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Wednesday August 12, 2009 ~ 15 Comments
For decades, the phrase, "If you were to die today, do you know for sure you would go to heaven?" was associated with evangelical attempts at sharing their faith. My guess is that millions of people have been asked that question over the last few decades-- and I would not be surprised if God used such a conversation and question and many many became followers of Christ. But, the question itself always intrigued me. And, one of the great things about my job (as a researcher), is I get to say, "I wonder..." And, in this case, I wondered how many people really ask that question. In other words, how often to people wonder if they were to die today would they go to heaven. My first assumption was that only a few people really would think about their eternal destiny and, thus, thought the question might be less helpful today if few asked that question. So, to test my informal hypothesis, we commissioned a poll. About three years ago, while I was serving at the North American Mission Board's Center for Missional Research (now led by my friend Richie Stanley), Richie and I did a poll on that very subject. Interestingly, "Will I go to heaven when I die?" is not a question most Americans ask themselves with much frequency. The North American Mission Board's Center for Missional Research conducted a survey that give some insight into what Americans are really thinking.
There are a good number of people who ask that question and do so frequently, but most do not. Perhaps in previous generations people were asking questions about life after death, and so evangelistic approaches that focused on that issue were contextually appropriate. But the times - they are a-changing.
It appears that more people are thinking about meaning and purpose than life after death. (And it is important to note that the Bible provides the answers to all these questions.) More people are thinking about is the purpose of life. People are looking for and thinking about purpose: perhaps one of the reasons that Purpose Driven Life has been such a best seller. Why are we here? How can my life have meaning, value and significance? Explaining what the gospel says to these questions will more readily demonstrate just how relevant the gospel is to their lives. What happens after death is eternally important, but the world isn't always ready to see that. But they are somewhat prepared to consider that because we are made in God's image we have infinite value and dignity; that sin is what robs us of experiencing the reason for which we have been made - to glorify God and enjoy him forever; that Jesus alone is our only hope of redemption - that in him our sins are forgiven, the image of God is restored in us and by him we can glorify God and enjoy him now and forever. This is the work of contextualization. Answering the questions the world is asking from God's word, pointing them back to the gospel. This is why I value research (asking questions, and really listening). Let's be about the business of making the gospel clear. To do that you will have to do more than speak. You'll need to do some listening as well. Posted on August 12, 2009 at 7:00 AM ~ 15 Comments Tagged with: contextualization, evangelism, namb, questions Subscribe via RSS or Follow us on Twitter
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Hey, I was wondering ... could you share a little bit about this data? Here are some questions I'd like to understand:
1. On the daily, weekly, etc. - is this a cumulative count? So, of 100%, 25% said they never think of purpose in life? Was the group Christian-oriented and if not, how much not? Is there an age bracket breakdown? I'm trying to figure out how to interpret and apply it to reach a pre-Christian population.
2. Did you ask what other questions they might be asking?
Thanks for sharing!
Sandy
Sandy, it is random Americans and they had forced choice answers between the options listed (which are not added together).
And, that is all we asked.
I think that the average person would agree that to have a past completely forgiven and a future completely secure is desireable--but the average person lives in today, so he may want just as much to know what the Lord Jesus can/will do for him today.
If believers aren't experiencing a growing intimate relationship with Christ today, we may not be prepared with an answer--and Christianity may not seem as relevant as it truly is.
I do think that the philosophy / worldview of North Americans today is more towards the now and not the later. And this doesn't have to be a "What's Jesus gonna do for me now" issue, as much as "How can I join God's work redeeming his creation now."
I like James Choung's example of an evangelistic talk as this generation's version of evangelism. See his book "True Story" or the youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCVcSiUUMhY
Ed,
Great study. This is a crucial issue to understand. The percentages speak to methodology that says, "BOTH/AND," not, "EITHER/OR." I think we must equip Jesus followers to be ready to engage the gospel IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE PERSON WITH WHOM THEY ARE SHARING.
And you are so right: because the gospel never changes and is always relevant, Jesus has an answer for the post-church worldview.
We probably shouldn't get caught up in a mindset of, 'This one way is the only way to communicate Jesus.'
"...while tradition is a mechanism we use to pass on truth to future generations, often only the mechanism gets passed on. To counter this, each new generation of believers must rediscover their roots and go back to the source teachings [Scripture] for themselves." -Bruxy Cavey
God-focused rather than program-focused, right?
I am reminded of a tract from the 1980's called "How to Have a Full and Meaningful Life." It was pretty much replaced by the "Eternal Life" Booklet. If you keep your narrow ties long enough, they will come back in style.
Hey Ed,
Do you think the result of this study is a reflection of what people are preaching, a result of what culture is portraying, or neither?
I just wonder if more churches dealt with eternal issues, if more people would be asking eternal questions. What do you think?
Thanks for all you do.
It's interesting that the two graphs are much the same shape.
I don't know why that's interesting, but I thought it was.
Also, maybe a "Becoming a Contagious Christian" kind of thing (Hybels/Mittelberg/Strobel)?
A believer practicing the Confrontational Style of evangelism might most often ask the question something like, "So, if you died tonight, . . . ?"--while believers practicing one of the other five styles of evangelism (Intellectual, Interpersonal, Invitational, Testimonial, or Servant) might begin with a different question or no question at all?
As most evangelism training appears to be by and for those with (even without!) the Confrontational style, we never really noticed before--but non-Christians have?
Interesting.
This was an appropriate question 40 years ago but too many continue to stick to it because it "worked" - It worked because it was suited to the mind-set of our culture at that time.
New questions, please! to help us witness to the timeless truth in Christ.
What we really want to know is, will you accept the position at....oh, never mind.
SBC insider
Great post. I find myself even as a Christian often asking "What am I doing that has eternal significance?" "Does my life have a purpose?" etc. I might fit more into the "weekly" population segment for the second survey. Of course, I feel very secure about my eternal security since I have placed my faith in Christ so my input may not be as relevant. But I get the same general feel about what people are truly concerned with today. In fact, I'm a little surprised that more people aren't in the daily, weekly, and even monthly population segments for this question.
Side note: I do sometimes question my salvation, but even then, my main concern isn't "What if I died and went to hell," it's more of my desire to be in God's will. Which, God usually uses this amongst other things to confirm my salvation.
If the situation calls for questions, some that appear good and help are listed below--from Share Jesus Without Fear (by Bill Fay: http://www.sharejesuswithoutfear.com/templates/System/default.asp?id=27043).
Not so different from the questions a person might encounter if interviewed for a survey.
1. Do you have any kind of spiritual beliefs?
2. To you, who is Jesus?
3. Do you think there is a heaven or a hell?
4. If you died tonight, where would you go?
5. By the way, if what you were believing is not true, would you want to know?
David Troublefield
The data supports what I have found to be.
I talk with evangelists who struggle -- they tell me people don't seem to be concerned about heaven.
Thus they see their gospel explanations fall on deaf ears and they wonder why.
Your data confirms what I've observed -- its not the question that people are asking.
As a trainer then, I have to help people see that there are other way to explain the same gospel but to answer a different question.
To restrict the gospel to the matter of eternal life will loose a lot of its richness.
Chris W
EvangelismCoach.org
Hi,
Interesting article. I thought it might be worth giving my views on your breakdown of these statistics.
For the first survey, although you say "most" (40%) are not thinking about the afterlife much, in fact it appears that around 60% actually are. And around 50% are thinking about the afterlife at least monthly. That's still surprisingly high, IMO.
For the second survey, you mentioned that the sample population was random americans, which I presume would give a rather large boost to the percentage of people concerned with meaning in general, because that includes people who believe in the afterlife plus those who don't. To compare apples with apples you'd have to run a survey on people who believed in an afterlife but concerned themselves with meaning now instead.