The principle of community in our missionary practices is to intentionally bring people into close and valued relationships with our community. But it is more than just connection. It has also been my experience that as we increase the relational investment quantitatively, the indentification and conversion moves along more rapidly and effectively. Let me explain.
There are two types of relational equity. First is Qualitative Equity. The deeper the quality of the relationship and personal connection between two people, the greater comfort level and intimacy is obtained so freeing up conversation. For instance, persons who are long-time friends may talk openly about the personal problem one of them has, which may not happen with a newer acquaintance. It should be noted here that this is usually what people have in mind when they talk about "friendship evangelism." In this view people are thinking that the primary goal is to go deeper in the relationship until a level of intimacy is obtained to be able to talk about spiritual things. Sometimes this does in fact happen, but sometimes it does not. Sometimes people bracket their relationships where they may allow a great deal of intimacy on certain topics, but not others. For instance, a Christian woman may have a close girl friend at work who connects with her and even opens up to her about her relationships with the men she is dating and even sleeping with. But she may, on the other hand, be completely closed off to spiritual questions with this person for unknown reasons. Then the Christian woman can often feel discouraged because she has been making a great deal of investment in this relationship only to hit an invisible brick wall. Then comes the desperation of trying to force the subject, which often leads to an awkward conversation, in spite of all the intimacy and emotional investment anyway. This is discouraging. Or it may leave her feeling like it was a waste of time and eventually she will give up on the relationship.
The other type of relational equity is Quantitative Equity, which is not the depth of the relationship with the person but actually the number of relationships with other Christians. This is what the "friendship evangelism" paradigm grossly underestimates. It always tries to go deep, rather than wide. But since we are communal people, there is a power in numbers that cannot be underestimated. For instance, nobody enjoys a party where they don't know anybody, or even just one person. But when you walk into a party and four or five people say, "Hey Todd!" there is a deeply soothing and compelling level of comfort and belonging that comes over a person. With this you also relax more and feel more comfortable to be yourself. In fact, this comfort might even embolden you in the crowd you know more so than in one-on-one settings.
As we also noted, people tend to conform to the group they identify with. That is why "going deep" with "friendship evangelism" can often seem so ineffective. You may have a lot of relational equity with a person, and they may even value that relationship so much that they do not mind putting up with your annoying attempts at evangelizing them, but if they have their identity rooted somewhere else, you will have a hard time getting through to them. Like I said, the Gospel is a "world view" and it is inseparable from our personal identity. The problem facing the Christian woman exampled above is that she is going at it alone. She has no support. However, if she is part of a Christian community, and she and that community make intentional decisions to befriend the non-Christian woman too, they will begin to do things together as a group. They will all as a group begin to share experiences and enjoy one another. But then what will happen is the non-christian woman will begin to notice (without them asking her to church or having an awkward conversation, etc.) that they will also speak freely when around her of their corporate experiences in faith together. This does not need to be "spiritual talk" either like "Praise Jesus" every other sentence! In fact, such spiritualized jabber should be avoided because it always sounds weird, even to a lot of Christians, and if nothing else, fake. Rather, she will just begin to enjoy the mutual relationships of the group, while also seeing that there is another experience that her friends are sharing that she does not understand and enjoying that she is not. This will naturally evoke interest and questions. I have seen this happen again and again.
The key principle is quantitative community equity. This is to say, the more connections a person has to your Christian community (that is people), the more they naturally begin to identifuy with that group and are naturally prone to begin asking questions of faith. A particular way of life may not be persuasive until that person relaizes that quite a number of pople they respect buy into it which will naturally make investigation seem much more worth while. Of course this becomes all the more compelling when these poeple are loving each other, serving one another, and speaking to one another respectfully in contrast to their other typical relationships. The most compelling aspect of the Gospel is always our love for one another. Also, this quantitative equity (the multiplication of persons in relationship to the non-Christian) naturally supports the qualitative equity of the primary contact person. The great relief to the rank and file Christian is that with this approach you do not need fancy presentations, intellectual gifting, apologetic knowledge, or even printed literature. Also, you do not ever have to feel tongue tied or the pressure of having all the right answers because you are not doing it alone. You are not trying to present a list of propositional truths and defend them, but you are bringing that person into the experience of the community and way of life where the Gospel already exists in the lives of each person. As the person begins to ask questions, you can easily defer to someone else who has more knowledge. Ironically enough, it is the humility of "I don't have all the answers" that is more often far more winsome than the typical apologetic evangelism that wins battles and loses wars.
Contact with the Christian community offers a gentle and friendly exposure to a world view lived before their eyes. But for a person to see this most compelling aspect of disciples loving one another, they must be in contact with a community of disciples. They cannot see our love for one another if they only know one of us! This is what Jesus says in John 13:35, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. They cannot see us love one another if they are not exposed to the community.
You are more influential than you think.
