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In June, 1996, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling upon its churches to direct “energies and resources toward the proclamation of the gospel to the Jewish people.” American Jewish community leaders reacted with howls of alarm. Some in the SBC appeared to break rank.
In June, 1996, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling upon its churches to direct “energies and resources toward the proclamation of the gospel to the Jewish people.” American Jewish community leaders reacted with howls of alarm. Some in the SBC appeared to break rank.
An official for the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association dissented when quoted in a Jewish newspaper, saying, “Some conservative brother felt we needed to target Jews, but there are differences of opinion as far as the way evangelism takes place.”1 Even Billy Graham was reported to have said, “I have never taken part in organizations or projects that especially targeted Jews.”2 (For more information, see “Global report” in January’s EMQ.—Eds.)
Southern Baptist zeal for souls had collided with Jewish intensity about survival. What does the friction from the confrontation indicate? Is there anything wrong about targeting specific people for ministry?
Ready!
What is targeting in missiological terms? Urban missiologist Roger Greenway says,
Focused evangelism means taking a specific people and their culture seriously. Reliance on “generic” or unfocused evangelism tends to ignore people’s differences while focused evangelism shows respect for individual people and groups.
A target is an objective goal. The dictionary describes it also as a transitive verb, an action affecting a person or thing.3 Targeting takes a direct object to complete the meaning. In the context of mission, a target people is the specific class one is attempting to reach with an evangelistic message.
The modern missionary movement rose up with the dawning awareness of the validity of cultural diversity. In the 18th century, thinking of commending the gospel personally and in culturally specific terms was innovative. In the early 19th century, the Bible societies formed in response to the need for Scriptures in the heart languages of peoples.
In the last half of this century, anthropological studies have benefited missiologists who grappled with the limitations of a Western ethnocentric approach. Louis Luzbetak pointed to “culture” as “the anthropologist’s most significant contribution to the missionary endeavor.”4 In midcen-tury, Eugene A. Nida5 urged the study of cultures as a way to better know a people. He, among many, advocated contextualization of the gospel.
Targeting also has been applied for church growth in North America. Writing in 1975, Engel and Norton urged what they called adaptive orientation.6 A message must be adjusted for the audience, “making sure that what is sent is actually grasped by the recipient.”7
Two observations: The gospel ought not be polluted or diminished by the adaptive process. The uniqueness of Christ for salvation cannot be compromised for any audience. To Greenway’s thinking, “in one sense the gospel of Jesus Christ is the same for everyone. Yet the gospel addresses each group of people in particular ways and in terms of their history, needs and cultural situation.”
Second, targeting, as a missio-logical strategy, requires self-denial. The receiver group and its culture are more important than the missionary sender. Targeting expresses the Christian’s love for the unsaved.
For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.—(2 Cor. 2:15-16a)
Just what kind of reaction should be expected when the “fragrance of Christ to God” wafts among those who recoil from it like “an aroma from death”? When an unpleasant odor is encountered, it seems reasonable to anticipate fierce rejection.
Evangelistic targeting is not an attack. However, leaders of traditional non-Christian religions might regard it as a competitive threat or as malicious. We have seen that in the field of Jewish evangelism.
How should Christians respond to the rejection of the gospel? Some are confused by feelings of guilt. Others long to abandon the effort and avoid thestrife. We must carry the discussion, even when the target community has been indoctrinated to be hostile to the Christian message. Missionary work takes commitment to serve a people and reach the individuals with hearts prepared and ears ready to hear. We have found that a productive response phase very often follows an initial seething reaction.
If the missionary is effective in targeting an audience, a reaction one way or the other is to be expected. When there is no reaction at all, then the goal is missed completely!
Aim!
The headline from a report of the Southern Baptist Convention read, “SBC Targets Clinton, Disney, Jews.”8 What do the president, Mickey Mouse, and the children of Israel have in common? The Southern Baptists have a specific message for each, whether they want to influence public policy, teach morality, or witness to a segment of society. They all fall into the category of targeting.
Missionary executives can learn from the target market strategies used in the $3 billion business of Christian retailing. The Christian Booksellers Association reports that through database marketing Christian bookstores can target promotional mail with great precision based on book or music purchases.9
Ministry methodology for the ’90s includes targeting to reach specific audiences. Targeting strategy is being applied to church growth as well. According to Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Mission Viejo, “…the more you focus on your target, the easier it is to reach them.”10 Where are similar seminars to encourage evangelism targeting as an efficient use of ministry resources?
The SBC isn’t the only denomination segmenting for outreach. The missions division of the Assemblies of God has demonstrated a will and a strategy for targeting university campuses, urban centers, and distinct people groups. In May, 1995, the Assemblies targeted Philadelphia for ministry.
Since 1983, the Jewish community has also been targeting for outreach. Reformed Judaism’s umbrella organization, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, under the leadership of Rabbi Alexander Schindler, focused on partners of interfaith marriages. The specific aim was at the “unchurched and religiously unaligned segments of our population.”11
Jewish leaders, like Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman, have realized that their target audience extends beyond the walls of the traditional Jewish institutions. In 1992, he complained that among American Judaism’s five major religious movements, “none has targeted the unaffiliated masses of Jews as the principle object of outreach.”12 Haber-man’s caution is worth overhearing. Christian witness ought to be an expedition into territory outside our church institutions.
Jesus targeted. He sent Jewish disciples to Jews, not to Gentiles or Samaritans (Matt. 10:5-6). That focus changed when his earthly ministry was completed. It was always part of the plan that the power of salvation was for Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).
There were limits on his own ministry. He told a Phoenician woman that he was only sent to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). He also showed that salvation, however, had come not just to the Jews, but through the Jews, to all the faithful among the nations (Matt. 15:28, Luke 7:9). His focus was to the blind and the lost, those who understood their spiritual need (John 9:39 and Luke 19:10). His manifesto of ministry might have been, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:11-12).
The apostle Paul followed his Master’s way as a servant of all. Whether discussing Torah with Jewish scholars at Jerusalem or Greek thought in a market square on the plains of Asia Minor, he adapted himself “for the sake of the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:19-24). Paul contextualized the gospel to be effective: “to the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.” That is target evangelism.
Dean at the Fuller Seminary School of World Mission, Dudley Woodberry remarked, “Targeting certainlyfollows the tradition of the early church and the tradition of the Gospels which were targeted to specific audiences. Targeting today has an apostolic tradition.”
Witness!
Effective communication does not guarantee reception of the content. A message can be heard without faith. Even the demons hear the Sh’ma13 without obedience to God (James 2:19). Some people will react negatively to the gospel. Christians should take encouragement. Reaction at least indicates that the message was heard.
Friction from a focused gospel outreach is no cause for embarrassment or a conclusion of failure. The good news is objective truth. It is efficacious for salvation to all who believe (Rom. 1:16-17). The observant and secular Jew, the religious and nominal Muslim, the cultural Baptist or Catholic—all need the salvation message in Christ, because he is the truth. No one comes to the Father but through him (John 14:6).
Woodberry has said, “If we believe that no one comes to the Father, but by Christ, then Christians have a moral responsibility to focus some of their witness on Muslims.” Jesus is not known in Islam as the Savior. Only the Christian message will reveal him as the unique means of salvation. It is a matter of truth, not of convenience.
Richard Land, executive director of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, suggests that Baptists should seek to evangelize Jews for the same reason they would evangelize everybody else. Land noted, “. . . it’s probably not the most politically correct thing to do, but there are a lot of things about Christianity that are not politically correct.”14
Land is right. Some may not consider the Christian message as suitable for polite, sophisticated, contemporary discussion. It is, however, imperative to direct energies and resources to a people, any people, simply because the gospel message is true for all people.
In their recent resolution, Southern Baptists have merely been consistent. Back in the early 1980s their sage, Paige Patterson, candidly told Jewish leaders at a dialogue conference that Southern Baptists want to convert everybody. Then, without flinching, he lovingly added, “We are going to be out front. Yes, we want to convert you.”
Endnotes
1. Toby Axelrod, “For David Dean, New York’s top Southern Baptist, not just the Jews need saving,” The New York Jewish Week, June 21, 1996.
2. The Charlotte Observer, June 21, 1996.
3. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (1978).
4. L.J. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures (1976:59).
5. Eugene Nida, Customs and Cultures (1954).
6. James F. Engel and H. Wilbert Norton, What’s Gone Wrong With The Harvest (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), p. 29.
7. Engel and Norton, p. 31.
8. Christianity Today, July 15, 1996.
9. Dale D. Buss, “Mass Marketing the Good News,” Christianity Today, January 8, 1996.
10. Charles Willis, “To reach today’s unchurched, target as Jesus did, Warren says,” The Baptist Press, 1995.
11. Marc Tannenbaum, Marvin Wilson, and A. James Rudin, Evangelicals and Jews in an Age of Pluralism, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), p. 202.
12. Joshua O. Haberman, “The New Exodus Out of Judaism,” Moment Magazine, August, 1992, p. 35.
13. The Jewish proclamation of faith in the one true God of the covenant, taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-9: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
14. Bob Allen, “SBC Steps Up Efforts to Evangelize Jews,” Associated Baptist Press, June 13, 1996.
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