\u201cEveryone we meet is on a spiritual journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
I recently came across this statement printed on a brochure for an evangelistic Bible study. When I see language like this used in church and ministry contexts, I have two responses. On one hand, it\u2019s true that we must start with the unbeliever on his own turf. This means engaging in conversation, learning what he believes, and contextualizing our gospel presentation appropriately.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also true that everyone we meet\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0on a \u201cspiritual journey.\u201d Everyone, eternally speaking, is\u00a0going somewhere<\/em>. We are either plodding onward toward eternal life or careening toward hell (cf. Heb. 9:27).<\/p>\n But on the other hand, I fear such statements reveal a less-than-biblical theology. What\u2019s more, statements like \u201ceveryone is on a spiritual journey\u201d raise challenging missiological questions. In what sense can someone be a \u201cseeker\u201d? Do unbelievers engage in honest inquiry in search of spiritual truth\u2014or, better yet,\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0they?<\/p>\n In North America, these questions are complicated by the seeker-sensitive, church growth, and attractional movements. There are certainly truths contained inside of each of the ministry philosophies represented by these movements: churches\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0be hospitable to unbelievers who visit their gatherings (1 Cor. 14:24), healthy churches\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0pursue evangelistic growth (Acts 2:41), and a Christ-exalting church<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whereas the term \u201cseeker\u201d has been associated with the church growth movement in North America in particular, \u201cperson of peace\u201d has lodged itself into the lexicon of modern missions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-29949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-evangelism-gospel","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29949"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29951,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29949\/revisions\/29951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}