Today we look for the third and final time at “evangelism”- Christian witness- sharing good news! We’ve called each sermon “There, Here and Now.” Two weeks ago Tim Dearborn took us “There,” Christian witness around the globe. Last week we talked about “Here,” sharing Christ in our day-in, day-out lives. And this morning we want to talk about “Now,” Christian witness in this particular time, place and culture.

This morning we’re going to once again look into the book of Acts. But before we do that, we need to talk about some background because we’re going to jump right into the middle of a story.

The Apostle Paul is on a 2 nd missionary journey. He’s finding that his message is provactive. He’s stirring up people, and either starting churches or being seen as a troublemaker. At one point as he is in modern day Greece, the town of Berea, where his opponents followed him to counteract his work. Some friends send him 300 miles away to Athens, where he is to wait for his friends Silas and Timothy.

Now, Athens was a city of huge significance. Though it was now part of Roman empire, and long past it’s glory days as the foremost Greek city-state back in the 5th century BC, it is still an acknowledged seat of learning with this amazing heritage: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, art work, architecture.

Paul is just waiting. This wasn’t a planned stop,there’s no plan for sharing news of Jesus or planting churches on the itinerary. If you or I had found ourselves there, no doubt would have gone sightseeing- the Acropolis (massive rock hill with Greek architectural buildings), the Parthenon (amazing temple of the Greek goddess Athena), the agora- marketplace. What a chance for Paul just to unwind a little and take it in as he waited for his friends and the next chapter of his life.

But he couldn’t do it. Everywhere Paul looked he saw idolatry. Things being worshipped…that were not God. Statues, temples, the worship of gods, but not of God. Apollo, Jupiter, Mercury, Bacchus, Neptune, Diana, gods, but not God. It grieved Paul.

And so he started to talk to people. He went to the Jewish synagogue. He went to the marketplace and talked to anyone he could find. He ended up in conversation with some contemporary philosophers who were puzzled over what he was saying. Now, what was he talking about with anyone who would listen? “the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.” So the philosophers took him to the Areopagus to talk.

The word Areopagus quite literally means “the hill of Ares (god of war), or the Roman counterpart Mars. The Hill of Mars. Mars Hill. This is where the name for churches, schools, radio programs and all sorts of other things come from: Mars Hill. In Paul’s day it is where the council gathered who watched over the educational, religious, moral influences of the city. It’s where philosophers debated, and indeed, where Acts says “all the Athenians…spent their time doing nothing but talking about or listening to the latest ideas.”

So this is where we find Paul- in a different country, different culture, unexpectedly arriving, stirred by the absence of any acknowledge of God, and now front and center with the wise philosophers of the city who want to know what he’s talking about.

Reading: Acts 17:22- 34.

I’m getting ready to run a race later this fall. I’ve done this before. Two years I ran one in Portland. We arrived the day before and went to a big hotel to pick up our registration, and found a huge expo going on. It was amazing. Thousands of runners standing around, a product fair, videos, clothing. Runners talking about what kind of micro-fiber material wicks moister away from your body the best, which non-fat energy bar was the best for mid-race, and what kind of pasta was best to eat the night before. Magazines, clothing, posters. Amazing. It was an entire subculture, with its own language and customs.

I have friends who are flyfishermen. I’m not, I’ve just gone a couple times. But my friends compare notes on rivers, the weights of line, the composition of their rods. They like nothing better than getting together to tie flys to fish with, or going to a tackle shop. They watch fishing shows on TV, they have special vests and lucky hats, they have their own language. It’s an entire subculture you would never know existed.

And there are many others, and larger- youth, for instance. Our kids have their own music, clothes, technological devices. They text, twitter, get tatooes, piercings, invent new sports. Major retailers, drink manufacturers, and clothing manufacturers put them in focus groups to try to understand their preferences. They have their own language and traditions.

Now, in any of these cases you may not know these cultures exist, or you can choose to simply ignore them…though it’s hard to do if someone close to you participates in them. But if you are not going to ignore them, you had better spend some time studying them, understanding.

This is what Paul does in Athens. He’s in a strange city. He goes to school. He “reads” the city. Now Paul already an educated man- a masters from Jerusualem U, his doctorate from Antioch State. He knew Greek, Hebrew, Judaism, Jesus. Philosophy wasn’t new to him, but Athens was. So he studies it. An as we read the New Testament, as we hear Paul share the good news of Jesus- we realize that what works in one culture doesn’t necessarily work in another, and what worked at one time doesn’t necessarily work in another.

Paul doesn’t start in Athens with The 4 Spiritual Laws- and by the way, how many of you even know what those are? Only some. The 4 Spiritual Laws was a little evangelism booklet written in 1952 as a simple, propositional way of presenting the gospel: 1) God has a wonderful plan for your life.

• Human beings are sinful and separated from God.
• Jesus Christ is God’s provision for reconciliation with God.
• Need to accept Christ as Lord and Savior.

Millions of people were strongly influenced by this simple way of communicating the good news. Some met Jesus through it.

But in 55AD, in Athens, Paul doesn’t start with that. Nor does he pull out the Evangi-Cube I showed you last week! And actually, he doesn’t even start with Jesus. He apparently started by walking around and observing, and reading. Started by trying to understand. He learned abou the gods. Read poets. Took note of altars, and found the one in particular “To an unknown God.” Truth is, the Athenians had so many gods they were concerned they might miss worshipping one so they put up this catch-all altar.

So when Paul talks, he can use lines that their own poets wrote: “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Or “for we are his offspring.” He talks about their own religious practices, their desire to worship something beyond themselves. Then he ties in his message to point at this altar for a god who is worshipped but unknown, and says “I actually can put something concrete to your abstraction. The God who created everything, who is bigger than all these amazing human buildings or structures…can be identified, can be found, can be known. And this can be seen in One whom God raised from the dead.”

This is a different tack from what we’ve heard Paul share in synagogues. Different than what he’s shared in other towns, other places. Oh, there’s an underlying core that never goes away: Jesus, his death and resurrection. But the road to sharing that good news with people varies.

When it comes to sharing Christ, living out Christ, inviting others to join with us in a God-centered, joyful life, I’m increasingly convinced that we could take some tips from Paul, couldn’t we? We are living in a culture that is changing so rapidly you can hardly track it from day to day.

I actually grew up on Queen Anne hill. Back in the day…most people went to church. Most stores on QA Avenue (and there were only about 20% as many as today) were closed on Sundays, it was the Sabbath. There were no Little League games or soccer games or track meets or science fairs on Sundays. Most people identified themselves in some way as Christians.

Everything is different now. Everything. So why would we think that our sharing the good news NOW…would look the exact same as it did 10-20-30 years ago? The message doesn’t change. Our hope is in Christ. But how do we communicate in a way that can be heard?

Our Session was on a retreat yesterday, and we read an article from Leadership Magazine about younger people (18-30) in our culture…which I think applies to a much greater population. If you read any of the recent surveys of American young folks- and there are many- here is the perception that they have of the church: they say it is too: organized, political, judgmental, chauvinistic, homophobic, arrogant and fundamentalist.”

If you are in that age bracket, maybe this isn’t your sense, but it’s the strong evidence of studies. The article we read was written by Scot McKnight who teaches at North Park University in Chicago. He’s trying to figure out how to connect with younger generations. And to do that, he’s trying to study them…to read their culture.

McKnight feels like one thing we’ve done with our kids, over a number of years, is go so overboard with affirmation and building up the self-esteem of the upcoming generations…that we’ve essentially inoculated them to any sense of personal sin. I’m okay. You’re okay. In fact, we’re all great.

If that’s what you’ve been steeped in- home, school, etc…then it’s probably not a big shock that when someone starts talking about “good news” by talking about sin and need, it might not get much of a hearing.

Now, whether or not McKnight is right is not my point. My point is: what if he is? Then we are going to need to understand, study the culture, study younger generations to know how to communicate…in a way that can be heard . It is more than possible, it is common, to communicate truth in a way that is not heard. If you go downtown and hang around long enough, someone will stand up on a streetcorner and start preaching, screaming, yelling, shouting, waving a big black bible around. The things they’re shouting may be biblical, solid theologically, and absolutely true. But YOU don’t listen to it. It isn’t coming in a way that can be heard.

We need to work- as individuals, as a church- at communicating in ways that can be heard. It takes work. Study. Reading a culture. Trying things out. NOW: don’t get me wrong. The gospel, the good news, hasn’t changed- we only have one piece of good news, that’s Jesus Christ. We need saving, He is our Savior. But how will we share it?

Here’s what I’m not saying: Bishop John Shelby Spong wrote a bestselling book- in fact, several of them…but the one entitled Why Christianity Must Change or Die always catches my eye on my shelf. Bishop Spong was worried that Christianity was becoming irrelevant. And so he set to work to personally make it relevant by, in my opinion, changing the good news. He throws out the authority of scripture, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, miracles, the work of Christ on the cross as being purposeful. Other than that, he leaves it pretty intact!

I couldn’t give a rip about being relevant if it means changing the message of Christ to get a more positive response. The response isn't always positive. It wasn’t for Paul in Athens, was it? Some scoffed at him. A few said “Yawn, come back later, maybe we’ll talk more.” A handful responded to the gospel. No giant church started. Paul moved on in his journey. He tried other things in other places- he studied, learned, aligned himself with free people, with slaves, with Jews, with Gentiles, with weak, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all of the sake of the gospel…” Paul was passionate about the good news.

I’m not worried about being relevant…but I am interested in doing our best to communicate Jesus in a way that can be heard and understood. There’s a couple things that stand out in various studies for connecting with younger people, but I think they are pretty universally true in our day, and really not rocket science:

1) The Message is best communicated…in a relationship of trust.

If someone can trust you as a person, if they can count on you as a friend, if they feel loved and not like a “project,” the good news has a better chance of an open door.

Now, given the studies I cited earlier about how the church is perceived today, we have a lot of work to do. If the word “Christian” or phrase “follower of Jesus” immediately brings up for someone all the negative baggage, then it will take time, care, the Holy Spirit to overcome that. It will take the Holy Spirit, study, prayer…to build a relationship. And within the context of that relationship, the good news can be shared.

2) A number of studies have also found that in today’s culture, the thing that many who don’t believe still surprisingly feel positive about- is Jesus.

Jesus is an appealing figure, and the vision of the kingdom of God that Jesus pointed to being lived out here and now has great appeal. There is huge potential here. That the way we live life in community, the way we serve and live and take action so that we are not merely like the Athenians- “sitting around an talking about ideas” can bear great fruit. Doesn’t sound so tough, does it? Instead of any number of less important and divisive things, we start with Jesus.

All of this, though, will require our best work. And hard work to understand our culture enough to present the gospel in ways that can be heard. If we are simply talking heads, repeating the mantras that worked for us but no longer can be heard…we’re going to end up with what’s on the front of the bulletin.

Look at it. A pretty amazing picture, isn’t it? That’s a beautiful new bridge. It once went across the river you see just to the right of it. Then in 1998 Hurricane Mitch hovered over the coast of Honduras for several days, sucking up more and more water. Then it moved inland and dropped it all. In some places eight feet of water fell. Everything flooded, wind blew, such force that this river actually was redirected…and will never return to where it was. So you have a bridge that goes nowhere, because the river moved.

Our message in Jesus Christ doesn’t change, but the listeners have, the culture has. Can we think harder, and creatively about how we share good news? As I’ve read back through Paul’s travels, I’ve been reminded of this underlying drive he had- Paul believed that the good news was really, really good. It’s why when he went to Athens. It’s why he couldn’t just go on vacation. There were people who needed to hear the best news possible...and he needed to figure out how to share it best.

Let’s pray.