Outreach Convention and not forgetting Hell

I believe I have been part of the past five National Outreach Conventions. They have around 2,000 or more people at them. This year I was a main session speaker and then hung out for the rest of it. It is one convention where I always want to stay for the whole thing because the people who go to this are passionate about evangelism. The theme this year was "where mission meets innovation" and everyone acknowledged and stressed how it is the Holy Spirit who draws someone to Jesus, yet we still need to know the times and not be afraid of innovation for the sake of the gospel. Charlie Hall was the musical worship leader and he has a fascinating chin beard thing going on which I intensely stared at in great appreciation (seriously).  And he was a very gifted musical worship leader.

I had the privilege of getting to meet several people I hadn't met before and chat such as Craig Groeschel , Kem Meyer (who is someone I related to as we share the fact that we still use PC's not Macs and are not afraid to say it and believe PC's will be the new cool one day again). Had a very interesting and refreshing chat with Jonathan Falwell (son of Jerry Falwell) who is now the senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and we plan on staying in touch. Met Israel Hanna who has such an amazing story I cannot even begin to share it here, but will have to at a later time. 

Met with Ed Stetzer for close to 3 hours and chatted about everything from music to emerging/emergent to hair styles to growing up back east. Ed is one smart cookie and although we have chatted via email and phone before, this is the first time we hung out. I believe Ed would look fantastic in a rockabilly hair cut and I encourage him highly to take his hair to the next level. 

Got to have some quick catch-ups with Bob Whitesel, Mark Mittleberg and Lee Strobel and had dinner and hang out with my friend Rick McKinley from Imago Dei in Portland, and so many other people you run into and I wish time would stop and we could just hang out and talk longer. Met with Paul and Mike from Zondervan about the next books I am working on. And I love the folks at Outreach and Lynne, and Lindy from Outreach Magazine are good friends. So it is always so extremely fun to be part of this convention in so many ways.

Something else I love about this convention is something I honestly feel is often missing often in the whole emerging and emergent church conversations - and that is evangelism. I am not talking about social justice or issues of Kingdom living in the now  which is talked about and acted on a lot (thank God). I fully admit that most (not all) of the evangelical church didn't pay the attention needed to how the gospel of Jesus changes this life, not just the afterlife. A book I would suggest reading about this is Ron Sider's book "Good News and Good Works: A Theology for the Whole Gospel". Ron discusses the way Christians can polarize things to either extreme. I don't know of another book that specifically tackles this issue of the gospel of Jesus being about salvation for the life to come but also is about this life and our responsibilty we have when we believe in the gospel.

At the same time, I wonder if because we are reacting to perhaps the over-focus on the gospel being about the after-life only, that we have gone too far in response. Do we now focus so much on the gospel and Kingdom-living in this life and what that means (which is incredibly important) but we now neglect talking about the gospel's impact on the after-life? Perhaps it is fresh on my mind and heart, since my dad just died and my thinking has been about the after-life. But something I have a personal concern for is balance. As we adjust to making sure we teach and live out the good (great) news of the gospel and Kingdom living here and now in this life - that we still talk and teach about the reality of the after-life. That we still talk about heaven and we also still talk about the reality of hell. I honestly don't hear too much talk about hell in most (but not all) emerging and emergent church circles. I know it isn't pleasant to talk about. I know there is much mystery with it. I know God is the only one who knows people's eternal destinations. I know we have used "hell" in manipulative and incorrect ways. And again, I understand fully the reality of how we neglected understanding the Kingdom of God on this earth and what that means and perhaps focused too much on the after-life only when we talked about the gospel. But at the same time, how can we forget about the reality of the after-life and not talk or think about hell and heaven?

I know some of my friends may not agree with me, but I fully believe in the reality of both heaven and the eternity of a hell. I may not understand all there is to it and much of the hell imagery isn't actually biblical truth, but a poor understanding of biblical metaphors and mixing in medieval concepts that we have historically used.  But I believe from passages such as in Daniel 12:2 to a bunch of them in the New Testament which to me clearly indicate that there is an eternal separation of people in the afterlife. A horrifying and heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, mind-searing, painful thought. But a reality I personally cannot dismiss. So it doesn't mean that we take the gospel and only focus on hell, as the gospel is about this life too. But at the same time, we can't forget or dismiss the topic of hell either, which I am wondering if we are beginning to do in some circles.

I am preaching on the topic of hell at our church in 2 weeks. So between the Outreach Convention's focus on evangelism, and my dad dying and me preaching on this in two weeks - this is on my mind and heart. But I hope in emerging church (and all church circles) we don't forget the reality of hell and aren't afraid to speak about it in a balanced way. I don't mean to sound like a backwoods fundamentalist of some type here, but we must have a healthy balance of Kingdom living and the gospel being for this life and for the life to come. Hell is real and to some degree, it does motivate and compel me to never forget about evangelism and teaching about the gospel in terms of the after-life, as well as this life. I will probably write more about this, as it is a big topic and extremely important.

But... I am thankful for the Outreach Convention and the passionate people who attend who are passionate about evangelism. It is extremely thrilling and encouraging to be there. Tomorrow night I head off to Sacramento for one day. I am speaking at the California Southern Baptist Pastors Conference there. So I shall refocus and talk more about culture and evangelism and perhaps stir things a bit in a good way.