples.” Tracts, commercials on the radio and TV, door-to-door campaigns and six-week new convert classes have been helpful in generations past, but they have obviously not been effective in keeping the society preserved from decay. And in this age, they aren’t even allowed to be brought into the discussion. On the surface, that seems like defeat. But remember that none of these modern evangelical conveniences were present when the Church exploded throughout all the known world. The fact that we cannot efficiently use these “modern” methods in a postmodern world should bring us to a new awareness of our desperate need of the Holy Spirit to enable us to communicate Christ in a person-to-person setting, as it has always been designed to be communicated.
Make disciples. The postmodern likes stories. They will not hear your systematic explanation for why they are sinners who need to get saved (though is a truth of which we must not lose sight), but they will hear your story: who you were, what happened when you met Jesus and who you are now. They cannot refute that. Moreover, they don’t want to refute that.
But this requires getting close to dirty people. It’s messy. Just remember that Jesus has been getting close to dirty people since Adam and Eve so His holiness can transform them. Sinners never seek after God (Romans 3:11) until God has first sought after them. The Father is seeking worshippers (John 4:23-24), the Son has come to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) and the Spirit has come to convict sin (John 16:8). Now it’s your turn: can the Triune God continue His pursuit of dead and defiled sinners through you? This means time, authenticity, money, and lots of willingness to face the tough questions that you don’t want to be asked.
Which brings us back to our core doctrine of holiness: You must first have a vibrant, deep, rich and Spirit-filled walk with Christ if you expect to make the slightest positive impression on a postmodern.
As they see real holiness, real devotion to Christ in your life – and the solid ground of a relationship that is not self-centered (something that none of their Bebo or Twitter friends have ever given them) – your experience will become part of their story. Then the door is wide open for the much-needed confrontation of the Gospel: “Will you follow Jesus to the cross, or nail Him there again?”
In addition to the story, there is the other “arm” in hand-to-hand engagement for the Spirit-filled church to use: The family. God always exists in triune relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God has never been “individualized” or alone (except possibly for that haunting moment of the atonement when Jesus cried out, “My God, why have You forsaken Me!?”). God created man “in His image” as male and female. In other words, the first and primary reflection of the life of the Triune God is the family. The very meaning of being “a person” means that you have, and must exercise, the capacity to relate in self-giving love.
The postmodern generation, on the other hand, is bleeding to death by splintered and “blended” families. If you can’t see an overt attack of the devil in that, you need to get your head out of the sand right now. The postmodern generation’s concept of “love” means nothing more than self-gratification and hopefully sex. “Self-giving” is not part of their world.
They crave the loving stability of a godly home. If you want to share the life of God with them, something as simple as inviting them over (regularly and often) for family dinner and family devotions will rock their world. They don’t know what “family” means. They never eat without a blaring television that reduces relational interaction. When they come into your house and see the life of God expressed that authentically, their “story” encounters the presence of the Holy One.
Implications for your Church:
The Church is the means God is using to build His kingdom. Jesus cares for, loves and died for His Church; so should we.
Postmoderns want authentic experiences. That means that we don’t tailor our worship to suit them, we tailor our worship to suit Him and Him alone. When God is genuinely honored and His presence moves upon a congregation of saints who are raising holy hands in victory, that is an experience that will register in the life of a postmodern. That experience of the glory of God, God walking among His people, is what has always marked a holy people and must never be exchanged for something more “popular.”
But getting a postmodern from the outside of a church to the inside will almost never happen on the first invitation, or the second, or third… As some have caricatured this generation: “They like Jesus, but they don’t like the church.”
To find the answer, we must come back to the Scriptures. If your church only meets two days a week and primarily for “services” then it is less than the Biblical precedent and will be minimal in its effectiveness to this generation. The Church in Acts met together “daily.” Now instead of making up a whole list of excuses as to why your struggling church cannot possibly do that, you had better start asking the Holy Spirit how you can do that and be prepared to adjust to some radical changes.
We definitely want the postmodern to come and experience the presence of God in our Sunday morning services. But first we need to bring worship outside of the services and into regular fellowship with one another where the unchurched can see authentic community. This is not something new – it’s an ancient and forgotten truth that once “turned the world upside down.”
Here’s a simple strategy:
Relate to them on solid ground. Tell your story. Give them your life. Be transparent with them in showing real holiness that flows out of a Spirit-filled life in continual personal devotion to Jesus to the glory of the Father.
Bring them into your family. As stated above, have them over (and often) for meals, for games, even for family nights; and don’t let them leave without participating in family devotions. If you want to get really radical, consider opening your house to foster care or pull a teenager out of a group home to live with you. Be available to the let the Spirit lead you to seek them wherever they may be found.
Bring your family (and the postmodern) into the fellowship function of the local church. This means to participate in a Bible study, having people of the church over for a meal, participating in some kind of ministry together, being active in an accountability group, etc. It is imperative that in these “non-service” encounters that they have a focus on worship and the Word.
Bring them into the Sunday service. By the time you have personally shown them the life of God, brought them into your family, and helped them establish friends and relationships within the church body, it will be a much smaller step to bring them into the church building. Moreover, by the time you get here, everyone should have experienced the life of God.
At each “step” of this strategy make a Gospel confrontation. The point of this strategy is not to minimize the confrontation of the cross, but to maximize it. We dare not soft-pedal conversion for any reason whatsoever! But we must also prepare and cultivate the soil so that the Word will be received and produce the harvest that God intends.
Discipleship doesn’t need to be frontloaded with didactics, argumentation and persuasion. It needs the seeking and self-giving Holy love of God that is willing to get close to dirty people with the only Life that can clean them up.
When Jesus said, “Make disciples,” He knew what He was talking about. It has never failed; it will never fail. It will still work in the life of a Spirit-filled church to reach even a postmodern generation.
The Great Commission will never change.
