Many Christians evangelize like the left angler in the cartoon. The Gospel message they share is not really GOOD news to those who receive it. That’s because the message they share doesn’t address people’s felt needs. It’s irrelevant. Therefore, the “fish” don’t bite. Those needing to be reached don’t respond to the message.
In this blog you will learn how to develop a message that is truly GOOD news to those you want to reach. First we will revisit the core of the gospel – according to the Gospels. You will also read about the felt spiritual needs of people in Animism and folk religions. These needs are relevant for people in all religions, as all religions, including Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, have expressions of folk religion. (In Part II we will address the felt needs of Muslims and Secularists, in Part III of Hindus and Buddhists.) Then I will offer a simple proven process you can go through to formulate a message that will truly be GOOD new to your community.
What actually is the gospel?
In a training on contextualization for an inter-denominational mission organization, I asked the new missionaries: “What is the gospel? Can you formulate it in one succinct sentence?” The answer of several contained varied element of: “Jesus died for our sins in our place, so we can have forgiveness and be saved for heaven.” I asked the group: “What else does the gospel entail?” Silence in the room. I prodded: “The gospel is broader than this. What else?” Nothing. After prodding a third time, met with deafening silence in the room and glazed eyes throughout the group, I gave up.
More precisely, I changed my approach. I wanted them to discover for themselves, so I asked someone to read Mark 4:43 aloud: “But he [Jesus] said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent (NIV – emphasis added).”
Then I asked: “What do we learn in this verse about what the gospel is?” I could have also had other verses read that contain that phrase “gospel of the kingdom,” such as Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (NIV – emphasis added).” (Or also Luke 8:11 or Luke 16:16.)
The gospel is the kingdom of God
What do we learn in these verses about the gospel? It is the gospel of the kingdom. This is best translated as: the gospel which is the kingdom. In New Testament Greek the construct is called genetivus explicativus or “explaining genitive.” Simply put, “of the kingdom” (in the genitive case) explains “the gospel.” The gospel message in one phrase is: the kingdom.
What is the kingdom? The Gospels record Jesus as teaching about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven synonymously. It means: God’s good reign, as it is fully manifest in heaven (Ladd, 1959; Willard, 1998).
The gospel is much more than forgiveness – it’s core is God’s good reign made accessible.
In Mark 1:15, Jesus reveals more about this Good News when teaching: “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” The Good News is: God’s good reign has now become accessible (“near”). Just open your mind, change your perspective, and trust. The word “repent” today has lost its original meaning and taken on a religious tone. The Greek word metanoia (μετάνοια) means to change one’s mind or perspective.
Luke summarizes Jesus’ message in this way, “He [Jesus] appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3)
In the books of Acts, the first Christians followed Jesus’ example and “proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” (Philip in Acts 8:12). Their core message too was the kingdom of God (Acts 19:8; 20:25; 28:23; 28:31).
The gospel is wholistic
The Greek word euangelion (εὐαγγέλιον), that captures Jesus’ message, was commonly used in the Roman Empire to refer to the announcement of significant events, particularly in relation to the emperor. These messages would often be declared as divine blessings or signs of the emperor’s favour, connecting them with religious overtones. The "good news" proclaimed by Roman officials would often emphasize the peace and prosperity that the emperor brought to the empire, what came to be known as the “Pax Romana” (Roman Peace).
In Jewish society, the term was used to describe the Good News of God’s deliverance, salvation, or victory, often in the context of God intervening on behalf of His people. Greek-speaking Jews knew euangelion from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament (for example, in Isa. 52:7).
The Good News Jesus brought was God’s good reign applied all aspects of our lives.
Jesus’ core message was, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
Jesus’ gospel applied to all aspects of life wholistically:
Good news to the poor: improvement for the economically underprivileged
Freedom for the prisoners: liberation for those in bondage
Recovery of sight for the blind: physical healing for the sick
Set the oppressed free: liberation from social oppression
God’s favor: for all aspects of life and for everyone.
We see that Jesus’ gospel had not only a spiritual dimension but also included the
Physical dimension
Emotional dimension
Social dimension
Economic dimension.
The core of the gospel is: God’s good reign for all aspects of the lives of those we’re reaching.
Jesus knew what the felt needs of first century Jews were and he brought a message that addressed these needs. That made his message GOOD News! And many responded to such good news.
The gospel is only Good News when applied to felt needs
What does this mean for Christians today in the 21st century? What makes the gospel Good News is that those who hear it from us perceive it to be Good News to them. It addresses their felt needs (the term anthropologists and psychologists use) or their pain points (in customer service verbiage).
Many people’s current lifestyle, belief system, and religion does not meet certain needs of theirs. They may try to ignore that feeling or deny it to others, but they have some awareness of those needs.
To bring Good News to them means applying an aspect of God’s good reign (kingdom) to address these felt needs.
Good News is God’s good reign applied to felt needs.
Bringing a gospel that addresses felt needs is critical for ministry fruitfulness. The research on Natural Church Development by my fellow countryman Christian Schwarz identified “need-oriented evangelism” as one of eight factors of growing churches (Schwarz, 1996).
The group of missionaries I previously described training quoted a gospel concept that Martin Luther had formulated in the early 16th century. Luther had applied the kingdom of God to the felt needs of his contemporaries, who were straining to obtain God’s forgiveness for their sins that plagued them and fearing the flames of hell and purgatory. The Good News to them was: “Jesus died for your sins in your place, so you can have forgiveness and be saved for heaven.” This one aspect of the kingdom gospel had been handed down in the streams of the missionaries’ churches over five centuries. (And today parts of the Church have truncated that to: “Say this sinner’s prayer and that will get you a ticket to heaven and fire insurance from the flames of hell.”)
Martin Luther’s gospel may have been what drew me or you to Jesus (in my own life this is actually the case). And to this day I love this aspect of the gospel. But I also love bacon. And that doesn’t mean it would dawn on me to use bacon as a lure to catch fish. Many Christians unthinkingly do exactly that. They take the aspect of the gospel that saved them and present that to others – assuming those people will love that gospel too. The homework these Christians failed to do is to think “what kind of food fish love.” In other words: what are the felt needs of those they hope to reach? That is the task of every gospel messenger.
Applications for ministry among the world religions
Together with my church planting team, I thought through how to apply this to ministry among Muslims. In trainings I have facilitated around the world, I have done the same with trainees for ministry to other religious communities. In addition, I studied what leading missiologists who are experts on ministry to particular religions have written on the subject. I would like to share with you the fruit of these interactions: how to apply the kingdom gospel as Good News to the felt needs of people from various religious backgrounds.
In this blog (Part I) we will look at Animism and folk religions. (In Part II we will address Islam, and Secularism, in Part III Hinduism and Buddhism).
For many adherents of world religions, their religious affiliation is actually a thin veneer of Islam, Hinduism, or whatever their stated religion, above a deeply animistic world view. Much religious practice is also permeated by animistic practices. Therefore, I will present Animism first. Much of it can be applied to the folk expression of other religions. Beyond our own ministry experience, I have considered the insights of Don Richardson (1981), Eigil Hauff (1986), David Hesselgrave (1991), Gailyn Van Rheenen (1991), and Paul Hiebert (1990; 1996).
Felt Needs among Animists on Adherents of Folk Religion | Answers in Animism & Folk Religion | True Answers in the Gospel |
Fear of misfortune, calamities, curses, and witchcraft | Use power objects like amulets, charms, or magic potions, follow power rituals. | Nothing evil can harm God’s children unless by his permission. |
Seeking for power and protection against evil spirits and ancestors | Follow power rituals, especially during power times, life transitions (birth, adolescence, marriage, death), harvest, and at ceremonies and festivals. Shamans bring sacrifices to appease and manipulate spirits. | Jesus is supremely powerful over all other powers. By invoking his name we can exercise his power and find protection. |
Healing and health | Power rituals, sacrifices, or consultation with spiritual healers | Prayer for divine healing from Jesus |
Harmony, peace and reconciliation with the spirit and natural world | Ongoing effort to maintain harmony through sacrifices for appeasement. Avoidance of environmental damage and social conflict, due to interconnected-ness of all things | Christ has overcome the spirit world, brought us peace with God and all good spirits, reconciled us with God, and can protect us from all evil spirits. Through creation care we seek to live responsibly in God’s good world. |
Guidance and direction | Sought from the spirit world through consultation with power people and divination | The Bible and the Holy Spirit give guidance and direction. |
Feeling of powerlessness, fatalistic disposition | Seek power from power people like shamans at power places (spiritual centers, or shrines of saints). | Authority and power of the Holy Spirit for all believers, in any place, dignity of the image of God and authority as God’s co-regents on earth |
Communal cohesion and continuity | Deep imbedding in tradition, ancestry, and strong communal identity and belonging | Acceptance in the fellowship of the church and in eternity belonging to the communion of deceased believers |
Understanding and coping with death | Care for and veneration of ancestor spirits, rituals surrounding death | Although death is still an enemy, Jesus has overcome its power through his resurrection. |
This list is in no way meant to be definitive. Rather, I share it with you as a starting point. Really understanding the felt needs of the people you are reaching out to can be done much better by you than by me. And the primary means of understanding these needs is not studying publications but intentionally listening to people. By doing this in the context of a budding trust relationship, you can find out the real felt needs of real people.
A simple process to articulate Good News
Mobilize your team to ask people in your community questions about their felt needs and how they try to satisfy them through their religion. Have them all listen deeply to understand both the felt needs they identify and how local people seek to find answers to their felt needs in their own religion. It is normally best to take notes after these conversations, to avoid having people feel “investigated.”
In a team meeting all share their notes and discuss them. For starters, the team can aim at identifying five felt needs and their answers that the people in the community articulated.
The team studies the Bible to seek how God and the kingdom gospel truly meets the felt needs identified.
Whenever conversations turns to any of the felt needs or how people seek answers in their own religion, your team can communicate the true answer from the gospel as truly Good News.
Over time, the team can expand the list of identified felt needs.
Over time, the team can also hone the way they communicate the Good News in culturally meaningful ways that speak into people’s worldview and use language that resonates with them.
You can use this kind of table to capture your insights from points 1-3:
Felt Needs among our Community | Answers in their Religion | True Answers in the Gospel |
Need A | Answer A | True answer A |
Need B | ......... | .......... |
.............. | .......... | ........... |
What are your thoughts?
I would love to hear from you. What are YOUR thoughts? What is your experience? Leave a comment below! If you prefer to private message me, you can use the contact form.
Learn more about the best practices of effective catalysts in my book Movement Catalysts. You can order your copy here.
If you found this helpful, how about you share this blog with your network?
Emanuel Prinz – Father’s Beloved & Movement Activist
References
Hauff, Eigil. 1986. "Animism and the Christian Message." Missionalia, 14(2), 85-98.
Hesselgrave, David J. 1991. “"The Power of Christ and the Powers of Culture: Can Christians Witness to Folk Religion Adherents with Integrity?" Evangelical Missions Quarterly, 27(4), 342-349.
Hiebert, Paul G. 1990. "Critical Contextualization." International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 14(3), 104-112.
Hiebert, Paul G. 1996. "The Gospel and the Animistic Worldview." International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 20(3), 106-113.
Ladd, George Eldon. 1959. The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies on the Kingdom of God. Grand Rapids: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Richardson, Don. 1981. Eternity in Their Hearts. Bloomington: Bethany House Publishers.
Schwarz, Christian A. 1996. Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches. Carol Stream: Churchsmart Resources.
Van Rheenen, Gailyn. 1991. Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts. Pasadena: William Carey Library.
Willard, Dallas. 1998. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. New York: Harper.