While in Rome a few years ago, my wife and I had a chance to visit the Vatican Museums. There, with the help of a guide, we learned about and appreciated many of the historical artifacts on display from the museum’s vast collection. At times, after the guide shared information on something, I would approach my wife and quietly comment on what the Bible said about that same event or historical piece.
Our guide, aware of my continuous comments, approached me, pointing to a painting on the altar wall known as the “Last Judgment,” and asked, “What do you think?” I observed the images showing Jesus coming on the clouds with His angels. On one side, the good angels assisted the redeemed emerging from their tombs to receive Jesus in the air. Conversely, the condemned were taken on the River Styx to eternal damnation.
After contemplating the painting for a few seconds, I responded, “Isn’t that interesting?” I explained that while the redeemed would indeed emerge from their tombs to receive Jesus in the air, those who had not chosen the path of righteousness would, when Jesus comes, sleep in graves for a thousand years, then rise to face the real last judgment.
Our guide thought briefly and said, “I had never seen it that way. It makes sense.” That day, I had the chance to give a Bible study at the Vatican by using the context in which the guide and I found ourselves.
Contextualization
My colleagues in the Missions Department use the term contextualization, which is defined as “the process of making the gospel accessible within a particular cultural context in an understandable and culturally meaningful way without losing the truth and integrity of the message.”1 This is not a new practice; we see contextualization throughout the New Testament. Paul employed it in Greece (Acts 17:22–31) when speaking to the “men of Athens” (v. 22) and used their context to connect Christ to their “Unknown God” (v. 23).
Also, Jesus used contextualization with His disciples while walking in Caesarea of Philippi (Matt. 16:16–18). He asked them a series of questions regarding His identity. Simon responded, “You are the Christ” (v. 16). To this Jesus replied, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (v. 18, NKJV). Commentaries agree that the event took place by the hillside of Mount Hermon, the location of a cave called “the Gate of Hades.” Jesus was employing the landscape and culture of the time to illustrate his point.
Therefore, the begging question is, why is contextualization important to reach the people of today? According to youth ministry expert Brian Hull, “Theology happens in a context. It is worked out among the rhythms of people’s lives as they try to understand God and what it means to follow God in the way of Jesus. The language, stories, analogies, parables, and metaphors all come from the context.”2 If that is true, which I believe it is, effective evangelism considers society’s continuously changing social, political, cultural, and spiritual composition.
When the context gets ignored, it hampers the efficient and relevant transmission of the gospel. For example, “When Christianity entered the twentieth century, it was a confident, strong, imperial religion of the West. Many of the leaders accepted the scholarly dictum that the twentieth century would be the ‘Christian century.’ . . . No prognosticator predicted that more Christians would be worshiping each Sunday in China than in Europe or North America.”3 So what happened? Society, culture, and social needs changed, but evangelistic practices did not. Christianity is almost extinct in the Western world.
Reversing the damage
What can be done to reverse the damage or even prevent the complete irrelevancy of the gospel in today’s world? First, we must understand some facts that I hope will create a sense of urgency in the ministerial body. Barna reported in 2018 that only 4 percent of the members of Generation Z have a biblical worldview.4 That number suggests that most people born between 1997 and 2012 do not utilize scriptural principles to make choices. Secular practices and peer advice dictate their life. If that is the case, we are one generation away from extinction as a church.
Second, both churched and unchurched people see the world through three different lenses.
The first one is modernism, a system of thought and behavior characterized by self-consciousness or self-reference that runs through the various arts and disciplines. Their question is, What is true? Therefore, all the efforts of modernism are to prove what is true.
The second lens is postmodernism, which disregards all narratives as inaccurate and thus abandons them. The question for postmodern thinkers is, then, What is right? That means room exists for more than one truth—things are relative.
The third lens is meta-modernism, which supports competition and tolerance among different narratives and asks for a better version of truth in the realm of existential values. Meta-moderns ask the question, What is relatable? In other words, meta-moderns seek a story in which they can anchor their most existential questions, which are What is my identity? Where do I belong? What is my purpose?5
Guess what? We have the best story to tell! Scripture is the narrative of God, and amazingly enough, it is the source for how to find answers to those three existential questions and more. If that is so, why have we not been as successful as we should have in reaching or retaining young people? Perhaps the answer is in the method.
What is our method?
The expectation for today is to present information packaged in a multisensory experience. Most definitely, the method used in evangelism must adapt to how people can relate to the message.
When the Seventh-day Adventist movement began, the Western world was in the middle of an event known as the Great Awakening. The people at the time generally accepted the Bible as the Word of God. Even if they were not committed, they were still familiar with the content of Scripture. Evangelistic efforts focused on convincing people using biblical passages to prove that the Adventist message was biblical and true. The evangelistic experience was mostly mono-sensory. People would gather in tents, churches, or homes to listen to long messages or Bible studies lasting a couple of hours. Hearing was their primary method of acquiring information.
The starting point is very different today from almost 200 years ago. First, the people of today question the validity of the Bible. As a result, a generational ignorance of the story presented in Scripture has developed. Evangelistic efforts should not focus on convincing people of the correct doctrine, as was the case in the past. Today, people need to be converted from secularism to Christianity, a much more demanding task. The expectation for today is to present information packaged in a multisensory experience. Most definitely, the method used in evangelism must adapt to how people can relate to the message.
The language of stories
Author Ellen White wrote, “The minister of God must be interested in the children and youth, if he would be a faithful pastor of the flock of God. He should make his discourses plain and simple, using language that will be easy to be understood.”6 Then, what is the language anyone can understand? I believe it is the language Jesus used to teach stories.
Neuroscience has coined the term neural coupling.7 Simply described, neural coupling is the moment when a listener relates to a narrator’s story. As a result, a mirroring effect occurs. The listener’s emotions match those of the narrator. When that happens, it stimulates the brain to anticipate the story’s resolution, placing the listener in the account itself. As the connection develops, dopamine acts as brain candy, directing the neural pathways to record the experience as pleasant.
Perhaps that is why people felt drawn to Jesus’ teaching. At some point in history, we departed from telling the stories of Scripture and focused on using individual passages to prove a point. We limited the learning of Scripture to a cognitive accumulation of information instead of a pleasant and relatable experience. While topical Bible studies are necessary tools, they have more impact when connected to a story.
To reach this generation, we must strive to present the macro-story, or story of God (the big picture), in a way that can lead them to find the micro-story (how they relate) and then teach them how their new connection to Scripture applies to real-life issues (using their senses). As a result, the Bible can become the story to which they can anchor their identity, develop a sense of belonging, and find their purpose by using their God-given abilities as part of His kingdom. It has been contextualized for the world they have grown up in.
- “Contextualized Ministry,” Reaching Internationals, accessed January 17, 2025, https://www.reachinginternationals.com/ministry/contextualized-ministry/.
- Brian Hull, “Something New: Historical Snapshots of Youth Ministry Contextualization in North America,” Association of Youth Ministry Educators, 2020, 1, https://www.aymeducators.org/wp-content/uploads/Historical-Snapshots-of-Youth-Ministry-Contextualization-in-North-America-by-Brian-Hull.pdf.
- Scott W. Sunquist, The Unexpected Christian Century: The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900–2000 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2015), xv.
- Gen Z: The Culture, Beliefs and Motivations Shaping the Next Generation (Barna Group and Impact 360 Institute, 2018).
- Kara Powell and Brad M. Griffin, 3 Big Questions that Change Every Teenager: Making the Most of Your Conversations and Connections (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2021).
- Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 2 (Silver Spring, MD: Ellen G. White Estate, 1987), 280.
- Greg J. Stephens, Lauren J. Silbert, and Uri Hasson, “Speaker-Listener Neural Coupling Underlies Successful Communication,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, no. 32 (2010): 14425–14430, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1008662107.
