Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson on Faith, the Bible, and Being an Evangelist

Even DUCK DYNASTY has Good News!

Duck Dynasty is one of those few TV shows that don’t have to be a “guilty pleasure.”  Though a little quirky, the show follows a family who loves Jesus, lives in the Deep South and makes duck calls.  Every episode makes me laugh, and every episode ends in prayer.

Whether you’re a fan of the show or not, the following clip is helpful.  It’s taken from a lecture Willie, the CEO of Duck Commander, gave at a college.  Give it a “watch” to hear a great story of Gospel-transformation and some practical ways you can share your faith.

…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
(1 Peter 3:15-16 ESV)

Thanksgiving: More than Football and Food-Comas

What if God had more for our kin this Thanksgiving than the Macy’s parade, tryptophan-induced food comas, and NFL football? What if we saw our gatherings with friends and/or extended family not as a chance to check out, but as an opportunity for Christian mission?

Here are some suggestions inspired by Randy Newman’s excellent book Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well on how to bring the gospel with you to Thanksgiving … along with a covered dish.

1) Pray ahead.

Begin praying for your part in gospel advance among extended family several days before gathering. And let’s not just pray for changes in them, but also pray for the needed heart changes in us — whether it’s for love or courage or patience or kindness or fresh hope, or all of the above.  If you have grudged in the family, take time to “pray for your enemies”, laying those old offenses down at the foot of the cross.

2) Listen and ask questions.

Listen, listen, listen. Perhaps more good evangelism than we realize starts not with speaking but with good listening. Getting to know someone well, and specifically applying the gospel to them, is huge in witness. Relationship matters.

Ask questions to draw them out. People like to talk about themselves — and we should capitalize on this. And most people only enjoy talking about themselves for so long. At some point, they’ll ask us questions. And that’s our golden chance to speak, upon request.

One of the best times to tell the gospel with clarity and particularity is when someone has just asked us a question. They want to hear from us. So let’s share ourselves, and Jesus in us. Not artificially, but in genuine answer to their asking about our lives. And remember it’s a conversation. Be careful not to rabbit on for too long, but try to keep a sense of equilibrium in the dialogue.

3) Raise the gospel flag early.

Let’s not wait to get to know them “well enough” to start clearly identifying with Jesus. Depending on how extended our family is, or how long it’s been since we married in, they may already plainly know that we are Christians. But if they don’t know that, or don’t know how important Jesus is to our everyday lives, we should realize now that there isn’t any good strategy in being coy about such vital information. It will backfire. Even if we don’t put on the evangelistic full-court press right away (which is not typically advised), wisdom is to identify with Jesus early and often, and articulate the gospel with clarity (and kindness) as soon as possible.

No one’s impressed to discover years into a relationship that we’ve withheld from them the most important things in our lives.

4) Take the long view and cultivate patience.

With family especially, we should consider the long arc. Randy Newman is not afraid to say to Christians in general, “You need a longer-term perspective when it comes to family.” Chances are we do. And so he challenges us to think in terms of an alphabet chart, seeing our family members positioned at some point from letters A to Z. These 26 steps/letters along the way from distant unbelief (A) to great nearness to Jesus (Z) and fledgling faith help us remember that evangelism is usually a process, and often a long one.

It is helpful to recognize that not everyone is near the end of the alphabet waiting for our pointed gospel pitch to tip them into the kingdom. Frequently there is much spadework to be done. Without losing the sense of urgency, let’s consider how we can move them a letter, or two or three, at a time and not jerk them toward Z in a way that may actually make them regress.

5) Beware the self-righteous older brother in you.

For those who grew up in nonbelieving or in shallow or nominal Christian families, it can be too easy to slide into playing the role of the self-righteous older brother when we return to be around our families. Let’s ask God that he would enable us to speak with humility and patience and grace. Let’s remember that we’re sinners daily in need of his grace, and not gallop through the family gathering on our high horse as if we’ve arrived or just came back from the third heaven. Newman’s advice: “use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us’ far more than ‘you’” (65).

6) Tell it slant.

Some extended family contexts may be so far from spiritual that we need to till the soil of conversation before making many direct spiritual claims. It’s not that the statements aren’t true or desperately needed, but that our audience may not yet be ready to hear it. The gospel may seem so foreign that wisdom would have us take another approach. One strategy is to “tell it slant,” to borrow from the poem of the same name — to get at the gospel from an angle.

“If your family has a long history of negativity and sarcasm,” writes Newman, “the intermediate step of speaking positively about a good meal or a great film may pave the way for ‘blinding’ talk of God’s grace and mercy” (67). Don’t “blind” them by rushing to say loads more than they’re ready for. As Emily Dickinson says, “The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.”

7) Be real about the gospel.

As we dialogue with family about the gospel, let’s not default to quoting Bible verses that don’t really answer the questions being asked. Let’s take up the gospel in its accompanying worldview and engage their questions as much as possible in the terms in which they asked them. Newman says, “We need to find ways to articulate the internally consistent logic of the gospel’s claims and not resort to anti-intellectual punch lines like, ‘The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.’”

Yes, let’s do quote Bible when appropriate — we are Christians owing ultimately to revelation, not to reason. But let’s not make the Bible into an excuse for not really engaging with their queries in all their difficulty. (And let’s not be afraid to say we don’t know when we don’t!)

8) Consider the conversational context.

Context matters. It doesn’t have to be face to face across the table to be significant. “Many people told me their best conversations occurred in a car — where both people faced forward, rather than toward each other,” says Newman. “Perhaps the indirect eye contact posed less of a threat” (91). Maybe even sofas and recliners during a Thanksgiving Day football game, if the volume’s not ridiculous. Be mindful of the context, and seek to make yourself available for conversation while at family gatherings, rather than retreating always into activities or situations that are not conducive to substantive talk.

9) Know your particular family situation.

In some families, the gospel has been spoken time and again in the past to hard hearts, perhaps there has been a lack of grace in the speaking, and what is most needed is some unexpected relational rebuilding. Or maybe you’ve built and built and built the relationship and have never (or only rarely) clearly spoken the message of the gospel.

Let’s think and pray ahead of time as to what the need of hour is in our family, and as the gathering approaches pray toward what little steps we might take. And then let’s trust Jesus to give us the grace our hearts need, whether it’s grace for humbling ourselves enough to connect relationally or whether it’s courage enough to speak with grace and clarity.

10) Be hopeful.

God loves to convert the people we think are the least likely. Jesus is able to melt the hardest of hearts. Some who finished their lives among the greatest saints started as the worst of sinners.

Realistically, there could have been some cousin of the apostle Paul sitting around some prayer meeting centuries ago telling his fellow believers, “Hey, would you guys pray for my cousin Saul? I can’t think of anyone more lost. He hunts down followers of The Way and arrests them. Just last week, he was the guy who stood guard over the clothes of the people who killed our brother Stephen.” (53)

With God, all things are possible. Jesus has a history of conquering those most hostile to him. We have great reason to have great hope about gospel advance in our families, despite how dire and dark it may seem.

When We Fail

And when we fail — not if, but when — the place to return is Calvary’s tree. Our solace in failing to adequately share the gospel is the very gospel we seek to share. It is good to ache over our failures to love our families in gospel word and deed. But let’s not miss that as we reflect on our failures, we have all the more reason to marvel at God’s love for us.

Be astonished that his love is so lavish that he does not fail to love us, like we fail to love him and our families, and that he does so despite our recurrent flops in representing him well to our kin. (Originally posted on DesiringGod.com)

I’m uncomfortable evangelizing. How do I tell other people about Jesus?

This week I’ve become a published author in our little denominations’ magazine.  I was asked to answer a question someone had submitted to our “Questions of Faith” area.  The question was: I’m uncomfortable evangelizing. How do I tell other people about Jesus?

Here’s my answer:

I can relate to almost anyone’s fears when it comes to talking about Jesus. For some reason I am more comfortable talking about a favorite TV show or a great restaurant than I am talking to a friend about Jesus.

That’s the first thing I remember when I’m trying to bolster my courage to transition a conversation toward the good news–that it’s natural to talk about things we are interested in. When I talk to a friend about a movie I enjoyed, I don’t worry about offending that person. I just talk about why I loved it. The same attitude can help when I talk about Jesus. Stay humble. Talk about why Jesus has captured your heart and mind. You aren’t trying to win a debate; you are talking about a real person who has changed your life.

With this mindset, it is possible to see evangelism as part of the normal course of your life. Begin to pick the same barista at your coffee shop or the same cashier at the grocery store, looking for opportunities in those short conversations to mention the grace of Jesus.

Finally, remember to pray for help during these conversations. Jesus promised his disciples that his Spirit would help them when they had to give an answer for their faith: “…do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11-12). Keep a humble and open heart to the Spirit, who will give you the words and courage you need.

What would you add?  How do you share the good news with others?

Our Church Planting Future

One of the hats I wear is the Chairman of our area’s Church Multiplication Team (aka church planting team).  As I’ve worked on this team I’ve seen a wide variety of plants, plans and planters come and go.  Very few have “stuck.”  Godly men have worked hard, made great sacrifices and brought in the lost.  Every effort has lead to the Gospel being preached and to heaven rejoicing over lost children coming home.  Unfortunately, not every effort has resulted in the establishment of thriving local churches.

Part of me just wants to celebrate every conversion story and call it good.  You can never under-value a single life redeemed.

But (and I hate that there is a “but”) our job isn’t just to do evangelism.  Our team’s job is to multiply churches.  To plant reformed churches that will plant more churches.

To that end, I often (always) look beyond myself and our team for help in this task.  One man that’s been a great encouragement is Eddy Aleman.  He has planted more churches than I’ve attended, knows the ins-and-outs of both RCA bureaucracy and Hispanic Ministry, and has a deep-seated love for the Lord.  He recently wrote:

Since graduating from seminary in 2004, I have been immersed in church planting in the RCA. Looking back, I can only say that God’s grace has been with me; I have been a part of planting 10 churches and starting three study centers to train leaders for ministry.

Now that the RCA is wrapping up Our Call and looking into the future, I believe we need to concentrate on three areas related to church planting.

1. We need to promote more parent churches.

Churches plant churches, and a healthy church will give birth to other churches. Many congregations that could be a huge support in providing the funding needed to fuel the movement aren’t doing it. Huge amounts of money are sitting in the bank. All those resources need to be released and invested in the work of the kingdom. If we are going to be successful in the future of church planting, we need to find creative ways of promoting the vision and raise more parent churches.

2. We need to do a better job in planting churches among ethnic groups.

The world has come to us; this is a reality that we cannot deny. The U.S. is the third largest “Spanish speaking” country in the world only after Spain and Mexico. In North America, many cities are multicultural and multiracial. At Emmanuel, I lead a multicultural congregation that speaks Spanish. We have 16 different countries represented in the congregation, all the way from Uruguay to Mexico. The future of church planting in the RCA requires doing a more intentional work in bringing the gospel to all the people groups of the world who have moved to North America.

3. We need to focus in urban centers.

A lot of the world’s population live in and are moving rapidly to urban centers. God loves the city and we are called to love the city as well. Through the city we can touch the world. We should not abandon other forms and contexts for church planting, but the RCA needs to focus more in training and sending church planters into the city.

Eddy Aleman is pastor of Spanish ministries and church planting at Emmanuel Reformed Church in Paramount, California. 

Through “Stranger” Eyes #5 – People Get Nervous

We’re still looking at the Stranger’s article where a group of journalists visited 31 houses of worship in 31 days.  One surprising observation is that people are really nervous about stepping foot in a “holy place.”

This one surprises me, especially in our cynical culture.  I don’t think that people are nervous because the presence of God is tangible … I tend to chalk it up more to the alien culture of many houses of worship.

Through the various articles, a string of nervous questions emerged like:

• Are they gonna make me confess my sins?
• Can I eat beforehand?
• Can I get up to pee?
• Why does God hate Saturday nights?
• Can I take my coffee into church?
• Do church people care that I didn’t brush my teeth, and that I’m still a little drunk?
• What if I fart?

I get the sense that these visitors expect the church to be filled with unspoken rules and expectations that they’re afraid to violate.  In normal situations, people know when to pee or drink coffee.  If you show up at work a little drunk from the night before, you know what to expect … but what will “those Christians” think?

Tip for the Church-Types: 1) Avoid Hypocrisy.  People don’t know what invisible rules there are on Sunday mornings because many Christians act differently on Sundays than they do the rest of the week.  In our hypocrisy, we act radically differently depending on the context we are in … leaving people to wonder how they need to act when they are around us in those contexts.  Your bar friends  should run into the same “you” if you bump into them (or invite them!) to church.

2) Lead with grace 24/7.  Don’t be the guy who looks at someone’s tattoos, earrings, clothes, job, etc first – either in church or anywhere.  If we develop a habit and reputation for grace in our day-to-day lives, it will be easier and more believable to show grace on a Sunday morning.

Through “Stranger” Eyes #4 – Visitors Don’t Want To Stick Out

This week we are looking at the Stranger’s article where a group of journalists visited 31 houses of worship in 31 days (here is the first article, click here to read day 2, and here to read day 3, and here for  yesterday’s article).

Observation #4 – Visitors Don’t Want to Stick Out

This was a common theme.  Visitors feel odd enough just stepping into a place of worship.  To be noticed as new and as an “outsider” just makes matters worse.

Davida Marion wrote, “There was only one point when I felt totally out-of-place: Toward the beginning, the pastor asked those of us who were guests to introduce ourselves. You’re not likely to find someone more reluctant to speak up than a bashful Jew at Sunday morning church services. So I didn’t, but the church is small enough that everyone knew I was a stranger, and that made my heart pound. But everyone was friendly, smiling at me and saying “Hello,” as I walked by.”

Being the only younger person or having an empty service doesn’t help.

One reporter observed of a 7th day Adventist Church, “There were 29 worshippers at the 11:30 a.m. Saturday service. The median age was 102. I stood out like a sore heathen thumb. To complete my sense of alienation, the sermon began with a pop quiz.”

People inside the church mean well … we want to be friendly and acknowledge the effort someone made by visiting church.  Well meaning people give me suggestions like handing everyone a name tag, having all the visitors stand up, or keeping the visitors in their seats and having the rest of the church stand.   For us, the goal is to learn some names and make some friends.  To many visitors, this is terrifying.  As one of our current deacons said, “I visited a church a few years and they asked me to put on a name tag.  I walked out.”

Tip for the Church-Types: Meet people at church the same way you would at the gym, coffee shop or work.  Strike up a conversation.  Ask their name.  If you don’t remember if you met them before, say, “I don’t remember if I met you before.”  It won’t hurt their feelings … that’s how people interact.  Just this morning at the gym I talked to a new guy who works out at the same time.  Since yesterday he forgot my name and the workout we were talking about.  I wasn’t offended, I just reminded him and we continued talking.  (By the way, he might be showing up one of these Sundays, so treat him like he treated me … with casual grace.)

Through “Stranger” Eyes #3 – We have to Watch Insider Language

This week we are looking at the Stranger’s article where a group of journalists covered (here is the first article, click here to read day 2, and here to read yesterday’s article).

Today let me share one of my churchy pet peeves, and my third observation from the Stranger article - We Have to Watch “Insider Language.”

Every group has its own jargon (aka insider language).  Be the only wine drinker at Seattle’s Beer Fest, or a former french horn player with a few members of a rock band and you’ll soon hear people talking in code.  No one does this to offend, but jargon makes conversation clear and concise.  A programmer can describe a problem to another programmer in a few sentences.  Describing the same situation to a Luddite friend could take an hour.

When we get together for a worship experience, it is tempting to lapse into Christian-eese (our own jargon).  We have to keep in mind that the church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of the outsiders.  We can’t allow ourselves the luxury of jargon.  Instead, we have to be extremely careful about our use of language.

About the Bible …

Jeff Kirby wrote: “Passages are read from the book of Colossians: I imagine Colossus from the X-Men.”

In our music …

Seth Kolloen mentioned that he’s, “getting some great pillow-talk ideas from the song lyrics, which are projected on a screen above the stage. “Deep inside, I’m crying for more of you,” goes one lyric. Oh, I’m using that.” or “Let your glory and honor fall on my face” (which he mentions could be taken as dirty talk)

Cienna Madrid wrote that the lyrics, ”We fall down/we lay our crowns/at the feet of Jesus…” could be turned into geriatric fitness program called “Jesurcise”

How do we avoid this?

The most helpful resource I’ve discovered on this is Tim Keller’s article Evangelistic Worship.  Keller writes:

It is hard to overstate how ghetto-ized our preaching is. It is normal to make all kinds of statements that appear persuasive to us but are based upon all sorts of premises that the secular person does not hold. It is normal to make all sorts of references using terms and phrases that mean nothing outside or our Christian sub-group. So avoid unnecessary theological or evangelical sub-culture “jargon”, and explain carefully the basic theological concepts, such as confession of sin, praise, thanksgiving, and so on. In the preaching, showing continual willingness to address the questions that the unbelieving heart will ask. Speak respectfully and sympathetically to people who have difficulty with Christianity. As you write the sermon, imagine a particular skeptical non-Christian in the chair listening to you. Add the asides, the qualifiers, the extra explanations necessary. Listen to everything said in the worship service with the ears of someone who has doubts or troubles with belief.

Tip for the Church-Types: Read the Keller article and listen to what you say.  Why pray “Bless Aunt Cindy” when you’re not exactly sure what sort of blessing you want Aunt Cindy to receive. Think about what sort of blessing you would like Aunt Cindy to receive, and pray for that.  So your prayer might be longer, but it will be more rich and understandable.

Through “Stranger” Eyes #1 – People Are Afraid of Communion

Yesterday we began a look at the Stranger’s article where a group of journalists covered (click here to read yesterday’s article).

Today I want to look at my first take away from the article … people are afraid of communion (aka the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist).

One Stranger writer / church visitor, Ari Spool wrote: “At the end [of the service], everyone takes Communion, which I am scared to do because I don’t want to accidentally turn Christian, so I wander out of the room for a moment. When I return, the entire congregation is Singing in a Circle. Thank God they weren’t Holding Hands­­—I would have Thrown Up.”

Another skipped out on it, writing, “Communion involved being fed by either the scripture reader or the interim pastor, and then embracing them while they spoke into your ear. A better reporter would have gone up and been fed and hugged and whispered to, but I couldn’t do it.”

Despite skipping the sacrament, there are few who deny its power.  (Maybe it’s power is why they skip it? …though we can’t put too much stock in this, because many people won’t walk under a ladder or break a mirror, though they don’t actually believe in the superstitions behind those old sayings.)

Their experiences aren’t always negative though.  Writing about a Roman Catholic church, Bethany Jean Clement remarked, “On this Sunday, the Eucharist is, fittingly, the topic; the service is marked by humility, with discussion of feeding those in need, of spiritual hunger. The priest quotes Andre Dubus’s Broken Vessels. The fundamental, communal acts of eating and drinking—body, blood—are consecrated. More than one person remains behind, watchful, possibly reverent, as the feast of Corpus Christi is enacted. If one feels like a trespasser, there is the sense that one’s trespass is forgiven.”

Tip to Church-Types: Let’s explain what communion is and continue to fence the table (i.e., make it clear that communion is for repentant sinners and followers of Jesus).  Instead of worrying that these explanations will be off-putting, I think they will actually help the spiritually curious relax and engage.

Looking at Houses of Worship Through “Stranger” Eyes

Recently The Stranger, Seattle’s “alternative” newspaper, sent 31 reporters to 31 houses of worship to see what people who are “into Him” put themselves through on a weekly basis.

The intro to the article said:

“Seattle is godless.

We are, rather famously, one of the least churched cities in North America. It seems that most of us have better things to do on a Sunday morning than go to church. Seattleites would rather take a hike. Or nurse a hangover. Or fire up the bong.

We’re just not that into Him.”

As someone who is “into Him” and wanting others to experience the grace of Jesus, I read through their observations to see what I could learn.

Over the next few days we’ll look at observations I gleaned from reading this.

For now … let me know what you expect their issues / questions / snarky comments to be?

Spurgeon: God will not Force Usefulness on Any Man

As soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her children.  Isaiah 66:8

“If any minister can be satisfied without conversions, he shall have no conversions.  God will not force usefulness on any man.  It is only when our heart breaks to see men saved, that we shall be likely to see sinners’ hearts broken.  The secret of success lies in all-consuming zeal, all-subduing travail for souls.  Read the sermons of Wesley and of Whitfield, and what is there in them?  It is no severe criticism to say that they are scarcely worthy to have survived.  And yet those sermons wrought marvels. . . .

In order to understand such preaching, you need to see and hear the man, you want his tearful eye, his glowing countenance, his pleading tone, his bursting heart.  I have heard of a great preacher who objected to having his sermons printed, ‘Because,’ said he, ‘you cannot print me.’  That observation is very much to the point.  A soul-winner throws himself into what he says.  As I have sometimes said, we must ram ourselves into our cannons, we must fire ourselves at our hearers, and when we do this, then, by God’s grace, their hearts are often carried by storm.”

C. H. Spurgeon, “Travailing for Souls,” 3 September 1871.  Italics original.

(HT Ray Ortlund)