Home
Individual Christians Need to Think 'Missionary'
By Craig Pinley
WINNIPEG, MB (May 2, 2004) - Lon Allison loves Jesus and wants everyone he
comes in contact with to know about it. On Friday afternoon, he shared
insights to help local church leaders more effectively evangelize in
today's culture - one of three seminars offered during the Evangelical
Covenant Church of Canada's 100th annual meeting.
Allison, who served nine years as director of evangelism and prayer for
the Department of Church Growth and Evangelism of the Evangelical
Covenant Church, continues to have passion about leading people to
Christ. He is a noted speaker and teacher on evangelism through his work
as a graduate school associate professor and director of the Billy
Graham Center at Wheaton College in Chicago's western suburbs. He's also
written a book about evangelist/theologian John Stott and he and Mark
Anderson recently co-authored Going Public With The Gospel
through InterVarsity Press.
A Californian for most of his childhood, Allison was converted to Christ
at age 17 and became an actor, performing on stage and in television
commercials. He then served as a youth pastor at Hillside Covenant
Church in Walnut Creek after graduating from Cal-State Hayward and
helped plant Hope Center Church in nearby Pleasant Hill in 1978. Hope
Center's informal worship style and extensive use of drama and the arts
was effective in reaching unchurched people. That experience - and the
many changed lives he's seen in the past two dozen years - keeps him
energized as he teaches others to help change lives through proclaiming
Jesus in various ways.
"It's still just as passionate as ever - it still drives me - and I
never get away from it," said
Allison, who attends DeerGrove Covenant Church in Palatine, Illinois,
with his wife, Marie, and family. "It's a combination of coming from a
non-churched home and finding faith through Young Life. And then there's
the flat-out spiritual gifts thing about it. I'm doing the same thing,
really. But I'm working in every kind of church imaginable.
"Mr. (Billy) Graham saw the Kingdom in a powerful way and I'm carrying
that in my DNA," Allison continued. "What's the difference between Lon
Allison of 1978 and 2004? I'm in love with the whole (larger Christian)
church. It's a missional deal. Jesus said, 'I pray that the world may be
one, that the world believe that you sent me.' And I refuse to be
separate from anyone who believes in the name of the risen Christ. My
early theology in the Covenant has given me that foundation. And I see
God getting bigger and bigger as I see Him expressed in every
denomination and people group."
Allison recently was part of a leadership group of seven different
nations teaching evangelism. The experience once more reminded him that
there are many different
ways of understanding Christ and expressing His love. He says the gospel
message is as powerful as ever, but that leaders need to be more
creative in telling the story and more willing to take risks to reach
people unlike them.
"We're in a global world and a multicultural reality," he said. "It used
to be that we were content to reach the world by sending missionaries.
But now we all have to learn what it means to be a missionary. My
biggest fear is that the local churches will go deeper and deeper in
their own entrenchment.
"I guess the bottom line is that I fear that we've lost confidence in
the message of the gospel," he continued. "Statistically, we know that
there are only a small percentage (about five percent) that are active
in evangelism. We're getting worse, not better, and we're afraid of the
new multicultural realities in America. I don't think we're sure we can
reach them and I think we're not sure we want to. I know it's hard for
me. I have to
work on it every day. I have to be intentional."
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
