#115 | Good News In A Diverse World, Pt. 1 | Jay Moon & Bud Simon

It's more likely you're going to encounter someone who doesn't have, like, a Christian history or Christian background. They may be. You mentioned Wiccan, or they may be Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or indifferent.

So as a result, instead of evangelism being what it used to be, like rekindling a faith that they used to have or their parents had, now we're in new territory, and you can't assume that we can build upon that guilt, justice kind of orientation.

It's watering time, everybody. It's time for Apollos Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things.

Of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and.

I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations.

Does the word evangelism scare you? Does it make you cringe or somehow feel inadequate? If it does, you're not alone. Almost everyone I meet feels that way, at least at some point.

And some of the ones who don't probably should, because oftentimes what they think of as being bold often turns people off to the gospel because they're not communicating it in a way that connects with them. In our last deep conversation with JD Payne, we discussed having an apostolic imagination.

The apostles took the gospel to places where it had never been before. And increasingly, Christians, even in North America, are having to think this way, too.

But if evangelism was scary before, how do we think about it now? What do we have to do to lower the cringe factor and increase our ability to actually communicate the gospel?

Today, we're talking with Jay Moon and Bud Simon, who recently wrote the book Effective Intercultural Evangelism.

I know, I know, it sounds like a missions textbook, but as our conversations with Jamie Staples, Audrey Frank, and David Garrison taught us, the people we tend to think of as over there are often our neighbors. We just don't know it yet.

And when we think about some of the conversations about the changes going on in our culture, from Trevin Wax to Nancy Pearcey to Sam Alberry, we have to recognize that the old ways of communicating might not work anymore. It's not because that they were wrong, but because the culture has changed from their experiences in Ghana and Brazil.

Jay and Bud help us to see how we need to approach talking, talking to our neighbors, how younger generations in the US Are sometimes closer in mindset to their peers from around the world than previous generations in their own culture.

I think you're going to be helped and may be Surprised as we talk about the four dominant worldviews and how two of those are often mixing among younger people in the West. It's an insightful, necessary, and beneficial conversation. Happy listening.

J.

Moon and Bud Simon, welcome to Apollos Watered.

Wow. Great to be here, Travis. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us, Travis.

Okay, this is a double. This is the first time in Apollo's watered history that I've got two guys in the show. So welcome. You guys are the very first. I hope you're excited.

Groundbreak. All right, let's do it.

Yeah.

So because there are two of you, we're going to do two fast fives, so Bud, you're going to go first. Are you ready?

I guess so.

Okay, here's an easy question. Sweet corn or popcorn?

Sweet corn.

Why?

I just love it, man. I can eat it all day.

You and me both. What did you grow up at?

Phoenix, Arizona.

Not a lot of sweet corn out that way.

Not a lot of sweet corn, but.

I grew up in the plains of central Illinois, so sweet corn is, like my thing.

Gotcha.

I'll take either.

Yeah, I spent a few years there in Illinois, too.

So you get it. You get it.

I get it.

You get it. Okay, so here's the second question. When you were in Brazil, what is the one thing you missed from the U.S. good question.

I think one of the things I missed was the stability of things.

So, like, you turn on a light switch, the light comes on, you turn the water faucet on, and the water comes out, you know, so some of those things I missed. We lived in a fairly rustic situation, so sometimes you turn the switch on and no electricity, you know, and no reason why not.

So, yeah, I missed that. Missed some of that stuff.

It's the little things that we take for granted each and every day.

Yes.

Okay, here we go then. Third question. What is the one thing in your office that you absolutely couldn't do without and why?

Oh, that's great. Question. I would say the one thing is just my. My computer. Well, of course, my Bible, you know, that's the writing.

Okay.

All right, we got the Bible and the computer. Let's put those to the side.

Okay.

They're given in, like, the theorem, you know, geometry, formula.

Yeah. Boy, I have my. I have my pens. I have my journal in here. I actually have a two desk setup.

So I sit at one desk for computing, and then I have another desk behind me where I do my writing and I do my journaling and stuff. So that's like a big deal.

There so you have like double desk or desk squared. Do you have a name for it?

I got it. No, I just call my writing space, you know.

Okay, so it's the desk. That's it. You need the other desk.

I do, yeah. Because you go there. You go there and you got it in your mind, hey, this is where I sit to write in my journal. That's true.

I'm not doing other stuff there.

It's just for that. That's good.

It's kind of helpful.

Yeah, it is helpful to have that designated space. All right, question four. Strangest or funniest cross cultural experience.

You know, so there's some funny things that happen early on when you learn the language. You know, language can be really, really funny, you know, so. So the language mess ups, but I think so.

One of the strangest things, one of the things that really caught our attention was the way they celebrate Christmas in our part of Brazil. And so this is not a language thing, but this was just a communication thing. Overall. We got to Brazil, we were living with a Brazilian.

My wife and I didn't have any kids. We were living with another Brazilian couple. They didn't have any kids. They say, we don't really do a thing on Christmas Day.

We have it on Christmas Eve. We have this big dinner. We're inviting friends over and all this kind of stuff. So my wife and I are like, hey, we're down for that. We like that.

We're social, we like engaging with people when, you know, what should we bring? So we made what it was 6:00, you know, in the evening, no one's there. Like, what's going on?

And we came to find out that on Christmas Eve, they celebrate this meal at midnight on Christmas Eve. And we were like, we can somehow we never clued in and all these conversations that this is a midnight dinner celebration on Christmas Eve.

And this is like the event for a lot of. A lot of people in our part of Brazil, which was up in the Amazon region. So people are coming. We're like trying to stay awake.

And they're like bringing food. Not like, like tons of food, tons of Brazilian food.

It'd be like a Brazilian Thanksgiving type meal, but just the table is just spread with all kinds of elaborate foods. And so, you know, my wife and I were just like, this is like totally brand new for Us. But Christmas Day was, like, totally, totally chill.

Not much going on Christmas Day, but that Christmas Eve dinner was a big deal. So that was. That was kind of fun, but a learning experience, that first one. After that, we kind of caught on.

How long did you stay for the meal? What time did you go to bed that night?

Oh, it was in our house. We stayed till the end.

That's right.

You don't have a choice.

I know.

We were like, I guess we can't really slip away, you know?

That's awkward.

Yeah. It was great, though.

Here we go. The last question. This is a new one. This is one that I want to hear.

How you answer this.

If you were a photo in National Geographic, what photo would you be and why?

Oh, my gosh. You know, one of the things I learned to do when I was in Brazil is I learned to spearfish.

Because the tributary of the Amazon we were on on had clear water. So when it was the certain times of the year, it would be clear, like, crystal clear, like the Caribbean or something. And so I learned to spearfish.

And so a lot of times I'd be spear fishing, which was very contextually irrelevant for. For the area where we were in. You just, you know, because that was, like, a lot of sustenance, living with, fishing, and so everyone could relate.

So I'd be one of those guys holding up the fish that they caught, Things like that. That would be the National Geographic picture in front of this grass hut or this very. Some little house along the edge of the river.

I love that. Yeah, that's a great one. Okay. That's a good description. I really enjoyed that one. All right, Jay, are you ready for your fast five?

Bring it on, bro.

Okay, here we go. Chipotle or Taco Bell?

Chipotle. It's just a bit more options and a bit more spice and a bit more flavorable.

I agree totally. Number two, similar question to Bud. When you were in Ghana, what is the one thing you missed from the.

U.S. yeah, I'd say electricity.

You didn't have any electricity at all.

So we lived in a village, had no electricity. And what electricity does for you, it provides, like a fan on a hot night to just get to sleep. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, that's one of the things that we missed. And we occasionally go outside the village to, like, a city that would have a fan, and I would just sit in front of it for a while.

No electricity at all. Running water?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We dug a well and put a pump in it. Put a Tank up in the air so that it would flow into the house. That's like. Yeah.

What farmers have done for a long time.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, here's the third question then for you. This is a little bit different. If you were a kitchen utensil, what would you be and why?

Well, let me think. That's actually kind of an easy one. I would be.

I've got this, like, hot water heater that he water for tea, because I grow, like, this lemon sage and spearmint, and I'll take some tea every night, so. Every night, man, I'm on that. You know, it heats the water up, and then you steep it, and then you drink. And it just kind of the.

I researched it said that, like, the spearmint and the lemon sage have mood elevating effects. So that's what I'm talking about. I would be that teapot kind of hot water heater to produce mood elevating effects.

That's what you need, Jay. You need to elevate your mood. Jay is like, one of the most upbeat guys I know.

Okay, here's your final question. This one. I have no idea if this is going to be relevant to you or not, but let's see what happens.

If you were an 80s metal band, what band would you be and why?

Well, I'd probably Boston back in the day. Yeah, so that was. I used to play high school football. Bud did as well. And before a game, we'd listen to Boston, you know, kind of get you jacked up.

I actually went to a Boston concert back in high school, back in the day. And, yeah, so that was like, how.

Old are those guys now?

I don't even know if they're alive.

Okay. All right, well, let's hear about your book, Effective Intercultural Evangelism.

As you can see, I have read through it, and I've got all these pages marked where I wrote down quotes and things that I wanted to review. Something that I think is completely relevant. As our culture continues to be diverse, this is a resource that we all need.

I was actually interviewing JD Payne the other day, and I told him that I was going to be talking to you guys. And I told him about the book, and he goes, it's a great book. It's a really great book. So you've got some endorsements there.

And I want to hear what was the impetus behind writing this book? Why did you guys write it?

Well, maybe I'll start off and Bud can share his story as well. You know, when I was in Ghana, West Africa, and I described we lived in a village, had no electricity and all that.

And we're learning this language that wasn't written down at the time.

After about a year, I could speak this language, and I started to share the gospel with them in a way that I had learned in seminary about, you know, we've all sinned, and therefore we've fallen short. And because of our guilt, we're separated from God. And Jesus, though, takes our guilt upon himself.

And therefore we have just standing before God, and then he let you into heaven and that relationship restored. So when I told the Bolson people that they look at me and like, well, that's interesting, but not really, you know.

So I'm like, wow, how did the gospel become, like, not interesting at all? Until I realized that this was not a culture where they experienced inner guilt. They weren't feeling guilty of their discretions or indiscretions.

But what I realized was this is like a culture that experiences fear.

So when I started to explain the gospel in those terms where our early ancestors were close to God, but because of our sin, God put a curse upon humanity. And this curse then produces fear of witchcraft, evil eye, juju, which is their daily world.

And God promised that he would send one to become the power of God to break that curse. And in that time, in the fullness of time, Jesus came to be the power of God to break that curse that was put upon humans.

Everybody wanted to hear about that. While they weren't interested in overcoming guilt, that just wasn't their reality.

They were very cognizant that they were fearful and that they needed power to overcome that. And Christ, who gives them the power to overcome that fear, was good news to them.

So I started to realize, well, that just by understanding their worldview changes their receptivity of that. Are there other cultures where this happens as well? And turns out there are. So that kind of set us on. Set me on that journey and how.

The two of you get together to write this book.

So Jay's my. I'm working on my PhD and Jay is my mentor in the program. And so we had collaborated on this course that Jay had put together on teaching.

Jay invited me to help. Help with this course on evangelism in a pluralistic society. And so that was the roots of this book. And of course, we had. We had similar.

I had similar experiences in Brazil just realizing what I had been trained on as the gospel, you know, and you can name them all from the. You know, from the. From the 20th century, you know, evangelism explosion four, spiritual laws and powerful stuff in the.

In the right context and in their time and place.

One of the things I realized is that the cohort from Brazil had more in common with Gen Z and Millennials, those cohorts here in the States, than they did with the older cohorts, you know, the greatest generation, the boomers and things like that. They were just thinking differently. And so if you said, hey, that's wrong.

Didn't mean anything, you know, but if you would say, hey, if you keep doing that, I'm going to share that on social media. They're like, oh, don't do that. I'll stop. Well, that's just like shifting from guilt justice to shame, honor. You know, you're exposing their.

Their wrongdoing in front of other people. That's. That's shaming. That's like a shaming. So suddenly it's like the world has. You know, I've been gone 20 years. The world's just really shifted.

And I saw that over and over again in Brazil, too, in my. My own personal. I mean, I can share stories from that, too, but. Well, to share a real quick one, you know, I was a lot like Jay. I was.

Shared the gospel, the way I learned it and stuff. And everyone was. I'd talk and preach, and everyone's super polite. You know, they're like, that's really nice. One night I had.

One day, I had an experience where I went to a shop, and I'm still thinking, this is early on, you know, I'm still thinking of my North American terms. Left something to get fixed. The guy says, yeah, I'll get to that. You know, And I'm like, okay, when are you gonna get that?

You know, customer service, customer's always right, customer's number one, blah, blah, blah. You know, this is my way. My mind's thinking. It says, yeah, I should get to tomorrow. So I'm like, pressing them, you know, when can I come back?

Yep, come back tomorrow evening. So in my mind, I'm coming back the next day in the evening, and it's going to be ready to go. Wasn't ready. He hadn't even looked at it. I kind of.

I kind of lost it. I blew up a little bit, you know, got upset. Now I'M just kind of, like, riding them pretty hard, you know? And I.

He didn't really respond, but I could tell it was just not a good scene. I was socially aware enough to see it is not a guy. This is not a good deal. I left. But the Holy Spirit touched me. He says, you need to go back.

You embarrass this guy in front of his employees. His customers need to go back. You need to apologize in front of them also. Next day, I went back.

When the guy saw me come through the door, he turned his face away. He didn't want to see me. But I went over to him and I just said, hey, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have treated you that way.

That was the wrong thing to do, man. He just lit up, you know, he is.

Because I had an honor shame context that was like, I had embarrassed him in front of his employees, in front of other customers. Now I was saying, this is, like, really honoring him. I was wrong. You're right. That. And so that was just a turning point.

After that, I was like, one of his favorite customers. He just, like, gave me priority service. He loved it. I'd come in and talk to him.

He just.

He's always chatty with me, you know? So it was this really powerful, powerful moment, you know, I want to go.

Back just for something you both said. You said the approaches that you learned in seminary just weren't sufficient for where you were. And you actually write that in the book.

You say, there is no one size fits all approach to evangelism. Instead, I love how you described it because you put it in a context for people to get.

You said, instead, Jesus offers power to the Wiccan who is in fear, honor to the Hindu who is feeling shame, belonging with purpose to the Airbnb guest who is indifferent to Christianity or justice to those feeling guilt for their sin. If we listen long enough, people will tell us where. Where God is starting a conversation with them.

And though these conversations are unique, this book will uncover discernible patterns for evangelism in various cultural contexts. But why is it important to understand these cultural operating systems, if you will?

Yeah, no, that's great. So what's happening is in the past, when we were more isolated, like monocultural, so to speak, it kind of. It worked.

You know, like Bud mentioned the four spiritual laws when I was in college, that seemed to work, and we promoted that.

Now, with globalization increasing, which results in pluralism, it's more likely you're going to encounter someone who doesn't have, like, a Christian history or Christian background. They may be. You mentioned Wiccan, or they may be Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or indifferent.

So as a result, instead of evangelism being what it used to be, like rekindling a faith that they used to have or their parents had, now we're in new territory. And you can't assume that we can build upon that guilt, justice kind of orientation.

And furthermore, interestingly enough, Jesus never presents the Gospel the same way twice. There's no magic silver bullet, right?

But as we look at it further, we recognize that he understands the context of where the people are and therefore is appropriate to present the Gospel in ways that are good and new to people.

One scholar, New Testament scholar Brenda Colligan, has said, the New Testament doesn't give us like a systematic formula, but the New Testament gives us various images of salvation.

And missiologist Craig Ott says, well, each of those images can be used by recognizing the cultural context people are already residing in and use the image that is most resonant with those people. So therefore, as you intimated, Travis, our role really is to catch up on the conversation that God is already having.

And we're assuming that in the beginning, God is having a conversation with everybody out there, even though they may not admit it, there's a conversation going on, and we're trying to not impose our conversation, but trying to catch up on that conversation and keep it moving towards Christ.

So therefore, our first position is to be empathetic, to listen more than talk in order to hear where that conversation is, to know which worldview is being discussed so the Gospel is good and new to that person.

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What are these four worldviews that people have? And as you talk about that, where are these people located that have these worldviews commonly.

Sure, I'll just jump in there. So we start off and we say like that, the guilt justice. And this is very. This is kind of a. Of course we find it in Scripture. All these.

All of these are addressed in Scripture.

But in Western Europe and in North America, we've kind of given prevalence to the guilt justice because that really fit into some of the views that we hold that everyone is equal. There's no favoritism at all. There's no preference kind of that image of blind justice. Those types of images fit well with this. Everybody is guilty.

Everybody needs justification. And here's the thing that's important. This is all true. It's not like, oh, this is true and this isn't true. That's the important thing to recognize.

But the good news, it's like, what truth does this person need to hear for it to be good news for them? So it's not like we're saying, oh, there's different gospels, or we were trying to change the gospel.

No, it's like there's different facets of a gem, and when that light reflects through it, you're seeing it differently. This actually comes from the lausanne conference in 19, I think, 78.

There's a paper written on this that different cultures perceive the gospel in different ways. And so for North Americans, Americans, Western Europeans, that was kind of. That guilt justice was really predominant. Then there is the shame honor.

This is really prevalent, some people say, in up to 70% of the world, relate to that now. I think a lot of people relate to it now. We showed that little model of like a soundboard where things get adjusted up and down.

So I think for a lot of people, there's. There's a touch of this. But shame honor says my place in.

In the group or my place in society or how other people perceive me, that's what's really important. And so as long as I'm getting affirmation that this is the right thing to do, that's. That's what the honor shame is, is really based on.

And so looking at it, thinking there's an audience now, that audience could be present or absent, but my actions are taken in that I'm doing take into account this audience that I will have to account to, which is a lot of times family, extended, an extended group or society that I'm involved in. So that's kind of that. And then there's power, fear, which says there is no separation of physicality and spirituality. There's. It's intertwined.

And so what I do in the physical world has impact on the spiritual world. What happens in the spiritual world plays out in the. In the physical world. And so there's. There's kind of like no voids.

There's no voids in the spiritual world. So it's either occupied by something good or something evil.

And there's this thought that in Christianity that the power of God, you know, this powerful thought that the God is the spirit that has created every spirit. He is the one who has created all things and all beings. You know, that's a powerful thought for people that have a power, fear, orientation.

And then finally indifference really is. People who are not interested in spirituality, you can. They're just not interested. They're indifferent to it.

You can bring it up and say, hey, now you're interested in having a spiritual conversation. And they just are not interested.

And so it's almost like you have to go one step before that and do this pre evangelism, that will almost awaken them to these spiritual concepts and spark their interest.

So stories from the Bible, especially when we read stories a lot in their current context, then, then it's like they lose their interest because one of the reasons is they can't imagine themselves in that story.

You know, it's like too, too far to jump from where they are currently to there now, of course, Holy Spirit can always do something supernatural and break down those barriers. We're not denying that at all. But we're saying a lot of times you need this pre evangelism stuff. And it's interesting.

We're working on this project with crew just exactly in that area. I don't know if. Jay, you want to jump in here a little bit? I'm kind of talking quite a bit.

Yeah. Well, just that those who are indifferent, they're not experiencing fear or shame or guilt.

So if we start presenting the gospel in those terms, they turn off right away. But what they are longing for is belonging with purpose, and Christ provides that.

Christ provides belonging as part of the family of God and purpose to live more than just your own personal interest. Right. So we find that this worldview is very prevalent on university campuses as well as post communist areas.

The fear of power is more Prevalent, say the southern hemisphere, sub Saharan Africa, tribal air ages, Caribbean. The shame honor is more in the east, say the Mideast, North Africa, Asia.

And Bud's already mentioned about the guilt justice in the west or say Western Europe. So these three worldviews are out there. And to be really honest with you, Travis, we don't think the world is limited to these four alone.

My hunch is there's more out there, but we just haven't had enough research and engagement to uncover that. And some anthropologists have talked about some other worldviews, but I think these are four that are really dominant in many cultures.

In the places that you were. So Ghana, I'm assuming, was a fear power.

Yes.

And then Brazil was what?

So I'm going to specify that to our area of Brazil. Our part of Brazil, I would say it was a mix of honor, shame, and pure power.

Interesting. So as you guys have both transitioned back to the United States, you're teaching at a university, you're interacting with students.

Do you find the innocence guilt worldview still the most prominent one, or do you see a shift occurring right now?

We just think it's a huge shift because.

And that's why we're working with crew on this project, they realize themselves that when people start off with the four spiritual laws, it's predicated upon the fact that people are guilty for their sin. But what if they don't experience guilt at all? Or what if they're not fearful or shameful? And where do you start?

So we think the shift is towards this indifference belonging with purpose. And therefore we're working with crew in order to develop a presentation of the gospel that is predicated upon that worldview assumption.

What about the honor shame worldview? You mentioned that there's research in the book. You mentioned this. There's research that seemed to indicate that there is a.

I don't want to say a new incarnation, but there is the rise of the honor shame in the West.

Yeah. So I would say that's definitely a factor, because part of that is when you move away from.

So our society, Western society, was really anchored in clear images of right and wrong. And so that's kind of been deconstructed, especially over the last.

You know, people can argue, you know, 50 years, 100 years, I mean, but you have to have something. And that is how. What is my standing in the group? How does the group perceive me? And so that. And so that's really the essence of honor shame.

You know, people are very concerned. The rise of social media has Brought about prevalence. You know, there's like this public shaming.

And some of these, you know, someone just makes an innocent statement. They're called out. You know, they're just called out and shamed for it. Now, that's a huge thing. So I think that that's been.

That's been real prevalent. That's been something that's really been on the rise there for. For the younger generation is how do they appear in the eyes of their peers? That's.

That's a big thing.

Bud mentioned in the book, you know, that the unashamed worldview, it requires an audience. The shame requires an audience, and you get a large audience with social media. So as a result, the whole shaming aspect is on the rise.

And therefore the aspect where Christ offers honor to people, where your honor is restored, that is increasingly relevant with people.

How does that differ from what we see, though, in other cultures, like Saudi Arabia? I know when most people that I interact with you mentioned the honor, same idea. They think honor killings, and they automatically are turned off.

But how is it different than what we see in other cultures to here? Because it's similar, but it's different.

Yeah, similarities. Now, of course, in the US A lot of it's mediated through digital means, right? So that's a difference altogether.

That community is digital, and there's the whole rise of, like, the metaverse and virtual reality, et cetera. That's a world that. It's not my world. I'm not in it, but I know several folks that are.

And therefore, that honor shame being mediated through digital means has some. Some changes to it. But it's so new, Travis, that we really don't have any experts in this area yet. We're still uncovering this.

And quite frankly, when we started teaching about seven or eight years ago in this practical evangelism, we only had the first three worldviews.

It wasn't until into this program, as we're doing research, that we realized people are indifferent and they needed a different approach because there's a different worldview altogether. So just that to say that research is still happening and still needed in order to understand those differences you're talking.

About, do you think that that indifference is primarily within a Western context? I mean, do you see or hear people talking about the indifference being in other contexts besides the United States or Canada, North America?

So I would say this. I would say it's prevalent.

When I talk to people in Brazil, they say it's very prevalent in educational institutions, mainly universities and that kind of culture where people seem to have this growing indifference. So there seems to be some type of correlation there between the rise of education and people seeing themselves as untethered from their.

Their worldviews. And someone told me, they said, this is super interesting.

People come out of a very rural context in a third world country, and they move into a university setting. They say it just takes them a few years for them to totally change their worldview and to think about what is important for them.

Suddenly they realize what I'm doing can remain completely unknown to my family. And, you know, there's like. So there's like in this fluid place, and they become indifferent in a lot of ways.

Yeah. So this indifference worldview has been there, but we think that secularization has accelerated that presently.

And as secularization continues to increase and in areas where it continues to increase through, like, globalization, migration, et cetera, this indifference also is on the rise.

It's interesting you guys mentioned that. I had Philip Jenkins on the show, and he did a whole thing on fertility and faith. That was a book that he had written about a year ago.

And in it, it was looking at the fertility rates within a society. And the thesis basically was, is that the more that secularization takes place, the birth rates go down and that sexual identity issues go up.

And he said, it doesn't matter what religion that society is. The more religious you are, the more it's about family, the more about children and the birth rates go up.

And his basic idea and thought on the show was that we don't really understand this phenomenon.

And is it that as we've done missions in other worlds, we've brought in a lot of modernity and modern things and think we're solving a lot of problems.

And we are, but we're also creating some that we don't often realize because secularization seems like a Trojan horrors where it's brought a lot in and we don't even know how to do mission oftentimes without secularization. That's why.

And we often make the statement on the show that you can talk about maybe going to Congo or Haiti, and everybody sees the mission trip, they see the need. But you mentioned Japan. And everybody goes down.

And it's because we've so associated modernity with mission and not realizing that Japan is one of the most unreached countries in the world. And so we've kind of. It's good to raise this up, because Craig Ott, when he was on the show, we talked about this, he said, what do we offer?

And he goes, well, we offer the Gospel, but it's. It's. It. And it seems what you guys are doing is you're saying, okay, that need is there.

We don't realize the way that we've understood that need commonly has been approached in this way. But the gospel's already addressed it. We've just taken it. We've looked at what the gospels addressed in a slightly different.

As you mentioned, the light of the gem brings it out. We're seeing it in a different way, that it's answering a greater need that they have in their culture.

How can we be able to see that and adapt these for our cultural context today? Because all four are prevalent within the West.

We have all these different cultures around us each and every day, and there's not that one size fits all. So how do you then go about uncovering what a person's worldview is?

Yeah, good question. So what we realize rather quickly, Travis, is that we're actually in this cultural straitjacket. So we have grown up in a certain worldview.

And if it was a justice guilt worldview, then you assume that everybody feels guilty for their sin. So we say you start off with being empathetic, to listen.

And if you listen with these four worldviews in mind, you'll identify rather quickly, or sometimes it takes time. Through conversation, you'll identify which of these worldviews they're engaged in. But that'll help you get outside of your straitjacket.

We stay in our straightjacket when we simply interact with people that look like us, talk like us, smell like us, etc. Right? Yeah. In a pluralist world, we don't have that luxury, so to speak, anymore. We have to recognize that we've had this straight jacket on.

And if I actually listen to people that are from different cultural, religious backgrounds, they're going to speak of different worldviews. And if I listen with my ears tuned and have these four in mind, I'll be able to identify them rather quickly.

We actually developed a card game to help people identify these worldviews by, like, gamification. So in the game, you are given, like, four cards. A person, place, problem, and presentation.

And what you do is you tell a story about you meeting that person in that place. In the course of conversation, they describe their problem. At the bottom of that problem card, there's one of those four worldviews.

When you make a presentation of Christ, you have to match that presentation card worldview to the problem worldview. And it just helps people to become more sensitized, to listen well and to Find out which worldview they're discussing.

And the more people do it in a game, the more they're able to do it in real life. One person said, it's kind of like batting practice.

You know, before you go in front of the pitcher and I'll throw you 100 mile an hour fastball, you hit some practice first. And once you have practice, then you can go and stand in front of that pitcher. And we say that's the same with identifying these worldviews.

You play this card game with friends, and usually, like, people are laughing, enjoying, and if they're not laughing, they're doing something wrong, you know, and then they identify the worldviews in the process so that they're more sensitized with people that they encounter real life.

So it's a. So it's a card game. How do you win?

Well, here's what happens. That's a good point.

If I'm going to play the game, I want to win.

Of course you do. So here's what happens, right? You have four cards in your hand.

At the end, after everybody tells their story, maybe there's five people in a group at the end of the story, you give three of your cards to the person who told the best story and one card to the person who told the second best story. And whoever receives the most cards wins the game.

Or do they get honor and the loser gets shamed?

Whoa.

Yeah, we have recovery groups for that.

You're going to say something, bud. What was it?

Oh, yeah, I was just going to say, just kind of building on what Jay said in the book, we talk about characteristics of a good evangelist. And so we mentioned empathy, people orientation, and being a learner.

So a lot of times, as evangelism has traditionally been taught, as you have the answer, and it really doesn't, we're not even listening to what the question is, the questions that people have. It's like you have an answer and it just kind of becomes like, oh, if I have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so that's.

That's what happens.

And that's unfortunately, kind of traditionally and even today when you talk to Christians, a lot of them think, I don't like evangelism because of that. But one of the things that was super powerful is for me is I would. And this took like a decade of time in Brazil.

And so I would share the gospel with someone. And this is what I mean when I say being a learner, I would share the gospel with someone or just share something about spiritual truth.

When I say the gospel, I'm talking in very broad terms, not necessarily what we think of as a gospel presentation. And then, you know, sometimes this person would be in a village, sometimes they'd be in a town, sometimes they'd be out very.

You know, I'd go someplace that are extremely isolated, and they would say, oh, what you mean is. And they would. They might say something like, oh, you mean.

It's like when I'm in my canoe and I try and fish all day, then finally, at the end of the day and I finally catch a fish. And I'd say, yes, that's exactly what I mean. And I would not understand at all what they're saying.

But the thing is, they're telling me what it means to them. So my job is to be the learner. And then I would say, what do you help me understand what you mean by that?

And then they would go on, and they would just continue to expand it, and. And a lot of times those types of things would just lead into deep spiritual conversations. That would be super helpful. So I think learning that.

That aspect of realizing people are. You have to make space for the Holy Spirit in the conversation when we. And that means that we have to abandon this.

Abandoned this idea that if I get the words right, the person will respond. That seems to, like, cut out the space for the Holy Spirit to work in that person's life.

You know, it's kind of like that turns it into almost like a formula that implies. I don't like what it implies.

I'll just say that there's implications there that aren't healthy for talking about Christianity as a relationship with Christ, you know.

So as you go about this, I think a lot of people that I interact with get nervous of the presentation and coming off like a used car salesman. If I could just get the information out, I can present it to them, and I can get them to sign the contract and move on. Everything will be fine.

But we know that relationships don't work that way. I mean, rarely do we get to be able to do that in one shot.

And oftentimes it's built over time through personal relationships as we start to get to know them and hear them. And one of the reasons we even.

We're called Apollos watered is because Apollos gets converted after hearing his sermon on Jesus's baptism by John the Baptist and starts preaching right away. And then Priscilla and Aquila hear him, and we're like, hey, this guy's great. He doesn't know anything.

We gotta be Able to.

They pull him aside and he listens. He listens to people that could hear the way of God more accurately. And that's one of the reasons we're here.

We want to be able to listen better from experts like yourself so that we can be able to do this better as we try to be better evangelists. I mean, even the term makes people cringe. They get tightened up all over.

Their stress level goes up and you might as well have just told them that their taxes are due. It's the same type of stress, like taxes. Evangelism is the same kind of thing.

How do we help people see that It's a process as well as a presentation. It's not mutually exclusive and de stignify or remove the stigma from it so that people can say, this is an overflow of the heart of a conversation.

And I hate to use the term, but when my kids find a video that they like, it's funny, they want to share it. And I want to find something that's important, I want to share it.

How do we get people to do that in these cultural worldviews when they're already having a hard time just doing it with their own culture? Got any ideas on that, fellas?

Well, no, you're right on part of the problem we're trying to deal with.

So at Asbury Seminary for the last eight years, every semester we have a non credit course that is for eight weeks, one hour a week, have a meal together and talk about practical evangelism, model it, and then they have exercises. Knox Fellowship has partnered with us to be able to make that available free to students.

And we're actually working on that very problem because people have this wrong image in their head of like the used car salesman that nobody trusts. And you don't want to look under the hood, you know. So Rick Richardson uses this term of like a spiritual guide or spiritual mentor.

And I like the connotation of being like a really good friend who is empathetic and listens to you and helps you to belong with others and has a purpose in his own life that is making you a better person. I mean, doesn't everybody want something like that? You know, I mean, really?

So if we move away from like two extremes, one is people feel like they don't want to be the person, like on the street corner yelling at people. They don't want that extreme. And then the other extreme is like a Billy Graham who knows all the answers to every objection. They can't be that.

So instead of those two extremes what about being a really good friend that listens really well and offers advice and helps somebody, but you yourself are connected to a community of people that has purpose to their life, and you are inviting them into that relationship. You are not forcing them, you are inviting them in. That just seems like a lot better type of image.

And for the last eight years, as I said, we have done this training and usually here's what's happened. People have increased their competency by 300% and their.

And their confidence has increased by 100% by going through this process that we make available to people. And one of those big sessions is about this intercultural piece, this whole pluralism. How do you engage pluralism? So it's not rocket science.

And I think a lot of it is being sensitized to a multicultural world, getting rid of our straitjackets that we've inherited from the worldview we're in, recognizing that God is a lot bigger than we are and already is speaking to people of different cultures. We just need to find ways to catch up on the conversation and be good friends to people in that.

And as you do, the spirit of God has given room to breathe into that relationship.

And I would say this too. I'll just chip this in too.

Research George Hunter, who wrote the Celtic Way of Evangelism and other books he mentioned he can take up to 30 contacts, 30 positive contacts with Christians or with the gospel in some form before someone makes a decision for Christ. One of the challenges is that the church presents evangelism as getting someone to make a decision for Christ.

And you hear, I've heard him, and I think everyone's heard him.

It's like, hey, if all of us can win 10 people to Christ this year and do that for the next, you know, eight years, everyone in the world would become Christians or something. You know, we hear like these crazy things kind of based on things that aren't rational really for the average person.

And really we should be talking about how can I build, how can I be faithful in the relationships God has given me and that I can. That I can portray Christ faithfully in those relationships and think that this is a long term, long term process, long game.

Jay and Bud are great examples of how changing our mindset can have very practical implications. If we really believe the gospel that Jesus Christ offers good news, then we should want to share it. That means figuring out how to share it.

Well, there's not a one size fits all template. It's not a straight jacket. As they reminded us. Jesus didn't use one way of communicating the gospel. Neither did Paul.

They shifted the way they talked about the gospel to fit the situation that they were facing. It means taking the time to listen well, which sounds a lot like what Georgianci talked about.

It means having empathy for people, really caring about them, and being learners. These are all things that we value highly here at Apollos Watered and hope you do too.

Evangelism often feels like being a used car salesman, but it doesn't have to. In fact, it shouldn't.

Real evangelism is about being a true friend who can be a spiritual resource to others, one who shares the love of Jesus with others. Naturally, this is only the first part of my conversation with Jay and Bud.

You will want to listen to the next episode as we continue the conversation.

And I highly recommend that if you haven't listened to some of the other episodes I mentioned at the beginning, you should, because they will help you understand a bit more of how our culture is changing the way people are thinking today, but will help you more effectively communicate to a world where Christianity is increasingly foreign, even if people think they know what it's about. Tune in next week for part two.

Much thanks to the Apollos Water team of Kevin, Melissa, Donovan, Eliana, Rebecca and Audrey, and to let you know that today's episode is brought to you in part by FCC Cabinets of Jacksonville, Florida. Water your faith. Water your world. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollo's Watered. Stay watered everybody.