Effectively Reach Out to the Antagonistic Unchurched Person
After working on two major research projects over a four-year period, our research team discovered a permeating myth in most churches across our land: that all unchurched persons are anti-church and anti-gospel. This myth makes many Christians reticent to share their faith or invite someone to church.
In reality, more than eight out of 10 unchurched people in our studies indicated a willingness and desire to go to church. Admittedly, we still need to deal with the fact that a small number, albeit a vocal number, may respond to your attempts to witness and to invite them to church with apparent hatred and antagonism. How do we respond? First, we need to understand the characteristics of a typical antagonistic unchurched person.
What Does the Antagonistic Unchurched Person Look Like?
One must be careful in stereotyping any group of people, yet we saw some clear characteristics among many of the antagonistic unchurched Americans.
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The antagonistic unchurched are the wealthiest unchurched group in America. A person in this group was almost twice as likely to have an income above $100,000 as the general population of the unchurched.
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The antagonistic unchurched are the most educated unchurched group. One amazing statistic supports this contention. Nearly four out of ten antagonistic unchurched persons has a master’s or doctoral degree.
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The antagonistic unchurched are more likely to be over fifty years old. We were surprised to discover that an antagonistic unchurched person was twice as likely to be over fifty years old as compared to the total population of unchurched persons.
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The antagonistic unchurched person was likely to have had a negative church experience in his or her childhood. This discovery spoke volumes to us about the mindset of this difficult group.
Unlike the other 95 percent of the unchurched persons in America, the antagonistic unchurched typically have no room for God or anything that cannot be explained rationally.
To Reach a Difficult Person
Are antagonistic unchurched people even worth the effort? Are their hearts so hardened that we should “shake the dust from our feet” and move to a more receptive field? In some respects, we must not neglect the field of the receptive for the laborious work toward the antagonistic. In another respect, we cannot neglect them totally either. In our research we found at least four issues worth considering about this group of unchurched Americans.
- Understand that the antagonistic unchurched person is not the typical unchurched person. I have worked with Christians who have become too discouraged to continue witnessing efforts after a single difficult encounter with an antagonistic unchurched person. Do not forsake the reaching of the reachable because of a few bad experiences.
- Apologetics can be used in reaching this group. “Apologetics” is a word to describe the defense of the Christian faith. There are abundant resources to use in your encounters with the antagonistic unchurched person. Books by Josh McDowell have been of immense value to Christians who minister to this more educated unchurched group. One of my favorite contemporary apologetic authors is Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith.
- Realize that most antagonistic unchurched persons need a long-term relationship with a Christian friend to move toward greater receptivity to the gospel. That process can be difficult when dealing with an angry person. God uses the persistence of faithful Christians to move the most resistant to the cross.
- Understand that the antagonistic unchurched person often deals with their own hurt and anger. Do not take their rejections of the gospel personally. They are obviously in deep personal pain. Pray for them. Encourage them. Serve them. And through your Christlike attitude toward them, they may leave the ranks of the antagonistic and become more receptive to the gospel.
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