How does a church communicate the gospel message in a country where it is fashionable to claim a Christian identity, even if one does not really know who Jesus Christ is?
How does a church communicate the gospel message in a country where it is fashionable to claim a Christian identity, even if one does not really know who Jesus Christ is?
That’s the challenge facing Seventh-day Adventists in Poland, a nation with a devout heritage, but, church leaders say, also with confusion about what Christianity really is. The answer: utilize “relational evangelism” which involves building friendships and creating common ground before deeper theological questions are raised.
According to Pastor Roman Chalupka, secretary of the Adventist Church in Poland, such methods are proving successful. These methods go hand-in-hand with the Polish launch of LIFEDevelopment.info, which has been used successfully in Britain and other European countries and will be translated into Polish and adapted for the culture.
The core values of the LIFEdevelopment ministry are relationships, growth and support, said Pastor Miroslav Pujic communication director for the Trans-European region of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Explaining the name, Pujic said the focus is on life as growing, not static, and nurturing and developing. He added that the “info” should lead people to the latest forms of communicating about a better life.
“We had a young married couple in Warsaw, around the age of 30, who became vegetarians and were accused of being ‘sectarians’ by their family,” Chalupka said in a telephone interview. “They were searching the Internet to find support for their health beliefs, and out of all the possible links, came upon a listing for one of our congregations near the Baltic Sea. After two months of corresponding with an elder there about diet, they were asking for answers about religious questions. The elder gave them my name, we made contact and now I am preparing them for baptism.”
Chalupka added, “The way to reach these people was not through religion, but through friendship and vegetarianism; that’s how we’re doing it.”
Such relationship building, he adds, does not totally replace other methods. Adventists in Poland have sold over 1 million copies of “Steps to Christ,” for example, and maintain an active, theological outreach via the Internet. But reaching the 46 percent of Poles who don’t attend any church requires additional methods.
This concept of mission in a postmodern society was the center of discussion at a recent seminar, held at the Seventh-day Adventist College of Theology and Humanities (ACTH) in Podkowa Lesna, for pastors and elders from 130 congregations.
“The focus of our interest should be the part of society that doesn’t attend church,” said Pujic, who spoke at the event. His presentation focused on LIFEdevelopment.info.
Chalupka noted what he called a “fashion” among some people in the country “to behave in a religious manner even though they do not believe in God.” He said this comes from a centuries-long effort by the Roman Catholic Church to promote a Catholic identity as part of Polish national identity. Yet, he added, such “branding” didn’t yield a deep commitment or understanding.
“I used to go door-to-door and survey people about their religious views,” Chalupka recalled. “When I asked my first question, ‘Are you a Christian?,’ the answer was, ‘Of course we are.’ Then I would ask, ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ They had no idea. The concept of church was rather a personal identification [rather] than a belief.”
It’s that challenge that Polish Adventist pastors and church leaders are facing, he said. Already, some have responded.
“In a way, we can say that some” of the pastors have tried similar methods without knowing about the LifeDevelopment program, Chalupka said. “They are trying to find the best methods to reach young people, to talk to them. They just want to be friends, and by friendship come into their life and then they will ask ‘why are you different?’”
For Pastor Arkadiusz Bojko, who leads an Adventist congregation in Podkowa Lesna, the need to reach these “postmodern” youth and young adults is clear.
“Teenage generation up to 20s and 30s, people who are educated, with well-paying jobs, they act like typically secular, postmodern people,” Bojko said in a telephone interview.
Unlike previous generations whose Biblical knowledge, however scant, prepared them to accept Bible-based proofs of Adventist belief, Bojko said he is seeing “a growing number of people who do not believe in the Bible.” As a result, he added, “our traditional approach is not necessarily reaching the [needs] of this younger generation.”
Bojko said, “We are observing a decrease of interest in our typical, public evangelistic way, with fewer and fewer people interested in these topics. We are pushed to use ‘back door’ types of evangelism. LIFEdevelopment is a good pretext to enter on the social basis.”
While awaiting the preparation of materials and formal launch of the program, Bojko said he is finding young people in his church who can be trained as lay leaders and then go out to reach their peers. He believes such an approach will be more successful in gaining an audience among young adults.
“I’ve found that especially when you are talking about first contact, as soon as they find you are a pastor, they treat you as a ‘professional,’ and think he’s paid to do what he is doing,” Bojko said. “I believe that it’s much more authentic when young people who are not professionally involved in some kind of church work are in contact with their peers.”
Bojko praised the LIFEdevelopment materials, noting that his son, age 12, who is fluent in English, warmly responded to a tape of “The Evidence” television program from England, which also takes this approach.
Such evangelism, Bojko said, is “not jumping on the stage with the Bible, but is a different approach [that] still conveys a deep and well done spiritual message. It fills the gap for this kind of material. I believe we can make good use of it.”
And Pastor Pawel Lazar, president of the Adventist Church in Poland, has high expectations for the new outreach method: “Personally, I believe LIFEdevelopment.info can bring about notable changes in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Poland. Friendship evangelism is a long-term program, but it produces good results. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the best example of this approach.”
