Talking To Michael Green
About Evangelism and Church Growth
Michael Green is currently Advisor on Evangelism to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. He was previously Principal of St John's College, Nottingham; Rector of St Aldate's, Oxford; then Professor of Evangelism and New Testament at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada's largest theological institution.
Michael has written 34 books, ranging from the popular to bible commentaries. His most recent books are "How can I lead a friend to Christ?" (Hodder) and an evangelistic book "Critical Choices" (IVP).
Michael is married, with four adult children and three grandchildren.
In this interview he talks to Noel Stanton, senior pastor of the Jesus Fellowship.
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Noel: Michael, you're known to many as a scholar and popular evangelist through your many books. What's your current ministry in the Church of England?
Michael: I work for Springboard, which is an initiative of the two Archbishops. It's their personal contribution to the Decade of Evangelism. They brought Bishop Michael Marshall back from America and me from Canada as their Advisors in Evangelism.
Noel: And the Decade of Evangelism is going well?
Michael: Yes, it is. All over the country there are signs of life.
Noel: How do you see the "Toronto Blessing" in the UK?
Michael: Of course it's mixed. Wherever you get a significant spiritual movement you always find things round the edge which are unwise. I'm not surprised when the tide comes in to see bits of broken old board and seaweed coming in with it. But thank goodness that the tide comes in.
Noel: Does the Church of England approve of it?
Michael: I'm told that there are over 3,000 churches affected and that many of them are Anglican. The Bishops have been taking an extremely sensible attitude - rather like Gamaliel saying that if the Lord is in it, then who are we to withstand it and if He is not in it, it's going to fold up anyway.
Noel: Has it caused any division?
Michael: Not a lot as far as I can see. By and large, people are rejecting the garbage and accepting the blessing. Most of the mainline churches for the last two hundred years have been so affected by the Enlightenment that the supernatural is given very little credence. For God to break in and say "HEY FOLKS, I AM SOVEREIGN," does no harm at all.
Noel: Is this movement still spreading?
Michael: Yes, I was in Copenhagen a couple of days ago at an ecumenical service - with Roman Catholics through to House Churches. I gave a fifty-minute address on the existence of God. In the praise that followed, many people came forward for ministry; some of them came to Christ and were converted, some of them ended up on the floor and this seemed perfectly acceptable in a Methodist Church under the ministry of Roman Catholic and House Church people!
Noel: Times have changed!
Michael: Exactly!
Noel: Are there signs of a real revival in the UK?
Michael: I am a little cautious about revivals. Apart from the first and second Great Awakenings that had enormous social and political effects, nearly all the others have just run into the sand.
What I hunger for is not another Welsh Revival, which has done nothing for the Principality now, but a network of local churches working in trust and co-operation, being centres of light and life in the midst of an increasingly dark socio-political landscape.
What the Lord left behind was His little flock of the church, after all.
Noel: A group of disciples who were going to advance the cause!
Michael: Precisely that.
Noel: People are open to God - but not to institutions!
Michael: Certainly not to institutions. The church, royalty, the law, Parliament, education have all been hammered, particularly in the tabloids, and that will continue.
I think there is a deep spiritual search going on, but people don't look to the church because they don't think the church has any answers. Alternative medicine, New Age, the hunger for the cults - all these things show that people say, "There must be more to life than this."
Noel: The latest UK Christian Handbook forecasts continued decline in the Church of England.
Michael: Yes. Something like 200 people are leaving English churches a day, 200 people are dying and about 200 are getting converted. But I'm not pessimistic: world-wide, the Christian church is growing at about 70,000 per day.
Noel: In England the Pentecostals, the New Churches and the Orthodox are increasing.
Michael: It's not vast amongst the Orthodox. Some well-known people like Michael Harper have gone to join them.
The big news is the evangelicals and particularly the charismatics/pentecostals world-wide. At least two-thirds of the additions to Christianity come through them and they didn't even exist in 1900! Fascinating!
Noel: Are evangelicals growing in the Church of England?
Michael: No question about it - they're growing everywhere! The High Church movement in the Anglican church is in a lot of pain at the moment because of the ordination of women and so they're not reaching out very widely in evangelism. The liberals who are wrestling with the 'sea of faith' that really is a sea of doubt are so caught up in self-questioning that there doesn't seem to be much gospel left.
That leaves the charismatics and evangelicals as the main contenders on the field. Irrespective of denomination, I think that you'd find that runs right across the board.
Noel: Do charismatics and evangelicals sit well together?
Michael: I think so. A lot of the most lively churches that I've come across whether they're Methodist, Anglican or whatever are people whose fire comes from evangelicals who have been touched by the Holy Spirit - but you get High Church and Roman Catholics who are zapped by the Spirit as well!
Noel: You're happy with the label charismatic/evangelical yourself?
Michael: Certainly!
Noel: Has the charismatic movement lost its fire?
Michael: It can't run out of steam if it's from the Spirit of God and if it's reaching out in service. That is where I see most of the signs and wonders. I see healings, exorcisms and things like that primarily when the church goes out in mission. My biggest critique of the charismatic movement is that it's become happy, clappy and introverted instead of being power for ministry in a bleeding world. When it's the latter, I don't see it running out of steam at all. I see it growing fearlessly.
If it is a self-contained movement that says, "We've got tongues, we've got healing, we've got prophecy, what else do we need? Aha! Toronto!" If it's that sort of thing, forget it. But if it is open to God and is active to make Him known throughout the world in power, then I'm all for it.
Noel: Is it too experience-centred?
Michael: Most of us are so small-minded that we only see through a keyhole. Protestantism on the whole has seen God at work in the word but not in the sacrament. Roman Catholics often reverse the process. Charismatics have tended to say, "Don't worry too much about the scripture, the Lord is here, let's get on to the exciting bit." We're mostly not fools in what we assert but in what we deny! We make God too small.
Yes, we must have the Bible as well as the Spirit, with both heart and mind involved.
Noel: How do you view the controversy over "conditional immortality"?
Michael: I honestly think we've got to stop playing God on this. The Bible is absolutely clear on the either-or-ness of Christianity. You're either for Him or against. You're either building on the rock or building on the sand. You're either in the feast or the door is locked.
You're either in Christ or without God and without hope in the world.
We're warned constantly that the result of our decision on these matters is going to have eternal consequences - whether that is eternal unending torment or whether it is being shut off from God with one's own self I don't want to pontificate on. Let's leave it to God.
Noel: And now people are calling themselves "post-evangelicals".
Michael: One of the lovely things about evangelicals is the breadth of that movement within certain very clearly defined stances. One is that the scriptures are authoritative for Christian believers. It's people who are saying, "If the teaching is scriptural, I will go for it whether I like it or whether I don't."
The second great thing is the recognition that on the cross Christ did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. He made it possible for the wall of division between us and God to be broken down. A third thing is that evangelicals believe that this same Jesus who died and rose again is alive and is not just some vague aura.
The fourth thing is commitment to Him in active response, repentance and faith. I in my weakness and frailty and Christ in His beauty and loveliness coming together. That is what makes the new creation. That's what produces the new spark, the new electricity that flows in somebody who's in Christ.
I've deliberately defined these characteristics of evangelicals in non-traditional ways so lots of people can see where they fit in. But I can't see how you can be a post-evangelical. You can perhaps see things within that tradition that maybe others hadn't seen before you.
Why should you be 'post' except that it is very fashionable to be post everything today! - post-modern, post liberal, post impressionist - post everything!
Noel: Has the heavy shepherding issue gone away?
Michael: It is a much less serious problem than it was some years ago. But there are still authoritarian leaders. Whenever you get monarchical leadership whether it's a bishop who won't listen to his presbyters or whether it's a leader of an independent congregation who won't listen to anybody else at all, you're in danger.
Noel: The Nine O'Clock Service problem in Sheffield was about non-accountability.
Michael: Right. It was not primarily about the Anglican church or alternative worship. It's to do with a leader who surrendered to a creationist theology that had got no room for sin and redemption and who withdrew from accountability to became the sort of one-man leader we've been talking about.
Nine O'Clock started with the poorest of the poor, the people at the absolute bottom of the pile - it was started in a night-club by the vicar of a very lively evangelical church. In the course of a few years it grew away from evangelical charismatic Christianity. It had become highly suspect at the Greenbelt Festival two years ago. There were all sorts of warnings. It's a classic example of non-accountability and the danger of moving away from New Testament norms.
I want to give full credit to the Archbishop of Canterbury. When this happened, instead of the normal ecclesiastical "Let's close ranks and put more restrictions in place," he ran a conference for youth leaders with an amazing service in Lambeth Palace - all lights and smoke and the full works! He loved every moment of it!
Noel: What kind of worship do you like? Are you a wild charismatic?
Michael: It's not all my scene, but I'm reasonably wild! I thoroughly respect cathedral worship at its best, but it's not something that does much for me. Worship needs to balance exuberance and reverence.
Noel: Chants are coming back in charismatic circles.
Michael: It's interesting to see Gregorian chants at the top of the pops! It shows the hunger for spirituality.
Noel: The Church of England has many adult baptisms these days.
Michael: Yes, we're seeing quite a lot of adults being converted and baptised.
Noel: Can baptism be by immersion?
Michael: Oh, yes. I've often immersed people in the river. In fact, the Prayer Book says, "If the parents certify him that the child may well endure it, he shall dip it in the water discreetly and warily. But if they certify that the child is weak it shall suffice to pour water upon it." Splendid! Strong on baptism but relaxed on the mode of its administration.
Noel: We all need more leaders. How is it in the Church of England?
Michael: I think on this question of leadership we have made a great mistake. The mainline churches send people to seminary for two or three years after getting a degree and the whole thing tends to be a head trip. It's possible in some of these seminaries to come out without ever having preached a sermon, without ever having led anyone to Christ.
You can't build leaders like that. You build future leaders by apprenticing them to deeply committed people who are willing to share opportunities of leadership. Look at Paul and Timothy or Paul, Barnabas and Silas - or how the great painters used to operate - you didn't go to Art School, you watched the great man at it and eventually he allowed you to paint a bit of black at the bottom of the picture! From that small beginning you begin to grow in effectiveness.
Noel: So you learn from someone who is achieving.
Michael: You learn first by observation, then by sharing and then by doing, then by training others youself. That's how Jesus trained the twelve.
The excessively academic training of young leaders has been a fundamental error. The best ones survive it, but a lot collapse under it and they come out of the college unsure of what they believe and really not able to lead anyone any further that where they've got already.
Noel: Anglicans have had some trouble with church plantings crossing parish boundaries.
Michael: You can imagine what a shambles we could make of our system if one parish started colonising another! We have produced a paper which the House of Bishops has now passed that thoroughly backs church planting and simply says that if you're going to do it outside your parish, it must be done with consultation.
Noel: Are people ready for the gospel in the UK?
Michael: Yes. I believe that there is real spiritual hunger today. Lots of churches are seeing considerable fruit.
When I proclaim the gospel I see fruit almost every time, but I don't always see large numbers of it. I am very encouraged, but I am aware that we are a long way away from where I would like to see us.
Noel: We seem to have lost the agony for souls which marked earlier generations.
Michael: I agree! It's the whole comfortable life in which we live. I had a letter from an African pastor in the Sudan today with so much pain and anguish in it and yet such joy:
"Dear Mr. Green, Another is dying and though the tears may flow, yet in prayer enfolded and in faith uplifted the dead is returned to God our Father, with quiet joy in the certainty of a happier dawn to come.
"It is amongst all this pain and sorrow, the hungry and thirsty, saved and unsaved, that I returned to my people. Like a candle offering light in darkened room, the light of God's presence is the hope. This is the door that the church opens, so that the gift of the Spirit can be seen." That's powerful isn't it?
Noel: Yes! Is the present movement in the churches bringing a new commitment to a 'crucified lifestyle'?
Michael: I'm not sure! There is a cult of experience in society that has crept into Christianity.
That is why there is such excitement over "Toronto" - it is a hunger for experience instead of just doctrines. The danger of that is that we live from one high to another and there is a "lust" to get laid out on the floor more and more times, but not much "lust" to read the Bible and to engage in sacrificial prayer and to build bridges of friendship to others and so on.
That worries me. I don't hear much talk about holiness these days. I believe holy living could be tremendously powerful - not only for its own inherent strength, but also because in a pluralist society where everybody does their own thing, our way has got to be pretty outstanding if we want to draw people to Christ.
The Christian lifestyle has got to be so attractive that people are going to say, "It may be a pluralist society but this is clearly the best path to follow."
Noel: Young people are enthusiastic about real commitment. They are not put off by the fact that Jesus said you've got to renounce everything to be a disciple!
Michael: That's certainly so with young people. I don't find it so much with older people! But I'm sure God is changing things.
We've just been doing a mission in Cardiff. We had about 300 people there working with 140 churches. We had people witnessing on the streets - ex druggies and people like that who had only been Christians for a very short time, and to see the Spirit of God working through them, to see people coming to Christ on the street - this is very exciting! This is the real power of the Spirit of God, the only power which can bring people fully to Christ!
This article has been extracted from Jesus Life magazine, published by Jesus Fellowship
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