“Ole-Fashioned” Evangelism

Most everybody knows the word “evangelism” comes from a couple of Greek words—“eu”, which in Greek means “good,” and “angellion,” which means “a message.” “Evangelism” in good old Anglo-Saxon, means “good news.”

But to see how many Christians (let the reader here understand: “Anglicans”) approach evangelism, it means something like “a grim thing to be avoided.” But I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve had enthusiastic conversations with my co-religionists about a great new restaurant, a fantastic movie, or a wonderful laundry detergent (well, okay, not too many of those). When we really like or enjoy something, our natural inclination is to share the good news about it with the people around us.

Religion is different from detergent. But the desire to share something good with somebody else is the same.

Bishop Mote, as I mentioned in my last post, tossed me a challenge. If I didn’t like the door-to-door, let-me-tell-you-about-Jesus evangelism that is the stock-in-trade of American evangelism, what did I have as an alternative?

I didn’t have an answer for him. But an answer did—and does-exist. There is a genuine Catholic Evangelism, and it’s built right into our Anglican tradition. It’s what the whole Prayer Book is about.

In AD 500, Europe was collapsing. The Roman Empire was reduced to a memory; barbarian hordes swept across the continent from as far as Mongolia, destroying the remnants of the civilization of Greece and Rome. The Church, which had converted the Empire, went into shock from the onslaught: churches pillaged and destroyed, Christians butchered by the thousands. The Faith, which Christ had promised the gates of hell would not destroy, seemed to be tottering.

Pope St Gregory the Great (about whom I’d been reading when Bishop Mote told me to find a better sort of “evangelism” than button-holing people) embraced the task to re-converting Europe to the Good News. He did so principally by recalling Christians to the main reason they existed: the Church exists to worship God and sanctify the world. He did all he could to re-vitalize Christian worship—re-building ruined churches, teaching Christians (priests and people) how to pray and sing (the Gregorian chant is named after him) to make worship beautiful. St Gregory saw that the key to evangelizing was worship. His goal was to re-establish worshipping communities where they’d been destroyed and build new ones where they hadn’t been before. The pagans were converted by worship.

The Prayer Book envisions something much like this. We don’t (I hope) cling to the Book of Common Prayer (1928) because it’s old. We cling to it—embrace what it has for us—because it shows us how to live the Gospel, the Good News, in our lives. More than anything else, the Prayer Book is the Church’s pattern for the Christian's daily life. Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the continual cycle of the Mass making holy the days of the year, the Sacraments marking the moments of our lives—this is what the Prayer Book is about. We are a worshiping community: that’s what Jesus means for us to be: it’s why He made the Church and gave Himself for it.

For us Anglicans, evangelism centers around worship. We share our faith by sharing our worship.

Few people, though, are going to become Christians because they’re pushed through the doors of a church. People—you and me and everybody else—are drawn by love. If you and I love our worship, if we delight in the “beauty of holiness,” we will want to share it—to let people know about it—especially if it’s as life-changing as the latest and most splendiferous dishwashing liquid.