This morning my daughter Mallory and I were talking about rain and cold temperatures. She, like me, is quite the little weather bug, and she was noticing this morning that after rain projected for tomorrow, it was supposed to be cold all the week. I explained that–to my amateur understanding of how weather works–rain and storms in general are caused by cold fronts (cold masses of air) moving into warmer regions. The collision of these two temperature zones causes the conflict which leads to rain, storms, etc. So, naturally, after rain, the temperature would be colder.
“But 60 degrees is not what I would call cold,” she commented. And then we got into a discussion of the relative nature of temperature.
And I am writing all this down because I was struck by how there are parallels between things like temperatures, poverty, opportunities, and the degree of evangelization, Christianization and discipleship–the parallel is relativity.
Relativity is what makes it difficult to measure each of these things. Yes, we can measure them to a certain extent:
- Temperature is measured in degrees: 32 deg. F. is freezing, 212 deg. F. is boiling.
- Poverty can be measured in terms of GDP per capita: we generally say absolute poverty is an income of less than US$1/day.
- Opportunities are far more difficult to measure, but we know when we have a lot of them and when we have none.
- Discipleship is even harder. This has been debated before. Who has been evangelized? Who is a true believer?
Let’s look at temperature as a case in point. There is a significant difference between, say, 30 degrees F. (slightly below freezing, very cold), 50 degrees F. (to my mind, sweater weather, and possibly even coat weather), 70 degrees F. (very nice, shirt-sleeve weather), and 100 degrees F. (time to stay inside in the air conditioning, but I’m a bit of a wimp where hot weather is concerned). Going from 30 degrees to 100 degrees can be a significant shock. (Just as going from, say, a significantly Christian region to a war-torn, highly non-Christian region would be.)
But the difference between 69 and 70 degrees is more difficult to ascertain. The 70s are warmish. The 60s are coolish. But there is no “1-degree magic moment” where you stop wearing shirt sleeves and start wearing sweaters. Once you get down to these tiny differences, the actual number makes little difference.
The same can be true about the process of evangelization and discipleship. We can’t really say that there is a single “point” where a person, people group, or country is “reached” or “evangelized.” My friends at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity use a “World A, B, C” scale:
- World A: less than 50% evangelized
- World B: more than 50% evangelized, less than 60% Christian
- World C: more than 60% Christian
Now, we can push this analogy too far. We might assume as some do that we should go to the spiritually hot places where there is fruit, and avoid the frozen places until spring (=revival) comes and they thaw a bit. But I think that’s a dangerous conclusion.
Because we cannot “see” precisely where a group is, we cannot know whether they are warming-or-cooling. Night before last, we were flipping channels and ran across the old movie “Grease.” I know, carnality and all that. But the scene the movie was on when we flipped by it was the scene where the hero (John Travolta’s character), along with his buddies from school, runs into his summer-girlfriend and her friends. He starts out happy to see her, but then seeing his buddy’s reactions, he decides to put on the “tough guy” image and put the girl off. It was clear he was being what his friends wanted him to be, and in the process hurt the girl. Later on we see he is conflicted, and he finally chooses her.
The point being that just because a place or a person has the public persona of “frozen” doesn’t mean they really are in their heart. There could be strong community pressures or past hurts. If we always avoid places that have the appearance of disinterest, we will never find the “people of peace” who, in private moments of personal relationship, are ready to explore further what it means to follow Jesus.
So my point is this: don’t get too caught up in the minutia of where a people group is on a specific list. But do know what “general zone” they are in. And don’t be put off by the apparent unresponsiveness of an individual people group. Some of the most unreached peoples have been the most responsive–once someone finally went to them. Their lack of response wasn’t their heart attitude, but rather the lack of opportunity.
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