Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, gets real about a common ministry trap: being surrounded only by Christians. He challenges you to break out of the church bubble and build genuine, ongoing relationships with unbelievers.
Creators and Guests
What is Lead On Podcast?
Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.
From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
Put these principles into practice and Lead On!
Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee, continuing our ongoing conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. That's what we do on this podcast. We talk about the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the daily challenges, and the daily grind of ministry leadership in local churches and ministry organizations. Last week on the podcast, I talked about sharing the gospel with your family and friends, meaning the people that you are around on a consistent basis and how to get the gospel into those conversations to make gospel sharing the ultimate purpose or the ultimate, objective or the ultimate end, if you will, in those relationships.
Jeff Iorg:But today, wanna talk about a different problem related to sharing the gospel. And that is, what if you don't have non Christian friends?
Jeff Iorg:Now one of the challenges of Christian leadership is the longer that you're a Christian,
Jeff Iorg:the more time you find consumed by other Christians. I think about my life, for example. I I speak to Christians. I meet with Christians. I pray with Christians.
Jeff Iorg:I go to church with Christians. I generally socialize with Christians. My family are all Christians. I am surrounded by the Christian subculture.
Jeff Iorg:Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a limiting factor in fulfilling our responsibility to share the gospel. Now, it's
Jeff Iorg:not an entirely limiting factor because you can always share the gospel with strangers and you can always, reach out through, ministry opportunities or evangelism programs to share the gospel with people. But what about your responsibility to build and maintain some ongoing relationships with non Christians?
Jeff Iorg:Do you have people in your life that are not Christians that you go boating with or attend a concert or play dominoes? Do you have unbelievers that consider you a close enough friend that they'll call you when their car won't start? Are there plumbing breaks or they wanna go fishing? Do you have non Christian friends who call you when their kids need a place to stay so they can have a weekend away or when their kids need to be picked up from school and taken to an activity?
Jeff Iorg:If you don't have non Christian friends like that, perhaps it's time to make some lifestyle adjustments so that you can be more connected with people who can hear the gospel through your life and witness.
Jeff Iorg:Now in order to get there, you're going to have to make some adjustments to your schedule, to the way you use your time, to the kind of activities that you're involved in, and also perhaps some adjustments to the amount of time you invest in what I call the Christian subculture. Now, I know this can
Jeff Iorg:be controversial because church matters and Christian community matters, and the support and strength we draw from those relationships matter a great deal. But listen at least to this perspective that may bring some balance to your thinking. In order to build meaningful relationships with unbelieving friends, you may need to attend fewer church activities
Jeff Iorg:and spend less time with your Christian friends. Now, this does not,
Jeff Iorg:under any circumstances, mean that you can completely eliminate meaningful church participation or continuing fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters. The Bible says it clearly. Hebrews ten twenty four to 25, let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our meetings as some habitually do, but encouraging each other and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Now, this directive doesn't mean you must attend every function or activity sponsored by your church, but it does mean that every Christian must be an active member of a church and never fall into the habit of negligent absenteeism, just not showing up and being habitual in that
Jeff Iorg:absence. Every one of us, we need to hear biblical preaching, participate in bible study, we need
Jeff Iorg:to humble ourselves through public worship, and draw strength from fellow Christians. But that does not mean that our entire schedule must orbit around church activities. If you're going to develop meaningful friendships with unbelievers, you're going to have to make sure that you limit and balance what I've just been describing with investing in their lives as well. You know, some churches frankly seem determined to extinguish all opportunity, for their members to have any contact with unsaved people. They they sponsor church athletic leagues.
Jeff Iorg:They open church owned restaurants. They develop church based activities for every age and every interest, and they construct facilities, to house all these programs. And I know they they give you token encouragement. They say, well, bring your non Christian friends,
Jeff Iorg:but that's not what
Jeff Iorg:Jesus did and that's not what I'm challenging you to do. Jesus went to people, I'm challenging you to do the same thing. To follow through on His example of engaging people in their context on their turf in meaningful ways so that you, by enjoying life and demonstrating enthusiasm for who they are and what they're doing, are contagious in those relationships and and in that context, have the opportunity to share the gospel with them. Now, being on mission isn't just about being extroverted or being relationally connected or spending time with people, It's more than that. It's authenticity and genuineness and thoughtful compassion demonstrated in continuing relationships.
Jeff Iorg:It's being yourself and expressing the gospel through who you are, but being intentional about building relationships with people who've not yet heard the gospel or responded to the gospel so that you might have the opportunity to be the conduit for it into their lives. So in doing this, one of the most important parts of of this is sharing the gospel in a comfortable way, in natural surroundings, in places and among people that we really enjoy. So when I ask you to consider building relationships with non Christians, I'm not talking about you as an auto mechanic becoming best friends with a ballerina. Okay? I'm not talking about, you as a person who enjoys painting landscapes
Jeff Iorg:signing up to attend a NASCAR race. Alright?
Jeff Iorg:I'm talking about you finding things where, life expressions, and relational connections where you're comfortable,
Jeff Iorg:where it's natural for you, where there's
Jeff Iorg:a sense of compatibility and a and a sense where you're coming together with people around something of mutual or common interest. For example, do you enjoy playing softball, volunteering at a library, going to a car race, attending a painting class? Do you you like being around cowboys,
Jeff Iorg:performance artists, actors? Look,
Jeff Iorg:God has deployed Christians into almost every nook and cranny of our culture to reach people in all kinds of contexts, and you can be one of them. You can be a person who connects in these places and in these ways. I think about one friend of mine and the men of his church who decided to do something like I'm describing today. They agreed. You know, we we just don't know enough men who are not Christians and have enough connections and relationships with them.
Jeff Iorg:So they thought of how they could build more of those, and here's what they came to. They lived in Idaho and they decided that they would create a hunting camp, an elk camp, they called it. What they did was they, went out in the woods and they created a camp. They got a nice campsite. They, had a good great place for a fire, great place for some cooking, great place for for a tents and other sleeping arrangements.
Jeff Iorg:This was a this was a remote location, but they they created this Elk Camp. And it was designed specifically for guys who were going to be hunting for days at a time and camping out while they hunted. They put up, information about the elk Camp in various places like hunting stores and in places where people would stop and buy supplies before moving out into the woods, those kinds of things. And these guys decided we're gonna staff this elk Camp for two weeks. We're gonna make sure that one of us is out there for two weeks, on a rotating basis, of course, to make sure that there's always somebody there, that the coffee pot's always on, that there's always gonna be another another, thing to put on the grill for another fellow to have something to eat when they show up, that kind
Jeff Iorg:of thing. And they said, our
Jeff Iorg:purpose in doing this is to build connections with men who love the outdoors and hunting as much as we do and to establish a focal point where people can come to over the two weeks that we're out there, as kind of a center place for the hunting in this particular remote location. And it worked. They said guys showed up and said, really? The coffee's free and so is the dinner? Yeah.
Jeff Iorg:We're just we're just making a camp. And we want it to be a place for people to gather and tell stories, make sure we're doing things the right way, healthy, safe, and all that, and that we connect with each other and that as we go out in different hunting that we we can come back to here and know somebody's kind of checking in on us. They did this. It was so successful, they kept repeating it elk season after elk season after elk season and developed a reputation as being a place where men could connect. And then it was very natural for them to say, Hey guys, you know, we're out here in God's great outdoors and wonder if you guys would be open to maybe just me reading a little bit of the Bible about what God has to say about his creation.
Jeff Iorg:Well, yeah, that'd be that'd be fine. And they'd read some of the Bible, talk a little bit about creation, share a little bit about their lives, talk a little
Jeff Iorg:bit about the gospel. Elk camp. My friend Tim and his friends did this for years to create a way to connect with more men who were unbelievers and to connect the gospel to them in very meaningful ways. So if you wanna do something like this,
Jeff Iorg:what are the steps you
Jeff Iorg:need to take? You're a Christian and you just wake up
Jeff Iorg:one day and you realize, I just don't really have meaningful relationships with unbelievers and don't have any real gospel conversations with people that are ongoing because I just don't know people that well. I'm completely surrounded by, immersed in, consumed by my Christian community. Well, here we go. First, make a foundational decision that essential church participation is non negotiable. Look, do not use, quote, being with my unsaved friends as an excuse to violate the biblical mandate to maintain close connection with your church.
Jeff Iorg:Know every believer, no matter how mature you think you are, you need continuing doses of preaching, worship, bible study, and fellowship to stay strong. Now, if you wanna bring some balance to that and launch yourself out among unbelievers, you may have to say, gotta be at church a few less nights a month so that I can spend more time building relationships with unbelievers in community context and as a result of work connections and other things. That's perfectly legitimate what I'm trying to get you to do in terms of balancing that out, but I am not advocating for the ending of your commitment to your church or your church responsibilities or church relationships.
Jeff Iorg:I'm just simply saying, sometimes
Jeff Iorg:you gotta say enough because I gotta be more balanced and making sure my life's invested in unbelievers, which leads me to the second thing. And that is you have to choose to invest priority time with unbelievers. Now this this may be challenging for you, particularly if you've been, a person who equates Christian activity and Christian attendance with Christian commitment. Now
Jeff Iorg:think about that for a minute.
Jeff Iorg:There's nothing wrong with Christian activity. There's nothing wrong with Christian attendance, but those things don't necessarily equal commitment, but sometimes we we say they do. When we started our church in Oregon, one of our founding members was a woman named Sheila. She, and her husband were about the same age as my wife and I. We were just young couples trying to get this church started together.
Jeff Iorg:Sheila was an incredibly valuable part of our team. She was actually a pastor's daughter. She had grown up in church. She had a very healthy model of church. Her father was an effective and godly pastor, and and she, you know, respected him and and loved ministry and loved church.
Jeff Iorg:Her husband was not a minister. He was an accountant, and, and they were just vital members of the founding of our church. When we started our church, we we we were very intentional in trying to be more balanced even in our scheduling. So we said to everyone, we want you to commit to, one worship service a week and one small group bible study experience a week and one time slot per week that you're investing yourself in unbelievers for the purpose of reaching them with the gospel. Now this was our strategy as we started our new church.
Jeff Iorg:We were asking every person, particularly every Christian who wanted to be a part of our church to commit to those basic scheduling commitments. We want you to commit to attending one worship service a week, one small group bible study a week, and then one more time slot a week invested in reaching unbelievers with the gospel, building relationships, being involved in outreach, connecting with them in community, etcetera. And we talked about different ways to do that and different models of how that could be done and etcetera as I've talked about on this podcast and others.
Jeff Iorg:But Sheila struggled. She
Jeff Iorg:was used to going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and then at least one other day a week for some other kind of bible study, and then usually some other time of the week for being involved in some kind of service that was related to the church. So when we started the church and we had this streamlined schedule, drove for more balance, meaning that we wanted there to be
Jeff Iorg:a balance between worship and Bible study and mission or ministry, she struggled. In her mind, church attendance and church participation equaled faithfulness to God. And our church, with a different kind of schedule and a
Jeff Iorg:strong expectation that being at church was important, but being the church in the community was equally important. She worked hard to come to understand and to embrace this new
Jeff Iorg:perspective. And then one day after several months of this, Sheila said to me, I
Jeff Iorg:want
Jeff Iorg:you to know something. I'm going to church less than at any time in my life. But then she said this, but I am doing what the church is supposed to be doing better than ever. When she said that, it made my heart sing. Because even though she'd had to go through a period of adjustment and frankly some struggle, she came to understand that there needed to
Jeff Iorg:be a balance. Yes, you need to be committed to worship. Yes, you need
Jeff Iorg:to be committed to Bible study. And then yes, you need
Jeff Iorg:to be committed to some time slot a week where you are on mission with the gospel, building relationships, befriending unbelievers, spending time among them, and doing all of
Jeff Iorg:that for the purpose of living out and then sharing verbally the gospel of Jesus Christ. So first, make a foundational decision. Church involvement is non negotiable. Second, choose to invest time, priority time, meaningful time with unbelievers. Then third, in order to do this, you may have
Jeff Iorg:to also change your attitude toward non Christians and the time that you invest in them.
Jeff Iorg:Unbelievers are not objects, they're not prospects, and they're not targets. They're people. They're people that Jesus loves and you wanna be friends with. You know, if unbelievers sense you are judgmental or condemnatory, they'll shut you down in a second. They will not want to have any meaningful friendship with you.
Jeff Iorg:And Christians who commit to spending time with unbelievers have to
Jeff Iorg:learn to walk that tightrope of embracing sinners while not approving sinful behavior. And that sounds easy, but friends, it's not. When someone is having an affair or drinking to excess or gossiping about people in the workplace or they're hooked on porn or neglecting their children or you find out they're physically abusing their spouse or something like that. Listen, it is hard to keep perspective and differentiate between the sin and the sinner. I know there are some sinful behaviors that are so offensive to me that I have a visceral emotional reaction when I'm around them.
Jeff Iorg:And I've had to learn to separate the sin from the sinner so that I can separate my emotions from my true response to people in those moments. You know, for example, among men, for some men, profanity is, as common as breathing. In fact, it's amazing how many ways that some men can use the same word in the same sentence with so many different meanings.
Jeff Iorg:And it's not just the men, it's women as well that can do this. Profanity is just getting more and
Jeff Iorg:more pervasive in our in our culture and in our context. When I hear profanity, it it still kind of grates on me a bit, and and I I hear it, and I'm I'm taken back by it. It it always speaks to me of immaturity and childishness and and vulgarity and and just lack of of of care for the people around them. And there's so many things about it that are just, like, offensive. But I have to always remind myself, those words those words aren't the problem.
Jeff Iorg:They really aren't. If they're anything, they're a mask for how a person truly feels. They're certainly not the person themselves, and
Jeff Iorg:I can't get distracted by those things. You know, Jesus models so well the importance of sticking to the main issue when he dealt with people. You know, one time he went to a dinner party with a collection of outcasts and rejects. Jesus had a friend named Matthew, a tax collector. What a disdained occupation that was in the first century.
Jeff Iorg:But Matthew had some friends. These were tax collectors and other societal pariahs, people that just nobody wanted to be around. So one night he invited Jesus over for dinner and he invited a bunch of his friends as well. And the Bible describes it this way. It says, while Jesus was reclining at the table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came as guests to eat with Jesus and his disciples.
Jeff Iorg:When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard this, he said,
Jeff Iorg:well, those who are well don't need a doctor, but the sick do. Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice for
Jeff Iorg:I didn't come to call
Jeff Iorg:the righteous, but sinners. Jesus kept his focus.
Jeff Iorg:He could have been so easily distracted by so many things that Matthew and his friends were either saying or doing or what they represented when they sat down around that table that night. And the Pharisees, they were quick to point it out, how can you be here with this rabble? And Jesus said, well,
Jeff Iorg:you know, well people don't need me, sick people do. What I see here are people who need something that is not to be typified by or distraction from their external behavior. Jesus said, I I don't see all that. I just see people who are hurting.
Jeff Iorg:Jesus was the master at keeping focused on the reality of what a person was and what
Jeff Iorg:they were going through. Man, this is so hard to do. So hard to do.
Jeff Iorg:I'm thinking right now about people that I've
Jeff Iorg:been in relationship with, and they've done things that were just so offensive to me. I found out that they were involved in extramarital affairs, that they were involved in physical altercations, with their spouses. I found out they were being neglectful or dismissive of their children. I found out they were being financially responsible. I found out they were involved in pornography or they were just living in ways that were debauched and damaging to the people around them.
Jeff Iorg:And my heart's response to all that is judgmental. I just want to get even with people and say, what's wrong with you? What how can you act that way? How can you abuse these people around you? How can you treat people this way?
Jeff Iorg:And then I remember the example of Jesus who saw through all that and said, ah, it's all symptoms. I want to treat sickness. It's all just symptoms. I want to get to the core. And in my case, it's to remember that what's at the core is people are sinful.
Jeff Iorg:They need Jesus and nothing else can distract me from that, which leads me to the final step in this idea of making friends with and having more impact among non Christians. And that is when you're there, remember you're there to speak the gospel.
Jeff Iorg:Look, I I'm not advocating for you to pull away from some of your Christian subculture activities and plunge yourself into the unsaved world just for the purpose of being there as some kind of moral example or some kind of a a light in the darkness and in that sense of you just showing up and living for Jesus. I'm I'm asking you to do more than that. Some Christians say, well, I'm gonna do that, but if I do this, I'm just let my life be my witness. Listen, friends, that's impossible. There is simply no biblical support for the claim that your life is your witness.
Jeff Iorg:Jesus did say, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. He did say that in John ten thirty five. And without a question, loving relationships among believers speak volumes about the authenticity of our commitment to Jesus, but they do not communicate how to become a follower of Jesus. The gospel isn't transmitted by miraculous osmosis from good works to sinful hearts. No.
Jeff Iorg:The gospel is communicated through words about the word of God and about the word himself, Jesus being verbally or in some meaningful equivalent. I mean, it's sign language or braille or printed material, I'm not gonna argue the point, but you gotta get the word of God about Jesus Christ into a person's awareness as you share the gospel with them. It's not just enough to go and be a Christian presence, you've gotta be a Christian person speaking the message of the gospel in those contexts. You know, nature reminds us of God's wonder and Christian fellowship can show a person God's love, but these things don't communicate the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, why it happened and how to access its power. These things don't communicate the core problem with humankind, which is sin and the core solution, which is Jesus.
Jeff Iorg:Someone has to explain that to a person so that they understand the gospel. You're not going to be able to spontaneously communicate the gospel by your sterling example. It just isn't possible to do that. Think about Jesus. He modeled perfect Christian devotion and fellowship, perfect Christian devotion and fellowship, but he still had to explain himself and invite people to follow him.
Jeff Iorg:Now, do
Jeff Iorg:you really think your life is so remarkable that you can accomplish what Jesus's life could not accomplish? Not likely. So living among unbelievers,
Jeff Iorg:connecting with them relationally, organizing your schedule so that you're among them and sharing activity with them, building relationships that last over time, these things are all good. Demonstrating your Christian faith by taking your moral and ethical convictions into those relationships. Very important to do so. I'm for all of that, but that's not enough. You have to be willing to say, can I tell you just for a moment about Jesus Christ and what he means to me?
Jeff Iorg:And sharing the gospel is the culmination of
Jeff Iorg:what we're really out there trying to do. Well, today on the
Jeff Iorg:podcast, I've been talking about what it means to have more non Christian friends, to be in more relationship with unbelievers. I've given you some suggestions on how to do that.
Jeff Iorg:I wanna just end by challenging you about the power of modeling this for your followers. When I was
Jeff Iorg:at the seminary for those years, for about, ten of those years, I was the chaplain for the San Francisco Giants. And in that context, I was constantly doing what we're describing here on the podcast today. I was constantly building relationships, making connections, sharing the gospel. Some of those relationships went on for months, in fact, some for years in terms of trying to build those relationships and make those connections, and I was definitely having to set aside time from preaching to Christian churches and conferences to spend time in the ballpark with nonbelievers and to make those connections and build those relationships. Doing all of that modeled what I wanted other leaders to do.
Jeff Iorg:It was interesting. In all those years, students would stop me on the campus of Gateway Seminary, and they would ask me about my life in ministry. They never asked me questions like, how's the seminary's budget doing? Or how'd that last board meeting go? Or can we talk about this deep theological conflict that I've been musing over for the past months?
Jeff Iorg:No, that's not what they asked me. They would stop me on on the parking lot and say, doctor Org, how's it going with the giant? And I would say, well, here's a story of what's happened recently. And of course, leaving out the names and all of that, I would share about building a relationship, sharing the gospel, talking about how I was getting that done, maybe some ups and downs in that, some struggles I'd had, or maybe a victory or two. They always wanted to know, tell us about the giants because they were mostly interested in how I was living out what I was constantly challenging them to do, which was to take the gospel into communities, share it meaningfully, and lead people to faith in Jesus.
Jeff Iorg:Modeling that was a dimension of leadership that really was unusual and different than many expected from a seminary president. The one I was glad to do for almost a decade. Modeling is significant in this regard. Now you're a church leader. You're not going to be able to cut out all your church activity and all that.
Jeff Iorg:We know that. And I want to challenge you to think about this. How are you meaningfully investing yourself in unbelievers for the purpose of getting the gospel to them? Yes. But also for modeling for others what you want them to be doing as well.
Jeff Iorg:Think about it. Put it into practice as you lead on.