Obstacles of Evangelism in the Orthodox Church

Obstacles of Evangelism in the Orthodox Church

Victor Beshir,

A Lecture given in the Sixth Evangelism Conference

In Nashville , Tennessee ,

July 2004

We all love our church dearly and like to see evangelism plays a big rule in our church. This is why it is important to find out what can we do to make evangelism an important part of our individual service and in the service of our local churches.

Our Coptic Orthodox Church started as an evangelistic church. Our missionary work reached Sudan , Ethiopia , Eritrea , North Africa , India , Arabia , Ireland , Switzerland , and others. In addition, evangelistic work had been done inside Egypt to attract people from all over the world. Mainly this was done in the Catechetical School of Alexandria and through the Desert Fathers.

However, the invasion of Islam into Egypt in 641 AD halted all the Coptic missionary work. The Islamic laws prevent Christians from evangelism. As a matter of fact, evangelism is punishable by the Islamic law and by the mobs. When someone converted from Islam to Christianity, both the evangelism servant (worker) and the converter could face up to capital punishment. Consequently, as a result of seventeen centuries under the Islamic sword, the Copts forgot all about evangelism as it should be, and instead evangelism word is currently used to refer to serving the lost sheep.

Therefore, evangelism is a new topic with a new meaning to Copts that we need to revive it. As in the case of anything new, evangelism would meet resistance before it became a part of our main activities. As evangelism starts lately in the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America, another movement started in Egypt around 1900. We can learn from this movement’s history very valuable lessons.

Sunday School Movement in Egypt :

Archdeacon Habib Guirgis started the idea of establishing Sunday School around year 1900. He stayed alone as the only teacher for a long time. In 1941 he held the first Sunday Teacher Conference where 400 teachers attended. In other words, it took 40 years to get 400 teachers to work in Sunday School.

I remembered talking to Sunday School teachers who told me that they used to gather the children and then go to the church to find it closed for no reason, and sometimes the church guard used to drove out children or youth from the church for no reason too.

Sunday School movement faced with many obstacles, as a new movement in the church. Evangelism is facing obstacles too, but don’t lose heart. As Sunday School movement prevailed, evangelism will do too. I know that some evangelism servants get disappointed when they see obstacles or if they find no encouragement in their churches. You just need to remember that evangelism as a new movement in the Coptic Church would take sometime until it prevails victoriously.

As H.E. Metropolitan Bakhomious said in a meeting was held in July 6, 2002 in Atlanta , Georgia , and addressed the topic: “Preparing Our Churches for Evangelism:”

“As the Sunday School movement in its beginning faced with many difficulties, evangelism meets difficulties too. Many Copts still not believe in evangelism. We started with a small yeast in evangelism and encourage it until the day comes when it turns into a reality, as it happened with Sunday School. Let us start with the priests and servants who love evangelism. Surely, there’re many painful real negatives around us, but time would come when evangelism would be raised to the highest level in the church.”

However, the pioneers of the Sunday School movement had some great characters that we need to examine together to know the secrets of their persistence and success:

1- Prayers: They used to meet at homes and to spend the whole night in prayers. Some of the current great leaders of our church graduated from those wonderful prayers meetings. The late H.G. Bishop Mina Ava Mina used to tell me, “we used to spend the whole night in prayers and then in the morning we walk for miles to go to the mountain where Fr. Mina the Hermit (Ordained as Pope Kyrillos VI later) to pray the Divine Liturgy with him.“

One of our main objectives in evangelism is to plant love of prayers in the hearts of evangelism servants. We need to revive prayer meetings. In prayer meetings we will be filled with power and joy, and we will get the inner call to go and invite others to His kingdom.

2- Devotion: The pioneers of Sunday School movement were fully devoted to God and their service. To see this great passion for devotion, please read with me what H.H. Pope Shenouda III wrote in his book, “Release of the Spirit,” in the story “It Happened That Night, ”when he was one of the leaders of the Sunday School movement:

“Those persons devoted all their lives to God … They spent every minute of their time in the ministry … They considered the spiritual ministry as their main work and other worldly affairs as secondary.

Those words were like a wildfire that inflamed the hearts of many generations of Sunday School servants. The service of God was number one in the life of thousands of servants, and all other jobs came afterwards.

This is another objective of evangelism; we need to plant love of devotion in the hearts of evangelism servants. Help them to make God and His service as number one objective in their life.

3- Dedication of Life: As a result of this inflaming fire of love in the hearts of Sunday School teachers, many dedicated their lives to Christ. Waves of youth went to the monasteries to start a dedicated monastic life or to priesthood or to work as dedicated servants. Because these servants were full of fire they lead generations to the fullness of Christ.

Evangelism in USA needs tons of work, but we don’t have dedicated servants who can do the work. H.G. Bishop Youssef said in the “Coptic Church Seminars of Priests,” in August 2002:

“There is a need for full-time dedicated servants. We need to encourage youth to devote one year after graduation to serve in evangelism.”

In July 6, 2002, in a meeting about preparing our church for evangelism, H.G. Bishop Youssef said,

“Encourage dedication for evangelism. If we don’t have full time, how about encourage devotion for one year or for 6 months.”

Let me say, “How about dedicating a summer. Some students could devote one summer for evangelism.” We need youth to come forward and talk to their priests or to their bishops about dedicating one summer.

Other Obstacles:

Why Coptic people don’t evangelize?

1- Fear. But, fear of what?

Some think their English is not good enough or someone might say, “I don’t know enough about Christianity or about the Bible, or even about my church. What should I do if people ask me questions?”

I have a friend works in a gas station and doesn’t know English, but he puts in front of him Arabic translation and English translation of the Bible. Then locates the verse in English and shows it to people who come to the store, and ask them to read it to him. Reading one verse takes seconds, but its impact lasts much longer in life. Using this way, he attracted many people to start reading the Bible and get back to God without knowing English.

If you don’t know enough about Christianity or the church or the Bible, then it is time to start learning. We have wealth of information on books, Internet, and magazines. Prepare yourself for evangelism.

If you tell me I am a sinner. How about repentance first, then later join evangelism service.

If you’re just afraid of evangelism work, let me suggest reading the following book written by Floyd Schneider, “Evangelism for the Fainthearted.” This book is not written by an Orthodox writer, so you need to take it with a grain of salt.

If you don’t know what to say, then read “What Do You Say When?,” a book written by Nellie Pickard. I don’t suggest that you do exactly as she does, but this book would give you ideas on how to deal with excuses people usually give to themselves and to others to avoid facing God.

2- Isn’t evangelism the work of priests and bishops after all? Why then should I get involved?

The answer is “No.” Evangelism is the work of every Christian. Do we forget our weekly promise to God in the Divine Liturgy: “Amen. Amen. Amen. Your death O Lord we proclaim.”

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1Cor 11:26)

“Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4).

3- Practical Love:

Can we see the world goes in flames of sin and our hearts don’t move with compassion and love?

Love creates urgent desire to reach to all. When we love more, God gives more love and with it more desire to quench thirsty of others to the spring of life.

Probably you may remember the two American girls who went to Afghanistan in a missionary work. They were caught by Taliban government and thrown into prison. Finally, the American army set them free when entered Afghanistan . Despite prison and danger they faced there, when they were asked by a journalist about their future plan, they answered, “we’re going to go back to complete our missionary work.”

4- Commitment:

Many started working in evangelism and then when they faced with disappointment they left evangelism service. I saw many who were full of energy and enthusiasm; however, because of lack of commitment, they don’t persist and give up easily. Remember, pioneers in any service or field usually face great obstacles, but when they stand stead fast, they win at last. Look at Christ on the cross. After over three years of service, only a few were under the cross, the majority asked to crucify Him, and the rest were afraid to speak up. However, look at Christianity today. What a great difference!

What Hinder Evangelism in Our Churches?

1- Culture Conflict:

As H.G. Bishop Serapion said, “Americans feel foreigners among Copts and usually their attendance do not last because of the difference in culture.”

Some Copts can not differentiate between culture components and spirituality or even between what is Christian and what is driven from the Coptic culture. As a church we need to teach our congregations about our heritage, and make a clear distinction between what is Christian and what comes from the Coptic culture.

In a lesson about evangelism in the church during the apostolic period, I wrote the following:

“This church never imposed any cultural aspects on any nation or community. Although most of the apostles were raised in Israel , nevertheless, when they preached the gospel, we did not hear about any attempt to enforce of Jewish culture on any church.”

2- Other Stone Blocks to evangelism:

H. G. Bishop Youssef summarized all the stone blocks that facing evangelism in his lecture in the “Seminar of Priests” in August 2002. He said:

A- “We need to encourage our congregations to welcome the Americans and give them the feelings of belonging and show them love and care (establish special committee to welcome them).

B- “Promote an integrated culture of readiness to receive Americans and others through: English announcements, cleanness, discipline, organization, order, and quietness in our churches. Also, it is very important to observe the good performance and singing of hymns; and prepare papers for the hymns (for example, prepare papers for the hymns of the Holy Pascha and the Lectionary).”

For more details about the Welcome Committee, please refer to the evangelism lesson about the “Welcome Committee.”

Let me here give some details to what H.G. Bishop Youssef mentioned above:

I- English Announcements: Briefly, we like to say: please pray the Divine Liturgy in English, give the sermon in English, read the lectionary in English, and also say the announcement in English, all would help to get the feeling that the church cares about each person, loves them, and considers them as beloved members.

II- Cleanness: Many churches need to address this problem and the best solution is to hire someone or a company to do the job inside and outside the church.

III- Discipline: Please raise awareness of awe of the house of God among deacons and congregations in order to help to stop the continuous move of deacons in the church. This also would help people to stop the habit of talking during the service, especially during taking the Holy Communion, no matter what was the situation or the reason. Arrangements of service of deacons should be done prior the service, not during the service, and talk about improvements should be done after the service.

IV- Babies and children: The Coptic parents as all other parents need help with raising children. Coming to the immigration land, the Coptic parents lost the support system that the parents have in the mother land. Therefore, the Coptic parents need to be introduced to the educational courses and materials available in North America . We need to create an educational process in each church to help the Coptic parents in raising their children. We need to convince parents who have babies to go to the crying room. Also, we need to educate parents on how to deal with the continuous movement and sometimes running of children in the church.

As a church we need to study the problem of moving and running children in the church during the service. Why children do that? One answer is the attention span of children is limited while our Divine Liturgy is long. So, we may need to think of ways to make them attend only during the limit of their attention, then afterward, they are given a Sunday school or a special program. This is one idea that needs more study. I think we need a field study of the problem.

V- Organization and Order: Deacons come to church to sing, read, share in the rites of the church, and pray. All these mostly happen without out preparations or arrangements of what to do and who would do what. Therefore, we need to teach our deacons to rehearsal before prayers, and to learn how to stop giving instructions during the service. Everything should be prepared in advance: readings, altar boys, hymns, and who will do what without instructions during the service. Also, we need to give them some lessons regarding voice and singing, and how to have harmony in singing. Deacons also need directions in how all should look at the same direction and how to move gently in order and on lines.

VI- Quietness: When you visit big cities in Egypt , you would be faced with noise that we are not familiar with in North America . As a result, loud speakers in churches have to be loud to overcome noise outside churches. We came here to North America, but we sometimes still adjust our loud speakers as if we still in a church in Cairo . Copts could accept that because we got used to it for a long time in Egypt . However, for others it is uncomfortable and sometimes unbearable. We need to lower the microphone volume significantly; we need to get used to a lower volume.

If people don’t understand or don’t know how to get in deep prayers or if the Divine Liturgy is too long or if the deacons sing long hymns that they can not sing along with them, all these factors lead some people to talk in the church during the service, especially during taking the Holy Communion, which lasts in some churches for about half-an-hour.

What is the solution? Obvious! Teach people how to pray in the Divine Liturgy, explain the meaning of the rites of the Divine Liturgy and other rituals, and teach hymns not only to deacons but also to congregation. We also need to fill the time of taking the Holy Communion with hymns that people can sing along with the deacons.

VII- Materials: Because people take books from the church and keep them at home as a reference, many churches stop putting Divine Liturgy books in the pews. Other churches don’t put books in the pews because either the books are expensive or because some children play with books and tear them.

Obviously, we need to face the problems. Some churches offer the Divine Liturgy books for families as a gift, so people will not take the books in the pews. Other churches may put a small sign saying, “For the benefit of everyone, please don’t remove books from the church, and not allow children to play with the books.”

Now, we need to deal with the problem of children playing with the books. One solution is to ask parents to bring coloring books for their small children. Again, I call for a field study of the behavior of our children in the church and get practical recommendations.

Then, we need to have a screen that shows page numbers in every church to help people follow up the prayers? It is also important to give the remote to people who have sensitivity as to when to put a new page number on the screen. The rule of thumb is whenever a page changed; a new page should be displayed on the screen. Nowadays, there is more advanced technology that can display an entire readable page on the screen, as it is used in the new Coptic Cathedral in Houston , Texas . I think we need to benefit from the new technology.

VIII- Comfort: Because the church is a huge space, the air condition does not cover all the spaces equally. As a result, you find some spots are extremely cold and others are uncomfortably hot. To make things worst, some people, to feel better, they make air condition colder which results in sending people home sick every week. The solution is simple; there are inexpensive portable small units of air conditions or fans available in Wall Mart that could be installed where central air condition does not reach. I will never forget an American lady who came to one of our churches to attend our service. By the end of the service she has a non-stop runny nose and she was shivering. Of course, she did not visit that church again!

IX- The Little Things: The little things that make people feel comfortable or uncomfortable. Therefore, our objective is to make the little things in our churches as comfortable as possible. If a person feels uncomfortable in a church, he/she will not come back, and we loose the person. This is why I talk about the above eight items. I am sure that we can add to the list. However, I put them as examples to open our eyes to the need to examine our church to discover the little things and to work on them.

My church is like a great Mercedes car with all the top great qualities. However, sometimes dust accumulates on its body, and I have to get it washed from time to time. If I a spot, I need to remove the spot. Similarly, there are always some little things that we need to deal with to keep our churches in its top great qualities.

3- Stop Judging: In our churches, we conform to specific rules and habits. However, the visitors because of lack of understanding, they fail to conform to those rules. Some people are quick to judge and condemn the behaviors, thinking it is a duty to have zeal in the house of the Lord. The result is offending the visitors and upsetting others. We need to raise the awareness of giving time to the visitors to learn about our church and stop judging them. I think we need to teach our congregation not to jump into giving advice or orders to visitors. Instead, let the leaders of evangelism in the church handle it. We need to learn how to accept and welcome all in the church, no matter if a visitor wears a veil or a jean or a short and no matter how the visitor sits. Welcome first and let education take a later step.

How to Deal With Obstacles?

First: Act As an American Church :

1- Have Service Schedule written in a big bulletin board outside the church that everyone can see while driving by or passing by the church. If I don’t announce my service, I am telling others that I don’t welcome them and this is why I am hiding my service schedule from them.

2- Get church ready: clean, organized, in order, books in the pews, screen ready to display, and instant translation available

3- Start a “Welcome Committee” to welcome visitors and help them throughout the service and afterwards.

4- Create atmosphere of welcome: welcome visitors by the priest from the pulpit and welcome them personally afterwards. All people welcome a visitor heartily and introduce him/her to people with the same profession or interests.

5- Solve problems of crying babies and running children

6- Get deacons to rehearsal to pray in harmony.

7- Have available brochures about our church and our faith

8- Create a brochure for the local church to give it to visitor that includes service schedules, map and directions, our creed, and introduction to our church.

9- Use American ways to let others know about your church, such as: Open House, articles in the local newspapers, adds in the newspapers, radio talk, web page for the church, community activities in the church (feeding homeless, lectures that address people’s needs, donate blood, ..etc.)

10- Raise the awareness of the importance of evangelism among your local congregation.

11- Prepare evangelism servants.

12- Form secretary team for the church to answer all phone calls and to open the church during daytime. Open bookstore during those time too. Make someone available to welcome any visitor.

What to Do With Our Visitors?

For years I was perplexed about what to do with our visitors. Should we invite them to the Divine Liturgy, where they stay for about three hours mostly standing? Or should we invite them to a special meeting to teach them and prepare them first?

To invite them to the Divine Liturgy, you allow them to touch the spirituality of the church, but at the same time they will be confused because they don’t understand the rituals of the church and what we do during the service. Add to that the difficulty of understanding, even when we pray in English we still have an accent that is sometimes confusing.

Then an arrangement was made to have a special meeting to address “Preparing Our Church For Evangelism” in Atlanta , Georgia , in July 6, 2002. The meeting was attended by: H.E. Metropolitan Pachomious, H.G. Bishop Youssef, H.G. Bishop Serapion, Fr. Tadros Malaty, Fr. Luke Wassif, and Deacon Victor Beshir.

Regarding the visitors of our churches, the meeting recommended the following:

1- Prepare a special prayer for the visitor that is very similar to the Liturgy of the Catechumen.

2- No Offertory Prayer

3- Start with the Thanksgiving Prayers

4- Follow by raising of incense by the priest

5- The deacons sing the “Hetienes,” “Hymns of Intercessions,” on the condition that it should be a short version.

6- The Pauline and Catholic would be read

7- Read the Praxis and Synaxarion

8- Deacons sing the hymn of the Trisagion (Holy God, Holy mighty, ..etc)

9- The priest prays the Litany of the Gospel

10- A sermon

11- The Three Long Litanies then prayed

12- The creed recited

13- Blessing and dismissal

14- The entire service should not exceed one hour

15- The entire service should be in English

16- Prepare a small booklet to have these prayers and call it:

“Excerpts From the Divine Liturgy.”

The service is followed by a coffee hour where people can socialize.

In the same meeting we talked about preparing an evangelistic curriculum for those who attend, and a Bible study that contained a study of Orthodoxy based on Biblical teaching. In addition, the meetings called for preparing our congregations for evangelism through instilling missionary consciousness.

Notes:

1- Our Church in Atlanta has prepared “Excerpts From the Divine Liturgy.” booklet. You may contact Fr. Like Wassif, e-mail: frlukew7@aol.com to ask for copies.

2- St. George Church in Tampa prepared a brochure about its local church. You may contact Fr. Moussa Saleh, e-mail: frmoussa@tampabay.rr.com, to get a copy to use as guideline for your church’s brochure

3- H.G. Bishop Serapion has prepared some brochures for visitors to our church. Visit Los Angeles Diocese web page, www.lacopts.org , to know how to order the brochures.

4- H.G. Bishop Angelos wrote many brochures for youth and visitors of the Coptic Church. Contact the “Coptic Orthodox Church Centre,” Tel: +44-(0) 438-748-473 or send e-mail to: CopticOrthodoxChurch@CopticCentre.com

5- Victor Beshir wrote a brochure, “The Legacy of the Coptic Orthodox Church” You welcome to copy it and print it in a brochure format from the evangelism web page www.suscopts.org/evangelism