Mission Dialogue... Building Bridges for the Gospel

“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20

As Christians, we are called by God to be Christ's ambassadors. Now that's quite a job description! In order to fulfill our glorious assignment, we are going to have to step outside of our insulated Christian circles and learn how to bridge the gap between Christ's church and today's world.

Bridges are fascinating feats of engineering and design. They are designed to bring things together--land masses, roads, and people. Your life as a Christian can be exciting for the very same reason--because we get to be bridge-builders for Christ. Of course, Jesus is the only mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5); but, acting under His authority, Christians have the privilege of building bridges that can attract people into His Kingdom.

What kind of bridges are still left to be built? Non-Christians often have barriers that keep them from considering Christ: intellectual, cultural, and moral barriers. We can be their bridges to the gospel. Just as Jesus left heaven to come and dwell with man in a sinful world, He's left us with the glorious task of creatively penetrating our world with the good news. He showed us how to be effective bridge builders. In a sense, then, there may never be a time when we are more like Jesus than when we are bridging a cultural gap with the gospel.

How does one become a bridge-builder for Christ? While it's true we need to understand the Bible, a measure of theology and most importantly the gospel message, we must also understand what non-Christians believe, how they think, and how they've been impacted by today's cultures. And then, as ambassadors for Christ, we become the bridge between His church and the world by communicating the gospel into the context of the non-Christian mindset.

I think most people today view cross-cultural ministry as something performed in a foreign nation. In one sense that is certainly very true. But America today has become very secular, developing a culture of its own in an ideological sense--one very different from the culture characteristic of the church. So today, we need to view our American culture as a place of opportunity for cross-cultural ministry! We do this by investigating the world views of our culture. Understanding another person's world view, or belief system, is the starting point for communicating the gospel. By showing an understanding of and interest in another person's beliefs, we gain credibility and integrity with that person--and probably even a favorable hearing for the Christian message.

A bridge-builder is one who has made a commitment to understand people with different backgrounds and beliefs in order to make Christianity relevant to these people. However, in order to become an effective bridge-builder, we have to go through a process of transformation. First, we need to examine the isolation problem found in many of today's churches. Then we'll look at Christ's model for ministry which overcomes our isolation. Next, we'll find out how our lives can build bridges to the world. Finally, we look at the need for education in order to construct better bridges.

The Problem of Isolation Imagine receiving a phone call informing you that you'd been chosen to become the American Ambassador to China. You'd consider that quite an honor! How would you prepare for your task? You'd want to do a thorough study of Chinese culture and customs. If you simply said, "No problem, I'm an American!" and neglected this study, you'd find yourself very ineffective as an ambassador.

Now imagine if Christ were to call you, as an American, to be His ambassador to America. How would you prepare for that? Well, in fact this is what Christ has called us to (2 Cor. 5:20). But what if we were to say, "No problem, I'm a Christian!" but neglected any attempt to understand our own culture? Just because you are a native born American, you cannot assume you truly understand the culture even though you are living surrounded by it and probably even immersed in it.

Surprisingly this is what many people in the church today have done. Some believers have actually managed to construct lives that avoid any connection with the world. Christians leave their safe surroundings, go to work, scurry home to their families and then off to their Churches and Bible studies, and finally end the day praying for the unbelievers they safely avoid interacting with in the normal course of a day-to-day living.

In early America, Christians enjoyed discussing philosophy and theology with believers and nonbelievers alike. New England was a community that fostered intellectual pursuit. Today's Christians however, are often viewed by the world as anti-intellectuals, as people who have neglected their minds in order to become "spiritual." But with this mentality, we are unable to address the critical issues of our day, and so our culture begins to look elsewhere for answers: to secular humanism, for example.

What is the root of this separation mindset? Well, many believers today hold to a pietistic view of the Christian life. Pietism is essentially 'platonic' in that it makes a sharp division between the 'spiritual' world and the 'material' world. The reality of human experiences are not afforded a proper balance.

This pietistic view of Christian living, has sapped the real life out of the Christian experience for many people. That's because one's spirituality never quite comes "down" far enough to integrate with the real world. We still end up trying to be nice Christians, but too many areas of our humanity get left out of the experience. Being Christian no longer looks very attractive to those first investigating the faith. In fact, some nonbelievers are scared away because of the disconnect from the realities of the world!

How can we change this pattern? We must remove this "sharp division" by finding out how our spiritual life works in the physical world, by developing a practical biblical world view.

As we learn to apply the Christian faith in our own life and world we become able to tell nonbelievers how it applies to theirs also, and this opens doors for the gospel. But without a well-thought-out faith we don't feel comfortable taking our message into the middle of the marketplace of modern ideas, and so we stay insulated and isolated. What we actually need is a model for building bridges within the complexity of today's culture, one that makes Christianity relevant to the lives of real people. Christ Himself has provided this model in a absolutely amazing way.