In this episode we sat down with Pastor Ritch Boerckel the senior Pastor and Elder of Bethany Baptist Church to talk about what a culture of evangelism looks like. We discuss issues like seeing the culture around you as a member of the church, building a culture in your own home, and ways we can help build a strong culture of evangelism in our church.Transcript Jimmy Houck: Hello and welcome to The Pray The Miracle Podcast. This is a short run podcast in just a few episodes to help you praise the miracle this year. My name is Jimmy Houck. It's my desire that this podcast would be a tool and an encouragement for you this year as you pray for two people who are close to you but far from God.Jimmy Houck: There's so many ways that our prayer can be derailed, whether it be discouragement, lack of discipline, the normal distractions of life, or even just not knowing where to start. We created this podcast to dive into some of these topics for discussion and to help you break through those barriers. Let's jump into this week's episode. Well, hello, everyone. My name is Jimmy Houck.Jimmy Houck: I'm the outreach minister here at Bethany Baptist Church. And super excited today, sitting down with my friend, my pastor, and a mentor.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yes, sir. Your older friend?Jimmy Houck: Yes, my older, older friend. Not not too old, but a little bit more than middle age.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: But I lived 120. That's right. So.Jimmy Houck: That's right. Well, super excited. Senior Pastor Ritch Boerckel is here with us today to talk about the culture of evangelism that we would love to see at our church here at Bethany. You know, Ritch, just a couple of weeks ago, we sat down and we were talking and you asked me what is a culture of evangelism? And so as a as a good learner, I just reflected back the question to you, and I want to do that again today.Jimmy Houck: And this is ask you, what is a culture of evangelism?Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yeah, you know, culture is a very broad term that describes many different things. There's some parts of church culture that should never change as part of the culture of the first century church in Jerusalem and then Judea and the other most small parts of the world. It's it's part of the church culture today, whether you're in China or Pakistan or the United States, and and evangelism, the desire to go out into all the world as we have been recipients of the Holy Spirit, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an essential part of the mission of the church and as a central part of the mission of the church.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: It's to be part of our culture, our attitudes, our values, the way we think, the way we relate to one another and to the world. You know, think of some other elements that I think of X to when it describes the church as being devoted to the word of God. So every church should have a culture of a devotion to the Word of God, to the fellowship.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: We ought to be a culture where we care for one another deeply to the breaking of bread and then and a prayer. So there are these fundamental elements that necessarily are part of the culture of every church. That's a true church following Jesus. Now there's a dozens and hundreds of things that are part of the culture of an individual church that doesn't necessarily have to transfer to other churches and that don't.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: But but this aspect, it's absolutely vital. It's vital to the mission that Jesus sets us apart. It sets us on. It's vital to our identity. It's it's vital to the very purpose of why we are here. Why aren't we translated to heaven.Jimmy Houck: As we think about a culture of evangelism? Pastor Ritch, let's step back for a second and just why don't we define culture? You kind of just did that a little bit. And so I just want to highlight what I heard you say. Yes. So like you talked about culture being attitudes.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yeah.Jimmy Houck: And values. Yeah. And it's the way we relate.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yes.Jimmy Houck: Would you are there some other things that that you would add to that to define, like, hey, what is culture?Pastor Ritch Boerckel: I intentionally didn't look up any definitions of culture before I came here because I think it's good to just think, how do we experience that word? Yeah.Jimmy Houck: Yeah.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: And you know, I experience that word as very broad. It's sort of, you know, if you use an analogy, you know, of a of a fish swimming in water. The water is a culture in some some fish. The culture is salt water. Sometimes it's freshwater, sometimes it's river running water. Sometimes it can be unhealthy polluted water. But it's it's the water in which we swim in and so I don't know, even if a fish is is conscious of of the culture because they're just in it.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: And maybe a very intelligent fish would think about what kind of water, why am I swimming in? And as people create in God's image, we do think about that. But for the most part, we experience it. And so it's it has to do with communication our language and it has to do with relationships how we connect to one another, the sort of the norms that we have of what's the appropriate distance that I keep from people that I know at this level.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: What's it from a distance that I that I draw near to at another level? How does that go about? You know, so manners, customs, values are are really important to to a culture. So all these things sort of make up culture and we think of, you know, a culture of evangelism. And I think one of the questions you're going to ask is, what is evangelism, right?Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yeah. So it's just the telling of the good news of Jesus. That's what evangelism is. It's it's the evangel who has a message that's going forward to people who don't have the message to announce that message. And so when you think of a culture of evangelism, it's some it's it's a kind of environment which it's actually very hard to not think about evangelism and not participate in evangelism because it's all around you.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Like in a church that has a culture, a strong culture, evangelism, that person enters the church, you say, Wow, there's this thing called the gospel, even if they're unbelievers, that it's really important to this group of people. And I'm hearing it, you know, from the sermon, but I'm also hearing people talk about it when they come up to me.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: They seem to want to talk to me about this thing, you know, that they call good news. And and then if you are a believer, you come into that and say, you know, I can't leave here without somehow thinking how I'm taking the message that I just heard and experienced with people and deliver it to others because it's so vital to life.Jimmy Houck: I love the I love the image that you used of a fish and and water. And I, I hope that this podcast and even our conversation, our conversation helps us to be smart fish.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yeah, right. That's right.Jimmy Houck: And it's about like so, you know, what kind of water are we swimming.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: In, Right?Jimmy Houck: And so, you know, as you as we think about, like the water. Yeah. The community that we are in here at Bethany. Yeah.Jimmy Houck: As we stop and try to be smart fish.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Yes.Jimmy Houck: Right. What, what are some encouraging signs that you see in our community? Yes. That would that would help you to. To be encouraged. Yeah. That.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: That actually that's really good.Jimmy Houck: You know, we are in a culture of evangelism to some extent.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: That's right. So first, on the issue of being a smart fish, you know what the church is made up of? God's people have experienced the gospel, first of all, so that everybody has a who is truly a part of Jesus church, has a profound sense of the gospel and its power to bring salvation. So we've all experienced. And so you think of those fish, they all experience the water and it's fresh water.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Is life giving water? I don't think that every fish has to think about the water, but some fish do. Like in other words, that's that's part of leadership. That's part of spiritual leadership, whether it's the leader or the elder level or it's at a Sunday school class or a youth group or, you know, small group leader leaders, it's right for them to think, what am I doing to help advance this culture?Pastor Ritch Boerckel: Others just come in and they enjoy it and they experience it and they're changed by it. And they might even thought very differently. It's just what they grown up as a Christian, experiencing a very similar to a family, you know, like so mom and dad have to think about what's a strong family. The kids, they're just experiencing it.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: You know, they're they're they're they're new babies and they're growing as toddlers and they don't even know all the dynamics and the thoughtfulness put in to what it means to be a healthy family. They just experience it. And then eventually, as they grow inside that, they come to learn to think about it and then be able to replicate replicate it when they become leaders of various kinds, moms and dads.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: So, I got off on a little bit tangent there.Jimmy Houck: That's good. That's a good.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: She has the question of how do we experience that? Yeah.Jimmy Houck: Bethany We don't want anybody to be like, Man, I've never thought about the culture, so. Am I doing something wrong? Right? What I hear you saying is like, there is a culture, whether we like it or not, right? And it's not necessarily wrong for everybody to not be aware of it. But but somebody better be right, is what you're saying.Pastor Ritch Boerckel: That's right. And ideally, you know, I guess one of the better way for people to ask about the cultural evangelism at Beth
