By Jeff Gill
We’re coming up on twenty years since “Unbinding the Gospel” was published in 2006.
As is the case with research and analysis, which is at the heart of Martha Grace Reese’s book, the data which is underneath “Unbinding the Gospel” is even older now, collected between 1999 and 2003.
Martha Grace, or “Gay” as she’s known to her friends, sat down and wrestled her data into the book on evangelism among mainline Christian churches over the next two years, calling and visiting in person when she could churches where the “e-word” was visibly, demonstrably being put into practice.
So as a friend and associate of Gay Reese, I know it was in 2005 she was putting the finishing touches on her study, a slim volume still very much in print. Evangelism is still interesting to many people, but intimidating. This book says it doesn’t have to be.
Times have changed since 2005. We’ve had some overseas turmoil, domestic politics in an uproar, a global pandemic since then. But I think the fundamental insights of Gay’s book still hold.
“Unbinding the Gospel” is not a cookbook with a simple set of steps for every church to follow. It’s more a description of how some outstanding restaurants’ finished products looked and tasted, with a look into the back of the house as to how the dishes were prepared and served.
One of the reactions — even strong reactions — we got as Gay Reese organized a group of us to help field test and roll out the process loosely described in the book, from church leaders in multiple denominations, was incredulity that there wasn’t more of a step-by-step process outlined.
The book, and some supporting volumes that came out in the next few years after 2006, offers a series of exercises out of which each congregation would develop its own unique approach to sharing the good news, the Gospel, with others in their area.
As I said last week about books on prayer, that’s not a subject that really supports an approach like “30 days from couch to 5K” but that’s what people are used to looking for. Give me a methodical model which will work for me like it does for almost anyone else. Judicatory heads, regional ministers, district superintendents, synod bishops, executive presbyters: they wanted a clear consistent model with predictable outcomes.
What Gay’s research showed us, drawn mostly from a few hundred congregations out of some 30,000 in the initial data set, those who had shown the fruit, the outcomes of evangelism in their settings, was three characteristics they had in common. It wasn’t just that they were new church plants, or of a single generational or ethnic cohort, or any of the other usual assumptions about evangelistically effective churches.
Three elements the evangelism-centered congregations had in common: a lively sense of the presence of God, a deep knowledge within the church of each other’s faith stories, and prayer was a profound and persistent element of all they did. That’s it. Those three things. Presence, personal faith stories, and prayer. And note: that’s not about telling strangers your faith story. It was the context of how sharing faith stories within the fellowship was the apparent engine, the driver of how invitation and inclusion became norms for the evangelistically effective churches.
You can practice these things; I’m not sure you can teach them, exactly. This is why Anthony Bloom’s thin volume, and Gay Reese’s little book, both come to mind together for me. Like riding a bike, or sailing a boat, you really have to be willing to just jump on, jump in, and do it. Teaching just tells you in advance which rope to pull on, and that you’ll inevitably end up overboard a few times.
But once you get moving, you’ll be glad you did.
—————
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s glad he read both of these books. Tell him what’s inspired you recently at knapsack77@ gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack 77 at Threads or Bluesky.
We’re coming up on twenty years since “Unbinding the Gospel” was published in 2006.
As is the case with research and analysis, which is at the heart of Martha Grace Reese’s book, the data which is underneath “Unbinding the Gospel” is even older now, collected between 1999 and 2003.
Martha Grace, or “Gay” as she’s known to her friends, sat down and wrestled her data into the book on evangelism among mainline Christian churches over the next two years, calling and visiting in person when she could churches where the “e-word” was visibly, demonstrably being put into practice.
So as a friend and associate of Gay Reese, I know it was in 2005 she was putting the finishing touches on her study, a slim volume still very much in print. Evangelism is still interesting to many people, but intimidating. This book says it doesn’t have to be.
Times have changed since 2005. We’ve had some overseas turmoil, domestic politics in an uproar, a global pandemic since then. But I think the fundamental insights of Gay’s book still hold.
“Unbinding the Gospel” is not a cookbook with a simple set of steps for every church to follow. It’s more a description of how some outstanding restaurants’ finished products looked and tasted, with a look into the back of the house as to how the dishes were prepared and served.
One of the reactions — even strong reactions — we got as Gay Reese organized a group of us to help field test and roll out the process loosely described in the book, from church leaders in multiple denominations, was incredulity that there wasn’t more of a step-by-step process outlined.
The book, and some supporting volumes that came out in the next few years after 2006, offers a series of exercises out of which each congregation would develop its own unique approach to sharing the good news, the Gospel, with others in their area.
As I said last week about books on prayer, that’s not a subject that really supports an approach like “30 days from couch to 5K” but that’s what people are used to looking for. Give me a methodical model which will work for me like it does for almost anyone else. Judicatory heads, regional ministers, district superintendents, synod bishops, executive presbyters: they wanted a clear consistent model with predictable outcomes.
What Gay’s research showed us, drawn mostly from a few hundred congregations out of some 30,000 in the initial data set, those who had shown the fruit, the outcomes of evangelism in their settings, was three characteristics they had in common. It wasn’t just that they were new church plants, or of a single generational or ethnic cohort, or any of the other usual assumptions about evangelistically effective churches.
Three elements the evangelism-centered congregations had in common: a lively sense of the presence of God, a deep knowledge within the church of each other’s faith stories, and prayer was a profound and persistent element of all they did. That’s it. Those three things. Presence, personal faith stories, and prayer. And note: that’s not about telling strangers your faith story. It was the context of how sharing faith stories within the fellowship was the apparent engine, the driver of how invitation and inclusion became norms for the evangelistically effective churches.
You can practice these things; I’m not sure you can teach them, exactly. This is why Anthony Bloom’s thin volume, and Gay Reese’s little book, both come to mind together for me. Like riding a bike, or sailing a boat, you really have to be willing to just jump on, jump in, and do it. Teaching just tells you in advance which rope to pull on, and that you’ll inevitably end up overboard a few times.
But once you get moving, you’ll be glad you did.
—————
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s glad he read both of these books. Tell him what’s inspired you recently at knapsack77@ gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack 77 at Threads or Bluesky.
