Get Into Their Shoes!
By John Kramp
Sunday, August 17, 2003
When evangelism is attempted it rarely begins with “in your shoes” empathy. If Christians really understood the spiritually lost people around them, they would talk about faith more naturally. Evangelism would be more of a conversation and less of a high-pressure sales pitch.
Unfortunately, most Christians do not understand non-Christians. We do not know what they think or how they feel, so we do not know how to help them. Even though we know what they need -- a personal relationship with Jesus -- we cannot get the conversation started. So we often say nothing.
Discovering Lostology
There is a simple way Christians can understand and help spiritually lost people. The secret is lostology. Lostology is the study of being lost and what that experience can teach Christians about evangelism.
What are my credentials for writing in the discipline of lostology?
First, I made it up.
Second, I have been lost way more than your average person. When my internal gyroscope was installed, a few screws were left over. This has caused mild but chronic malfunctions in my directional system (like a hamster dropped by a preschooler once too often).
My third qualification for writing about lostology is my status as a cradle-roll-to-pastor church insider. The language, the subtle ways of doing things correctly, the biblical stories, the rituals -- these are as much a part of my life as my breath.
My last and primary qualification for writing about lostology is that I started a new church in Portland, Oregon -- one of the most secular, least churched cities in America. I understood for the first time how non-Christian people feel about embarking on a search for spiritual answers. To my surprise, I discovered that my vast experience in being lost physically helped me identify with people who were lost spiritually.
Rather than focusing on what to say when you share your faith, lostology influences how you say what you say. Lostology helps you understand how lost people think and what lost people feel. This understanding is especially important if you are a long-term spiritual insider (like me) and struggle to relate to spiritual outsiders.
Jesus Is Pursuing “Lost” People
In describing His mission on earth, Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 CSB). Jesus knew anyone who can say “I’m lost” is a person to be envied. Why?
When you say “I’m lost,” you tell the world you have purpose. There is some place you need to be and you are not there. Without a destination, you can say “I lack direction,” but you cannot say “I’m lost.”
When you say “I’m lost,” you tell the world you have value. Someone feels a sense of loss because you are not where you are supposed to be. If no one cares where you are, you can say “I’m alone,” but you cannot say “I’m lost.”
By using the word lost, Jesus helped us understand the nature of our relationship with God before we became Christians:
- By describing us as “lost,” Jesus told us we have spiritual purpose. From God’s perspective, there is a place we should be. God created us to be in a relationship with Him and if we are not with Him, we are spiritually lost.
- By describing us as “lost,” Jesus told us we have spiritual value. We are not disposable. God cares that we are not where we should be and values us enough to search for us when we are spiritually lost.
God did for us what we could not do for ourselves: He declared us spiritually lost. Jesus built His ministry around this foundational understanding of our relationship with God.
Jesus Compares Spiritual “Lostness” to Being Physically Lost
When He taught about salvation and evangelism, Jesus told stories about three subjects: lost sheep, lost coins, and lost sons. Each of these parables in Luke 15 is profound in its simplicity:
- A shepherd had one hundred sheep. One got lost, so the shepherd left the ninety-nine in the fold to look for the one in the field. When he found the lost sheep, the shepherd celebrated.
- A woman had ten coins. One got lost, so she searched the house until she found the missing coin. When she found it, the woman celebrated.
- A father had two sons. One got lost, so the father waited expectantly for the boy to return home. When the lost son was found, the father celebrated.
In each story Jesus linked lostness with evangelism. He made a connection between being lost physically and being lost spiritually.
Jesus Teaches Insiders to Reach Outsiders
As God in the flesh, Jesus was the ultimate spiritual insider, yet He related easily with lost people. During His earthly ministry, Jesus spent so much time with secular people that His critics accused Him of being “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 11:19 CSB). Strange but true, when God came to earth, He lived among the lost and the lost loved Him.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus tried to build bridges between religious insiders and secular outsiders. He regularly debated religious leaders over the importance of reaching the spiritually sick and downcast. Jesus used analogies and told stories to help them sense His mission and understand His passion.
Jesus compared Himself to a physician. “To whom does a physician go?” He asked the Pharisees, “to the sick or to the well?” (See Matt. 9:12). Not a Harvard entrance exam question, but the religious bunch missed it. Surely they understood His words. They just missed the point.
Jesus tried again. This time He used stories to explain His work -- stories that went straight for their hearts. He dug for an emotional experience they all understood: being lost.
In His stories, Jesus communicated the foundational principles of lostology:
- Draw on what you already know from the physical experience of losing valuables and looking for them.
- Connect your experience to the way God feels about those who are spiritually lost.
- Use the insights you gain to shape your behavior and to guide your attitudes as you relate to people who are spiritually lost.
Jesus, the professor, enrolled the Pharisees in “Lostology 101.” They flunked the course.
We Need to Become Lostologists
The Pharisees never got it. Trapped in their insider’s perspective, they never connected with the world of lost people around them. So Jesus canceled the class and continued to live as a lostologist in their midst.
Our churches today are filled with spiritual insiders who just do not get it. Stand in front of the Sunday morning church crowd and ask, “How many of you grew up in the church and have been part of the church most of your lives?” The majority of people will raise their hands. This is the problem. We, the Christian insiders, are called to reach the outsiders. But the insiders have been inside so long, we struggle to relate to the outsiders.
We need to learn how to “get into their shoes.” We need to become lostologists… just like Jesus.
John Kramp currently directs the Church Ministry Solutions group of LifeWay Church Resources. Before joining LifeWay, he was senior pastor of Westside Baptist Church, Portland, Ore., and associate pastor for discipleship ministries at First Baptist Church, Garland, Texas.
This article is adapted from Out of Their Faces and Into Their Shoes (Broadman & Holman, 1997).
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, Copyright 2000 by Holman Bible Publishers.
