The Secret Weapon to Church Evangelism: Sam Allberry

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The Secret Weapon to Church Evangelism

Guest:Sam Allberry

From the series:Gospel Sanity in a Weary World (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:February 12, 2025

Sam:There’s meant to be something about us, whomever we’re interacting with,

that people feel dignified by how we’ve handled them. Even if they’re

being mean to us, that doesn’t mean you get to be mean back. We’re told

the opposite in Romans 12: “Don’t avenge yourselves. Bless those who

curse you”; because we want people to feel respected and dignified. Even

if we’re contradicting what they’re saying, the way we’re saying it, should

be honoring to that person.

Ann:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the

relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is

FamilyLife Today!

Dave:Okay, so we’re talking to Sam Allberry, Day 3, on You’re Not Crazy.

Sam, after two days with us, do you think we’re crazy?

Sam:You are my kind of crazy; let’s put it that way.

Ann:That’s a good way to say it.

Dave:Yeah; obviously, your title—and what you’ve written about—is not a

mental-health thing; it’s about the church. I think, even, what we’ve been talking about the last couple days, it’s about the family.

Sam:Yes.

Ann:It can be—it’s the church and the family—it’s all of us.

Dave:I was just looking at sort of an overriding statement of what you’re saying

the church should be:

We build a gospel culture of welcome; we talked about that.

Honesty and honor; we talked about that yesterday.

Here’s what we’re going to talk about today: invitation, gentleness, and mission.

As I read that, I thought, “That should describe a Christian family

as well.” I mean, it is a picture of the church; but it’s definitely like: “Man, if

that was the church, everybody’d be running into that,” and “If that was our

family, our kids would be running into that. Our spouse would be running

home as well.”

So let’s talk about honor, gentleness—and as you said, mission—where

do you want to start with any one of those?

Sam:Well, the point we’re trying to make in the book—I co-wrote this with Ray

Ortlund—the point we’re trying to make is that our relational health, as a

Christian community, is directly tied to our evangelistic traction. We should

not expect to see evangelistic traction if we’re not modeling the kind of

relational health the New Testament calls us to.

Ann:Explain what you mean by “evangelistic traction.”

Sam:Well, in terms of people coming to know Christ, people finding the gospel

compelling. Our relational dynamic—the relational ecosystem of the church—is going to play a very significant role in people finding Jesus to be compelling. Jesus says that: “By this will all people know you are My disciples by Your love for one another.” People are meant to see the love for one another within the church, and conclude, “This had something otherworldly to be fueling this.”

In John 17, Jesus is praying for the unity of the church. He keeps tying it

back to the unity of the Trinity: “…that they may be one as You and I are one,” as He prays to the Father. He gives a couple of “so that’s”: “I pray

that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that

they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that You sent

Me, and loved them, even as You loved Me.”

Jesus is saying, again: “Our unity, as people, is meant to show people that

the Father has sent the Son and that the Father has loved us, even as He has loved the Son.” In other words, we are as loved by the Father as Jesus is. People are meant to read that off of our unity/our oneness. There’s something about the way we are with each other that makes the reality of heaven’s impact on us unavoidable.

Ann:And yet, we’re so not unified; there’s so much disunity.

Sam:Yeah, we are trying to outdo the world at being the world right now. The

world is trading in snark, division, accusation, disunity, self-preening online, and that kind of thing.

Ann:Ooh, that’s a good word.

Sam:The self- is probably redundant—“preening”—when you preen

yourself; don’t you? And we kind of think, “Well, let’s just do that better than everyone else is doing it; let’s be accusing.” We’re doing the same thing and expecting a different result; whereas, it’s our love for one another that is going to make it most apparent that we belong to heaven and not to earth.

Dave:In some ways, I think—I can’t speak for all churches—but we’ve

forgotten that we’ve equated evangelism to a great weekend service with a great preacher and a great band. Again, all that’s wonderful; “If we do it really well and excellent, they’re going to come; and they’re going

to come to Christ.” And that’s partly true.

What you’re saying is, “No.” If they see a community they can’t even

describe—they can’t understand—there’s unity and love in a way that: “I

don’t see anywhere else. I can’t explain that; I want to know the God of

that.”

Sam:We need the proclamation parts—“Faith comes by hearing” we’re told—so we’re not wrong to need that ingredient. But it’s been a commonplace feature of social science that there are plausibility structures: people need to see an idea being socially-embodied for it to seem plausible to them; they need to see it being lived out.

And that’s what Jesus gave us, hundreds of years ago, is people are not going to find the message we proclaim compelling unless they see the unique influence that message has on the way we are with one another. As Ray often says, “The church isn’t merely a new community; the church is a new kind of community.” There are so many clubs and groups around the place, where members of sports clubs, book clubs, activist groups, fitness classes—whatever it might be—all of them are nice. All of them become places where, someone finds out one of the guys is sick: “Let’s send some gift cards to them,” or “…send some food around,” or whatever; that happens everywhere. But there’s meant to be something, among the people of God, that we don’t see anywhere else; and that is the love of Christ Himself. It’s a different order of love.

Dave:It’s your Neptune illustration in the book.

Sam:Yeah; I talk about how Neptune was the only planet to be discovered—well, the first planet to be discovered, not by observation—but by mathematics. Previously, someone had been studying the heavens with a telescope or something and had seen a planet no one else had seen before. That’s how the planets had been discovered, one by one.

With Neptune, someone was looking at another planet and realized there was an irregularity in that planet’s orbit. It didn’t go in the way that you would expect it to go; and therefore, there was the gravitational force of another body, that was further out, that was tugging at it and making its orbit irregular. Just through the process of mathematics and calculations, I think there’s a guy called John Couch Adams, in the 19th century, who figured this out; figured out exactly where Neptune must be before anyone even saw it, just based on the effect it was having on this other planet’s orbit.

There’s meant to be something about our life together that is so unexpected that deviates from the way things normally happen in our world that is meant to leave people with no other conclusion than: “There is a heavenly body operating a gravitational pull on these people. We can’t account for this other than there is a world above, and these guys have experienced it.”

Ann:Dennis Rainey used to always say that: “The greatest evangelistic tool in the future”—in which is now—”is a good marriage. And when two people love each other unconditionally—when we see each other’s flaws; and yet, we continue to love—it is a picture of the gospel.” And so it draws so many people.

Dave and I just shared, I think, a few days ago, that that happened with the Detroit Lions. We had this crazy revival year of all these people coming to the Bible study; and we would say, “What has brought you?” They would point to one couple, and they would say, “I want what they have in their marriage.” That’s what the gospel does—just as you’re saying that, Sam—when you love each other in a way that is otherworldly—it’s unconditional.

Sam:It’s faithful; it’s the loving faithfulness. We stick with each other.

Ann:We all want that!

Sam:When someone messes up—as we all invariably do at various points—we don’t immediately go into cancel mode. We do in the world—I talked to university students today, who are not Christians—they’re terrified of being canceled.

Ann:Why?

Sam:Because if you say the wrong thing, you get canceled. Even if you’re believing all the right things that you’re supposed to believe, and you’re just getting one thing wrong, it’s: “Game over”; there is no grace in our culture today.

Dave:Yeah; when you say: “I’m sorry,” or “I didn’t quite mean that”; it’s too late; you’re canceled.

Ann:You’re still fired; or you’re canned; or you’re canceled.

Dave:Yeah; so how does gentleness—because you mentioned gentleness as

well—how does that play into the gospel sanity?

Sam:Again, we hear the word, “gentleness”; and we sometimes mistakenly think we’re being called to be a bit nicer than we are: “Let’s just up our niceness together by another ten percent.” And that’s not what we’re talking about. Jesus says He is gentle and lowly of heart; this is something that is defining of Him. Gentleness doesn’t mean you’re a pushover; Jesus was not a pushover.

Gentleness is the application of strength to attend a situation. I remember seeing a wildlife program where it was looking at the crocodiles in the Mara River when there was the—is it the wildebeest migration?—they’ve all got to get through this river. There’s a whole bunch of crocs waiting for them; these powerful jaws would bring down this massive creature. They were talking about the physical strength of a crocodile’s jaws—whatever the unit of measurement is—of how powerful those things are. And yet, the same jaws can hold the egg of the kid that they’re about to raise/that’s about to hatch.

Ann:They can hold their egg in their mouth and not crack it.

Sam:Exactly.

Ann: I didn’t know that!

Sam:That’s gentleness. It’s not because they’re weak, it’s because they know how to apply their strength to a situation that requires tenderness and care.

Dave:You find the most crazy illustrations—

Ann:That’s a great illustration!

Dave:—and connect them to powerful—

Sam:Occasionally, watching TV pays off.

But I think of that often; because again, in our culture, we’re all about: “Who’s the angriest?” “Who’s the loudest?” “Who’s the shoutiest?” There’s a sort of prowess to that; there’s a lot of posturing and that kind of thing. Whereas, every single passage in the Bible that is explicitly telling us how to behave in a hostile cultural environment, every single one tells us to be respectful and gentle.

I hear Christian voices today saying, “Culture’s now hostile towards us, so no more Mr. Nice Guy. The chips are down; we’ve got to fight fire with fire, and be far more aggressive and angry at everyone in denouncing.” But every verse that prescribes how to be in a hostile culture tells us to be gentle and respectful. First Peter 3 is the obvious example: “Do this with gentleness and respect”; Peter’s talking to people who are in a culture where you are being falsely accused by your culture—not a culturally-neutral context or a culturally-warm context—but a culture which is unjustly accusing you and opposing you: gentleness and respect.

Ann:It’s so true. When I think about Jesus—talk about political unrest of the day that He lived in—and yet, He navigated it so beautifully and loved so willingly through all of that. And then, as you look at the Gospels, and even the Apostle Paul—what he lived through—imagine Nero is burning people as torches in his garden parties. And James is saying, “Consider it all joy my brothers”—and sisters—”when you encounter various trials.” They’re talking about a hostile situation. And in the midst of that…

Sam:Far more hostile than anything we go through.

Ann:Far more.

Sam:We think just because there’s a New York Times editorial against evangelicalism: “We are being persecuted! We’ve got to swing into: ‘I’m going to Rambo-up on social media and denounce everything’”; and we think we’re serving the kingdom that way. Gentleness and respect—or Colossians 4: “Let your conversation be seasoned with salt and full of grace,”—we’re meant to have a different countenance about us, because we’re not like the culture that is constantly being blown around by the latest cultural wind—and I’m outraged every ten minutes—because of the latest thing that warrants men to be outraged about.

We have a different disposition; because we are being formed by eternity, not by the new cycle. And so we can respond with gentleness and respect, even to someone who’s being deeply unpleasant to us for no good reason; because we don’t buy into the currency of outrage, offense, victimhood, aggression. We have the culture of Christ about us, and it’s going to be His ways. I mean, how dumb are we to even need to articulate this? It’s going to be His ways that accomplishes work, not our ways. We tend to think—and it’s always that the sinful nature to think this way—“Let’s use our fleshly means to achieve a kingdom end.”

Ann:I was fascinated by the vice presidential debate. They were genuinely—it

felt like, they were kind and polite.

Sam:It was civil.

Ann:Exactly.

Sam:I was stunned.

Ann:And didn’t you feel good?

Dave:We’re shocked by that.

Ann:Everyone—no matter if you’re a believer, not a believer, Republican, Democrat—people were thankful.

Sam:There was a sense of relief. We’d forgotten we can actually be this way.

Ann:Yes; and if we can all look at that, and think, “What would it be like if we can be that in the church?”—that we can be civil, that we can be kind, that we can be gentle in the midst of a hostile environment; that’s otherworldly.

Sam:Yeah, it is. And it will actually—playing the long game—it will be more compelling than trying to own someone with some mic-drop comment that completely destroys them.

Ann:You know what? And Sam could do it—he’s smart enough that you could go in—Sam.

Dave:You want to elect him as our President; is that what you’re saying?

Ann:No, I’m saying he—he’s probably such a good debater—that [he] could probably annihilate someone with [his] brain.

Sam:I’m not a good debater.

Ann:Because you’re too nice.

Sam:No, it’s because my brain doesn’t work quick enough in those contexts. Now, I like having conversations with people who disagree with me. I’m not good at debates because it’s so adversarial; and the next day, I come up with all my answers.

Ann:That’s me in an argument: “Oh, I could have said this.”

Sam:But I love—and I say, “No,” to debates—I say, “Yes,” to conversations. There’s been a few times where I’ve had a public conversation with a—say a gay rights activist—because I need to be persuaded that the aim of this conversation is that we help mutual understanding—informed disagreement—rather than someone wins and someone loses.

Dave:Now, when you’re having that kind of conversation with somebody who’s got an adversarial position, how important is gentleness then?

Sam:Oh, it’s very important. If someone asks me to do a public me-versus-you thing, I will say, “I don’t do debates. But if you want to have an actual conversation and a discussion, I would love to; but my condition is we need to sit down and have a meal first.”

Dave:Oh, really?

Sam:I want us to get to know each other.

Ann:You’re so wise. I feel like Sean McDowell is like that as well. There’s a kindness to him that’s compelling.

Sam:Yeah; you’re interested in the person, not just winning an argument.

Ann:That’s it.

Sam:There’s meant to be something about us, whomever we’re interacting with, that people feel dignified by how we’ve handled them. Even if they’re

being mean to us, that doesn’t mean you get to be mean back. We’re told

the opposite in Romans 12: “Don’t avenge yourselves. Bless those who

curse you”; because we want people to feel respected and dignified. Even

if we’re contradicting what they’re saying, the way we’re saying it, should

be honoring to that person. Because we’re trying to say to them, actually:

“I do disagree with you, but I believe you matter as a human being; you’re made in God’s image.” Again, I’m reflecting something of my doctrine in the way I speak to them.

Dave:One of your quotes in You’re Not Crazy is—we’re known/Christians are often known to put people in their place—and you say, “Yeah, let’s put them in their place above us, not below us.” What a/that’s—

Sam:Yeah, we’re servants.

Dave:Yeah, that’s gospel.

Sam:Because Jesus is the Servant. We’re servants of the Servant.

Dave:Is that the mission? Because you end the book, talking about mission.

Sam:It is. I think that is one of the key things God uses in our mission. If we’re getting the message right—but the posture and the tone all wrong—the message is not going to land with any kind of power; because we’re un-preaching, by our posture, what we’re trying to preach with our words. If we treat people as the gospel calls us to treat people, then we’re actually adding power to the message.

The kind of testimonies I love hearing are when someone says, “I hated what you guys believed, but there was something about the way you made me feel,”—which doesn’t mean everyone was just affirming, but that person felt dignified, even in the disagreements. That has power because, again, we’re showing there’s a different force behind what we’re doing here. This is a message that comes from above and not from below.

Dave:As a chaplain in a NFL locker room, the only thing that mattered—I’m exaggerating probably, because other things mattered—what I was thinking was: “It wasn’t what mattered how well I preached; it wasn’t how well I knew the Bible; it wasn’t whether I could answer a nonbeliever’s question—it was my demeanor. It was the way I treated, especially the non-believing players in that locker room who weren’t coming to the Bible study, who weren’t coming to our chapel service.”

They literally, I could feel their eyes; they watched me walk around the locker room. I was, in their mind, I’m a representative religious person; I’m a Jesus representative. And man, I could feel it; it was like: “Is he gentle?” “Is he kind?” “ Does he see me?” “Is he only going to talk to the Christians?”—because I know who they are in the locker rooms. “Is he only going to go over and have their little holy huddle?” or “Is he going to come over here and ask me what movie I saw this week?”

Sam:If people know you genuinely care about them, that goes a long way. But it has to be genuine; people know when it’s not.

Dave:Yeah, I mean that’s what ministry is.

Ann:Dave, you’ve led so many people to Jesus. I think part of it is that you’re incredibly respectful. You identify with their pain; you’re a good listener as you’re listening to them. But man, then, you have the boldness that you’ll share. I can’t even recall—there’s so many people that you’ve led to Jesus—I’m thinking of Paul Early, who lived on the streets for a while, had a horrible home life.

Dave:Yeah; long story short is we met each other playing pickup basketball. As I got to know him—actually, I asked him to—found out he worked for Stanley Door. I needed a front door. And you know how Jesus started a conversation with the woman at the well? He asked for something: “Can you give Me a drink?”

Sam:It’s dignifying.

Dave:I asked Paul, “Hey, is there any chance you could—I’m a cheap guy—you ever get a second-hand door?” And he goes, “Yeah, we get them for $6,” “Good; bring one to my house.”

Long story short: that led to a conversation in our family room, where—because of his background: dad walking out; mom on the streets; never got his high school degree; he just felt like he was nobody, never seen by anybody—and now, the chaplain of Detroit Lions is having a conversation; he felt special. I’m like, “Paul, you are special because you were made in the image of God. God loves you, and Jesus died for you.” He said, “I don’t believe any of that stuff.” I said, “Well, He does. He believes in you.” Over time, because he felt loved and seen, I think he was like, “I’m interested now in your God.”

Ann:He started spending a lot of time at our house.

Dave:We ended up sort of re-parenting him; he became almost a son. And Paul, one day, sitting there on our family room couch, gave his life to Christ; and said, “I believe that Jesus loves me, died for me, rose from the dead for me. And I can have a relationship with him right now through Christ.” It changed his entire legacy; it’s so beautiful.

Ann:I remember him saying—and he was only in his 20s—but he said, “I want this. I want a place where”—and I don’t think he was saying a wife and a family—”a place where people feel secure. They can come and feel loved. They can say that, ‘I’ve lived in the streets; and I’ve totally messed up my life, but God still loves me.’” That was very foreign to him.

Dave:Maybe you’re sitting in a car right now, or family room, working out—I don’t know where you are—maybe you just put the weight down, and this could be your Paul-moment. Just say, “You know what? I’ve been listening to FamilyLife Today for a long time, and I’ve never surrendered my life to Jesus.” It’s that simple, to say, “Jesus, I believe You are the Son of God. I believe I’m loved by You. I believe You died for my sin, and I’m going to place my life in Your hands. I’m going to surrender everything to Him.”

And if you do that right now, I’m telling you, you become in Christ. We talked about that a few days ago: you are now in Christ, and Christ is in you. And [you’re] a brand new creature. You are—the old is gone—the new has come. Go look up 2 Corinthians 5:17 and find out you are made into—a brand-new man, brand-new woman, brand-new husband, brand-new wife, brand-new dad, brand-new mom—who can start a new legacy.

If you made that decision, let us know. Reach out to FamilyLife.com/PrayForMe. We’ll pray for you; because you just started a new walk, a new journey, a new life; and you need us to pray for you.

Ann:Well, maybe I could add in one of the next steps you could take is: to get

your book, Sam.

Sam:Yeah, sure.

Ann:You have a lot of different books that they could get, but this one we talked about today would be a good place.

Sam:And you’re kind to let me talk about it. And I’m grateful you guys are offering to give anyone, who makes a donation of any amount to FamilyLife Today, will receive a free copy of this book. So that’s all anyone has to do is make any donation. And they do that by going to—

Dave:FamilyLifeToday.com; you can make a donation there. We will get your information; send you the book. Or you can call us at 800-358-6329. That’s 800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word, TODAY. We would love to send you Sam’s book. I’m telling you: you’re going to love it. It’s a really, really good book.

Ann:Sam, we love you being with us. Thanks for spending this time.

Sam:It’s a joy to be with you. Thank you so much.

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