Doug Schaupp on Evangelism in a Postmodern Context and How to Grow a Culture of Evangelism in a Church or Campus Ministry

In this episode, Doug Schaupp joins for a conversation about evangelism in a postmodern context, and keys to building a culture of evangelism within a group such as a campus ministry or a local church. 

Doug Schaupp has served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for the past 25 years. He is the National Director of Evangelism with InverVarsity USA. He also has co-authored three books, including Breaking the Huddle: How Your Community Can Grow its Witness.

Transcript

David: 0:38

Well, I am here with Doug shop national director of evangelism with inner varsity USA. Doug it's an honor to have you on the podcast today.

Doug Shauppe: 0:48

It's an honor and joy. Thanks for that.

David: 0:51

Well, Doug, I'm genuinely excited. I have enjoyed your thinking and your writing on the topic of evangelism. And I know it's been a little while that we've been even trying to set up this conversation, but it's so great to have you here, uh, for those in our audience that are not familiar with you. Could you talk a little bit about, uh, who you are and what it is that you do?

Doug Shauppe: 1:11

Yes. Uh, I have the coolest job in the country. I'm national director of evangelism for InterVarsity Christian fellowship USA. We're on about 700 campuses across the country, and I'm in charge of outreach of contextualizing the gospel of equipping college students to be faithful and courageous witness. And I have a soft spot in my heart for gen Z. I love gen Z, not just because my kids are gen Z, but I just really love this generation of college students.

David: 1:46

That's awesome. Well, Doug, I love hearing you say that I know gen Z has not been getting a lot of love and the press. And so I love meeting people that are champions for gen Z. There we go, well, Doug, yeah. As you mentioned, you are a bit older yourself. Um, you know, and I mean that in a complimentary way, you've got experience under your belt. Um, and you've been at this for awhile, uh, working with InterVarsity a couple of decades now, how is it that you got involved in what you're doing and why are you so passionate about college?

Doug Shauppe: 2:21

freshman year Occidental college? on Doug's top 10 list of priorities. God was like eight or nine. So God was on the top 10 list, but barely, uh, partying, having fun, getting a. Athletics. Those were like the top five making friends. And I signed up for InterVarsity Christian fellowship, Bible study. I don't, you know, it was just like things. Sure. That's like top 10. Where does God fit in all of this? Um, I was a devoted partier and having my freshman year binge experience and I also was exploring Jesus. And so I'm sitting here in Bible study. I'm getting drunk three times on the week. And, uh, and it was trying to figure that out. My Bible study built trust with me by hanging out my Bible study leader would just come knocking on my door, invite me to go have a meal with him. And then he loaned me his car that built trust.

David: 3:20

That's a big deal. Did he know you were getting drunk three times on the weekend when he loaned you his car?

Doug Shauppe: 3:25

I, no comments. I actually don't know. Uh, but I was pretty open with him. Uh, and. InterVarsity has a really good Bible study method. We call it the inductive Bible study method in which everyone gets to ask their questions. So I became really curious, and it was really helpful for me to have any question be accepted in the, in the Bible study and not get lectured at. And then mid semester, my freshman year, I became really honest with my Bible study leader about what was going wrong in my life. And I became open and he accepted me. Pointed me to Jesus. And then after like January of my freshman year, I became a seeker and I was seeking Jesus in the gospel of mark. In fact, I would bring home our Bible study and open it with mark my non-Christian roommate. And I would read him the passages out of mark the gospel. And I would say, could this be true? Is this really real. And he almost became a follower of Jesus before I did, because these two non-Christians were looking at Jesus together and falling in love with Jesus. And then late freshman year, I gave my life to Jesus and, uh, I'm still a freshman at heart and I have a, I have a soft spot for all the ducks across the country where God's like top eight, top nine, but not in the top three. And those. Folks just like me. They deserve a chance to see the real Jesus and fall in love with Jesus. That's why I do what I do.

David: 4:59

That's fantastic, Doug. Well, I love that. I know I share some similarities in my story of really drawing close to God or, or I should say more accurately him drawing close to me during my college years and just have a sense of empathy for this generation of students. Knowing how pivotal those college years can be. How, how Rocky, how, uh, Written with all kinds of pitfalls and problems, but the power of Jesus meeting someone at that point, uh, it can be an incredible life change. And so I love hearing that story and how that's really carried you now for decades in investing in the next generations of students. Um, I'm excited to talk about some of the. Writing's here today, uh, for the listener, I want to highlight a couple of your books. You've co authored several books on evangelism over the past 15 years. Uh, firstly, I once was lost and then more recently breaking the huddle and I've got to say this book, breaking the huddle. Uh, I've really appreciated it. A mutual friend of ours. Uh, Gary Stedham. I know he, he was the one that first told me about it and. There's a lot of good stuff in here. So I'm excited to talk about it, but maybe before we do, or maybe it's actually related to this conversation, you know, there've been some generational shifts and some people might think that we're making too much of that other people might say, maybe we're not making enough about it. I don't know. But even just hearing your own story, it kind of got me, got me thinking about that. Um, you know, the fact that you were a. I'm not a believer and that you are actually still interested in attending a Bible study. Um, what do you make of that? I mean, cause I that's something that I feel like I don't see too much currently. Is that a generational thing? Um, I don't even know if I'm asking the right question, but um, any, any thoughts on that, uh, as it relates to your work and people being interested in even coming to a Bible.

Doug Shauppe: 7:00

we, we found that gen Z is very open to Jesus, very open to the gospel. Uh, they are coming out of COVID they're lonely. They know that they need self care. And when we connect self care to Jesus care and Jesus and soul care, they're like, oh, this is interesting. Tell me more. I didn't know. Jesus helped me with self care. So some people can criticize the selfishness of self care. We don't, we just, that's what we did last year on campus. We had a whole self care campaign and get to know Jesus by self care. And people would just come up to our booth and we're like, I didn't know. Jesus and self care went together. Tell me. It's beautiful. Uh, so we found a real responsiveness to gen Z to Jesus. What we've also found is when you take things that are complicated, that. Values and make it baby steps. Gen Z is willing to be brave. Folks. Can't see it right now, but my favorite t-shirt is gen brave. I think gen Z is gen brave. And the reason I like Jen brave is because when we change our approach from a brainstorm, Hey Kennedy, how do you want to reach your campus? That's over. She doesn't know how she wants to reach the campus. But if I say, would you like to do prayer evangelism or would you like to do questions of evangelism? She totally can sign up for that. Cause I've broken it down to make a clear choice. And then Kennedy is a brave courageous witness. So we have to change how we approach the generation. Don't treat them like my generation gen X don't treat them like millennials. Our generations are like, Yeah. let's brainstorm. Let's start from scratch.

David: 8:52

Hmm.

Doug Shauppe: 8:53

Ghost me. Start from scratch. Sounds like Doug doesn't know how to do his job.

David: 8:57

Yeah. It's so interesting. How, what can be super helpful for one generation and an approach or way to begin that conversation is completely unhelpful for another generation. So appreciate you highlighting that. Doug. And you're in your books that I just referenced. I know there's a, you know, you, you describe a situation, particularly in breaking the huddle where some of the inner varsity groups across north America had, had hit a wall. And this is, I guess, in the incorrect me on the details of this, if it's not accurate, but something in the late nineties, early two thousands, that, uh, it seems. You know, something had shifted and there wasn't the same level of fruitfulness there wasn't the same level of responsiveness. Could you talk a little bit about your process that led you up to that point? And then, you know, what, the research that you began to delve into reveal

Doug Shauppe: 9:52

Yeah. Uh, I once was lost is a lot about individuals. Evangelism breaking the huddle is about communal evangelism and how we do it together. And what we noticed is we have this chronic problem with holy huddles, um, inner varsity left to our own devices, default to holy huddles. Uh, and we are having fun. It's about us. We're growing, but we're growing. The 10 of us, just the 15 of us, we don't welcome newcomers. Um, and so this has always been true. Maybe 50% of our national ministries have zero conversion. It got even worse during COVID that went up to 75% of our ministry saw zero conversions per year. Ironically, when Christians and non-Christians seek Jesus together, come to scripture together. It's kind of like my freshman year, we all can fall in love with Jesus at the same time. And then when Doug or somebody else becomes a follower of. Faith explodes. It's like, oh my goodness, this is not just in the paper. It's not just in the Bible. God is a miracle doing God that changes real people's lives. So I we want to see every single student in InterVarsity had the honor of being part of a conversion because when you're a part of somebody's conversion, your discipleship. Your faith is different. Your prayers are different. Your whole perspective on the world goes from an academic faith or an intellectual faith to like God is going to change people through my prayers. That's incredible. That's electrifying. Uh, and so that's why we decided we need to write this book, breaking the huddle because of these holy huddles, where these people graduate and they've never been a part of a country.

David: 11:40

Wow.

Doug Shauppe: 11:41

talk academically about evangelism and theoretically about miracle doing God, but we don't want them to have an academic faith or an intellectual faith. We want them to know that they can be part of a.

David: 11:54

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's a great summary. And I love that vision. Um, I know in there, you, you talk about, uh, this key idea of the five thresholds and if I'm not mistaken, you definitely addressed that in the breaking the huddle book, but I believe you also talk a fair amount in that at the individual level, in the other book as well. Uh, could you, could you just overview what those are? I found that concept to be really.

Doug Shauppe: 12:18

Yeah, what we found through a number of interviews, and this is in the nineties. Uh, this is when my CS Lewis mere Christianity apologetics group stopped working. Cause that was like my favorite thing in college. Let's all read mirror Christianity together. And then we'll all like fall in love with Jesus and it just stopped working in like 92. Uh, and so we discovered the five threshold as we did some interviewing and research. So the. Threshold. We start with distrust. When someone finds out that I'm the national director of evangelism and we're sitting next to each other on a plane, there's a little glitch in the side of their eye and a little quiver of their lip, like, oh my goodness, what is going to happen here? And district. Snaps into place. So particularly on the coasts west coast and the east coast, there's a context of distrust toward Christians in the Midwest. That's not nearly as true. There's a lot more nominal Christians in the Midwest. Um, so the first threshold is we start from a place of distrust and instead of getting offended, we are trust builders and we love we bond. We befriend, we ask questions. We care. And then we have trusting relationship. That's the first threshold we've moved from distrust to trust the second threshold. Like when I'm a soccer coach, they totally trust me, but they are indifferent about my faith. So someone can trust me. They can really like me, but faith, they perceive as irrelevant. And Doug's faith is as is irrelevant. There's a myth that says be a nice person. Be kind and people will ask you about your faith. Like 99% of the time. That's not true. Uh, but in, in our context, we can actually help indifferent people become curious by being more like Jesus people think about Q and a sec. Jesus had Q and Q sessions. You ask Jesus, how did you go to heaven? Jesus says, how do you read? Jesus says, uh, Hey Jesus, I want you to do something for me. What do you want me to do for you? He's always answering questions with questions. We Christians, we like answering questions with. We should be more like Jesus asking good questions and that thought provoking process, Stokes curiosity. So now in the second threshold, they've gone from indifferent about faith to curious, and they say, Doug, do dogs go to heaven, which is not a personal question, but it is curiosity. And that leads us to the third threshold. In the third threshold, they might have academic or intellectual curiosity, but it's not opening my heart. It's up here in my head. And then we go from closed to open. And what close to open means I opened my heart to you. And I say, you, you you've got something real. Does it work on my anger problem? Um, you've got something real. Let me tell you about my parents who went through a divorce and now we're having a very different kind of conversation because we're dealing with real issues that really matter to me and were hard to hear. So we've gone from banter, maybe about dogs and heaven to like, oh, we're really, we're getting real in this relationship. And I'm open with you. I'm still not a seeker, but I'm open. Then in the fourth threshold, I begin to meander me. Meandering is where you start the fourth threshold and it's, I'm checking out Buddha. Checking out Krishna and I'm taking out Jesus and Christians get so mad at me for checking out all three at the same time. It's like, why are you wasting your time on Buddha and Krishna just seek Jesus. Well, the reason I'm doing that is no one has taught me to be a seeker. So there's no guidebook for people on like how to go from me entering to seeking, except when the followers of Jesus like us have the honor of focusing their quest. So instead of getting mad at. For checking all these different options out. We ask them, Hey, if you could ask Jesus one question that will teach you whether he's trustworthy with your life, what question do you want Jesus to address? It was like, oh, okay. That's a focused quest. And that's what we, as followers of Jesus get to do. And then we get to tell them what it means to be a follower of Jesus and say, would you like to follow Jesus with your whole life? And that's the fifth. Is following Jesus. And what is fun about the five thresholds? It's fundamentally a framework of hope that God is at work before we ever meet that person. And it's also a framework of friendship and love. We get to be a good friend to our other friends at somewhere, wherever they are in their spectrum of proximity to God. So it's about being a good friend and discerning, how can I help this person take.

David: 17:22

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I think that's such a helpful framework for thinking about where people are at, uh, and then knowing what's going to help them next because the fact is not every person is in the same place. Uh, but just to, to play the other side, just for a moment, um, you know, what would you say to the person that says like, okay, well, Hey, this is just, over-complicating it, you know, you just need to. I don't know, share it, just preach the gospel or something like that. What would you say? Uh, to something with an a or someone with an objection like that? Doug

Doug Shauppe: 17:54

we should preach the gospel praise God. And when people are seeking, they'll say, yes, what I found in the nineties is there's just not that many seekers. And so if all we're doing is preaching the gospel and they're back here at indifferent. They're not even listening to me. They're just kind of looking at me like you're irrelevant. So please preach the gospel and please befriend. And please be honest about your own weaknesses. And please tell some stories and ask good questions and pray with non-Christians. non-Christians will let us. For them, and it's a powerful way to help them meet Jesus. So like the good things that Jesus has giving us all, help people move towards Jesus. In addition to preaching, I'm a big fan of preaching.

David: 18:44

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a good point. Um, Doug, I guess just to follow up on that, man, I, you know, again, I'm just, I'm trying to, to, to, to just hear, you know, the objections in my head and, and I want to, you know,

Doug Shauppe: 18:57

bring it, bring the objections. Let's

David: 18:59

What, what, uh, I mean, in one of these things you actually highlighted. Earlier in what you said about, uh, just kind of getting stuck in, in like the early stage. I mean, you said something about, um, I think it was like stage one or threshold one distrust to trust and we think, Hey, if I can just be a nice person, I can, you know, be a friend to somebody. Hey, that, that somehow that's gonna get me most of the way there when in fact. It doesn't usually either conversation can stall out. And, and I know in my own experience with leaning into more of like a friendship evangelism type approach is that, uh, it's just easy to get stuck in. Hey, we're just friends, but we're never talking about substantive things. We're never really talking about Jesus. And, and so how does that, does that relate at all to this help me out here? What would you say to, to, that?

Doug Shauppe: 19:51

yeah, we have a free course called safe and brave questions. And it's exactly what you just said. And it goes along particularly with the second threshold in different to cure. And so when you and I are talking, there are forks in the road, in the middle of the conversation where I can ask you a safe question or I can ask you a brave question and I'm trying to discern what's more helpful. So safe question, Dave, how are you doing today? Brave question. Is how's that? working for you? Safe questions. Hey, uh, do you like Starbucks? Brave question. Can I pray for you? So throughout a conversation, I have safe and brave options and the brave options break the ice between these layers and help us move down. But it's not always about brave, brave, brave. Sometimes it's a brave question followed by a safe. And so how are you feeling about race relations in America today? Brave question. Do you have any non-white friends, brave questions. How do you feel Doug about being a white guy? Brave question. So then you might have several brave questions kind of.

David: 21:13

Yeah, that's, that's helpful. And so you're what I hear you saying is you do have to be intentional. You have to be purposeful. It's not just a aimless kind of, I'm being a nice guy, you know, a nice, just support a friend that, that there isn't a level of intentionality. There is bravery to use your word that's needed to lean into that. Um, well, is that a fair.

Doug Shauppe: 21:38

Yeah. And that's why we like the word. could also, instead of using threshold, which is crossing from one room to another, each one is like a hill. And if you don't climb the hill, you will be stuck. You'll be stuck at trust and you're at a wall. And then maybe at curious, Maybe at closed, but these things feel like in a friendship, you can feel it. You can feel like I am stuck. And that was the breakthrough for us in the nineties is when we realized, oh Yeah. these are walls. Each one of these is a wall toward growth toward Jesus. So when people are feeling like, oh, my friendship with Bob is stuck. That's true. Your friendship with Bob is stuck and you need to try something different and you need a holy spirit break.

David: 22:26

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Uh, Doug, I know this approach. It can be very time intensive again. I know later I'd planned to talk to you a little bit about how this relates to some different approaches to, uh, outreach and evangelism. Um, do you find that there's like a. Uh, a right number. I mean, for a relational capacity, how many, how many people, and I don't mean to be too analytical about this, but how just to get even more specific, uh, for the average student or the average college minister, uh, you know, D do you encourage them to be. Trying to track relationally with a certain number of people. Do you have any sort of sense of how long it typically takes a person to move from one threshold to another? Uh, can you make any of this a bit more concrete

Doug Shauppe: 23:16

yup. Two, we recommend two.

David: 23:19

Hm

Doug Shauppe: 23:20

And if you can pray for and be friend to people, um, that seems to, be managing. It seems to be motivating. And then what you're discerning in that is how's God at work and what is God doing in their lives? And in the college context, it moves a little bit more quickly than in when people have a mortgage and a family, and they're a little bit more set in their ways. Um, so I would say like six to 12 months in college, we see a friendship. We see openness. We see praying. And then we see people following Jesus together. Uh, and sometimes that happens in a one-on-one kind of a thing, but sometimes it happens with like all your team. So for example, I'm mentoring Kennedy right now, a junior at Occidental college, and God is totally at work among her teammates on the volleyball team. And God is at work in her house where she has indifferent women stuck at the second threshold. All of a sudden they're all seeking. And it's so cool watching her impact 5, 6, 7 peers. So sometimes it's a one-on-one and sometimes it's a community and that their whole house is learning to seek Jesus together.

David: 24:37

Yeah, that's very cool. That is so cool. Well, Doug, this might even be a good point to segue into even a little more direct conversation about your book breaking the huddle, because I know that's what it's about. It's about a whole community growing in its witness. You know, and, and I guess I also want to ask what really related to both of these books. You mentioned that some of this research that you and a few others did, uh, in the nineties and it's still really the foundation for a lot of this stuff. Uh, a lot has happened since the nineties, others been generational shifts since then. Um, so what of your research do you find still relevant and, and have you found that certain trends have changed since then? Um, how are you thinking about this in 2020?

Doug Shauppe: 25:27

um, thank you. Uh, from time to time, I'll be with a team of people and I'll say let's chop a threshold. Get rid of one there's five. Let's take it down to four. Maybe even. And we'll try to get rid of one or add a sixth or something like that. And I'm, I'm okay with people modifying the five thresholds. We have a native American department that do a fantastic job, modifying what we have for a native American context. It's beautiful. Uh, things I would never would come up with in a million years that are working in this framework. Um, and for some reason, the 500. The test of time for 20 years, we came up with the five thresholds first in 98. So more than 20 years. Um, so, uh, how you live them, how you build trust, how you stoke curiosity. I feel like I'm a lot more practical for gen Z because gen Z needs sort of practical handles on these things. So sometimes I won't even tell them at first about the five thresholds. I'll just say. Do you want to grow in love or do you want to grow in courage? Let's grow in love and let's grow in courage. And they always say, that's great, Doug. I want to grow in love and courage. And then the five thresholds is more behind the scenes. And as they're growing in love and courage, courageous witnesses, then we kind of pull back the curtain at the end, like, Hey, by the way that person just became. There's this thing called the five threshold. So we actually give them the five thresholds later in the process, but they give them love and courage upfront, but that's more of a generational context then that something's changed about friendship evangelism.

David: 27:08

Yeah.

Doug Shauppe: 27:08

In fact, I had somebody say to me, after reading, I once was lost. They're like, you're talking about postmodern evangelism, but this is kind of how Jesus did it. I was like, Yeah. that's true.

David: 27:17

yeah, maybe that falls under the there's nothing new under the sun category.

Doug Shauppe: 27:21

anything that is good. Jesus already came up with it and

David: 27:25

Yeah, that's great. Well, yeah, Doug and your book breaking the huddle. You talk about how a community and this could be a church, or this could be a college ministry group, uh, but a community of believers can be at varying different stages in their, in their witness. Um, you know, they could be a huddled community. You talked a little bit about what that means. Just kind of like loving God. Not really focused on anybody outside of the community, it witnessing community or conversion community. Um, could you draw out a little bit more of the distinction between these different categories?

Doug Shauppe: 28:03

Yeah. In a huddled community. Witness is a concept and evangelism is heroic. It's Billy Graham. It's somebody 50 years ago and we honor them and we celebrate them and we tell stories of heroes that once helped somebody follow Jesus, but it's not us and it's not today and it's not my friends. Um, and then the, the huddle, holy huddle is grabbed by God, grabbed by the holy spirit and convicted. And they say, you know what? We need to make witness a top-down. Because as long as it's kind of theoretical and heroic, it doesn't need to be a top value. It's just something we talk about. That's all. And then they change their reason for existence. And they're like, we like my church. We exist to help convinced and unconvinced people follow Jesus with their whole lives. So that's the mission statement. And all of a sudden you craft your mission statement and you change your purpose for your church or your, your ministry to exist. And now you train witness in a witnessing community. It's a value, it's a practice it's motivating. And some non-Christians start coming. So in a holy huddle, zero conversions, usually one or no non-Christians attending. And then in a witnessing community, non-Christians start to participate. We invite them to consider following Jesus with us and conversion start to happen. And then we say, What if we were welcoming throughout all of our church, what if we were welcoming and saw a harvest throughout all we did? And then we, we kind of realign our church to the mission statement. So in, in witnessing communities, you have a clear mission statement where witnesses. Near the top or at the top, then in a conversion community, you've modified your structures, your traditions, your events, so that all of them fuel the process of conversion in addition to deepening disciples. So we do discipleship and welcoming non-Christians at the same time, kind of like my experience my freshman year, where everyone's growing in the gospel of mark and Doug is seeking at the same time in the gospel of. And that's that's our hope is that we can help these churches go from holy huddles to then witnessing communities to these conversion communities where conversions are normal. Like, let me give you a for instance, baptism, baptism is something that churches do across the country or weddings, something that churches do across the country. You can either do a wedding or a baptism primarily for the couple, primarily for the person getting back. Or you can create a wedding or a baptism that serves all of their non-Christian friends, because the only time they're coming to church is for that baptism or for that wedding. So what if we intentionally not only ministered to the couple or to the new believer, but we also intentionally welcomed, built trust, stoke curiosity, increase openness through things that are already built into our calendar. I would say that weddings and baptisms are mostly squandered opportunities to point to Jesus in a compelling way. And we want to move that toward a conversion community, where those are places where everyone's trying.

David: 31:33

Yeah. That's, that's interesting, Doug, you know, I'm curious to know more specifically. I mean, I, I would, I would presume you're not thinking of like doing an altar call at somebody's wedding. What does that look like to have a, or maybe you are, I don't know. W w what does it look like to be more intentional with those type of moments, specifically

Doug Shauppe: 31:50

yeah, Yeah. It's great. Um, no, I don't do altar calls at weddings. Um, what I like to do is pick a story from the couple that they're willing to test. Of their brokenness and their weakness in their relationship and how God helped them overcome a real practical disagreement and argument at a low point where they thought about breaking up, you know, basically with the permission of the couple I'm like. God is strong in your weakness. So don't come up here looking like the perfect couple. Let's be real about who you are and how God is showing up in your marriage and in this relationship. And so we take them into the valley of. We have problems and look, God loves to transform couples like this. So they're like a showcase of the glory of God. I'm guiding, I'm a tour guide to everybody in the room. Like check it out. God helps marriages when we trust God and put him at the center. And then I do a charge to the couple. And then I do a charge to the congregation. So my charge, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm blessing the couple with a charge and then I have the entire congregation stand up. And I said, today, you, you saw a case study of God's power and love in this couple. You should do something about that. Like, you saw something interesting today, and if that's interesting to you, you need to take a next step.

David: 33:17

Hmm.

Doug Shauppe: 33:17

So it's more like a threshold to threshold three challenge, which is you, you you're curious about this or something is open in. And you should do something about it. And then at the reception, I've had people come up to me and say, I felt God, in that wedding for the first time in my life, what happened? And I'm like, well, you were moving toward Jesus. And it was so cool that I'm focused. I'm not calling them to like come to the alter and commit to Jesus, but I am challenged them to move through a threshold.

David: 33:50

That's fascinating, Doug. Yeah. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And it's something that, as I hear you say, it, it, it doesn't sound like inappropriate. Like, you know, the family of the couple getting married is going to be upset or something that you just, you know, you did something that they didn't want. It feels very appropriate for the moment as well. Uh, what would you

Doug Shauppe: 34:11

it's honoring the couple, right? Because what you're doing is you're saying we're all here because we love you. And we're going to tell your story and it's their story. And I don't lie if there's, if their marriage is not, or their relationship is not in a good place. I don't say to everybody, wow. God totally. came through when he didn't. But, um, because it's about the couple and God's work in the couple, I've never once had a complaint after more than 20 years of doing.

David: 34:39

Well with baptism, I'm curious. Cause I I'm involved in planning a baptism for about a month from now. So I'm very curious. What would you do in the case of a baptism?

Doug Shauppe: 34:48

Um, I would sit down with the person who's getting baptized and I would brainstorm. Their network. Who in your family would you like to come in here? And now let's invite 5, 10, 15, 20 people let's invite more widely than you might otherwise. And what's the best way to send that invitation out texting? Is it a, you want to send a card? Like how do you help them do that kind of a thing. And then if you want to brainstorm, like what's a story from your testimony that would speak to. Because there's a lot of ways to tell a new believer story. We actually like to prep like a one minute testimony that is not just like the blood of the lamb, blah, blah, blah stuff. That's just Christian mumbo-jumbo. But like I was depressed and I turned to God and God did something in my life. And so you can coach somebody to get the Christian jargon out. And the like real story in it's kind of like what I said with the couple, like take them into the pit and show them how God showed up in your pit and then transform you. You're not perfect, but like God made a difference in your life. And that's what people yearn for. They yearn to know that God's real and makes a difference. And it's not just about religion and then best case scenario in a conversion community. Like if I'm really expecting the holy spirit to show. Let's say you're baptizing Bob. And I say, Bob, do you want to host a Bible study for your skeptic and seeker friends who are going to show up because I would help you lead it. You host it I'll lead it. And let's after that service, if anyone was curious to explore faith, we're going to hope we're going to have a four week series on exploring faith in Bob's dorm room in Bob's apartment, in Bob's house. And Bob will host cause a new believer can host, but then I teach and together we see a God moment become a God movement. God willing.

David: 36:54

That's fascinating. Um, I'm really intrigued by this and excited to put a lot of it into practice, even myself. Uh,

Doug Shauppe: 37:02

email me and tell me how it goes.

David: 37:03

okay. We'll do.

Doug Shauppe: 37:04

but, um, what you would have to do is expect a God.

David: 37:09

Yeah.

Doug Shauppe: 37:10

You would have to expect that during the baptism and during the testimony, God's going to stir them, which is a profoundly hopeful exercise and that you have a new problem. They will be more interested in God after the baptism. So you expect you lead differently. And then you're open to saying, Laura, we might need a structure or a system, or like add a Bible study. And a lot of people. Get excited about a conference and they don't think about the fruit or one of the mistakes that people will make is they'll invite people to follow Jesus. They don't expect a yes, and then they don't help them tell their story afterward. And it's like, guys, they have a new believer story woman at the, well, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Like she goes from encountering Jesus to witnessing within an hour.

David: 37:57

um,

Doug Shauppe: 37:58

And we totally don't expect it, so we don't see it and we don't lead into it. And then we squander God moments all over the place.

David: 38:05

Yeah, man. Yeah. Good, good observation. And I like what you just said there too, about these five thresholds is that, you know, for some people it might be if five minutes or it might be, you know, two hours where they go through all these different steps, but for other people, it may take longer. Um, You know, as you talk about these different types of communities and you talk specifically about, uh, witnessing communities, that's the community where at least their mission statement is aligned around trying to reach people who don't yet know Jesus. Uh, they're trying they're, they're, they're, they're thinking about it. Um, it seems to me, there are a lot of churches out there. You know, college is probably as well that they certainly want to see. More people coming to Christ then than they are that that maybe they're stuck, uh, or at least this would be my assessment. Just applying your work to my. Previous observations that they're almost stuck as witnessing communities. Maybe they're seeing a little bit of fruit every now and then. Uh, but, but they really would desire to become conversion community is where it's just the norm that regularly people are committing their lives to Christ where witness really is integrated throughout everything that they're doing. What other things have you seen? And I know you highlighted a couple earlier, but what other things have you seen, uh, be particularly. Helpful in a groups movement from being a witnessing community to a conversion community.

Doug Shauppe: 39:29

great question. Uh, so four months ago, I did a training for students at Occidental college. I was invited to do it and, uh, it was on courageous witness, which that's our, that's my thing. All, all year long among courageous witness. And at the end, I gave a very practical challenge to this group of student leaders. Would you like to be a one-on-one courageous witness or would you like to be a 2 0 1 courageous witness? You have a choice. One-on-one is super simple. Ask people how they're doing. Listen. Offer to pray. You don't even have to use God or Jesus. You just are using the P word prayer. Like, can you do that tomorrow? That's 1 0 1, 2 0 1 is same three things, but then tell them a story about you and Jesus. Tell him a story about how Jesus is meeting you in your loneliness and your anxiety in your anger. Cause during COVID, there's just junk around. People are living. And to, you know, interact like that. So 1 0 1, 2 0 1 K entity, the student that I referenced a second ago, she looks at me. It was the first time I met her and she's like, Doug, I'm a one-on-one I can handle ask them how they're doing and I can pray. Like I can, I can sign up for that. Now I know from my experience that there's going to be a God moment somewhere. So I do the training. But I'm looking for the God moment. And so I follow up thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, and then Kennedy has an incredible story. The next day she was depressed. She goes to Bible study to lead. She does what I say. Doug told me to, how are you doing? Let's listen, let's pray. She prays with a non-Christian. The non-Christian says I've never prayed before they pray. And at the end of the prayer time, she said, and I'm going to follow Jesus right now. Kennedy had never been a part of someone's. She exploded, right? Little 1 0 1 courageous witness. A little. Yes. And the holy spirit was like, that's all I need. Here's a bucket of the holy spirit. The next day. I hear that story. And I say that can go from being a God moment to a God movement because now you have a new believer testimony. And you have a courageous witness. Who's gone from meek and mild and like believes little in God to like explosive her expectancy went up from a two to a 10 overnight. So I've been mentoring her to invest now in her non-Christian friends, we just saw conversion in her house. Actually got it on video. It's super cool. And

David: 42:09

God.

Doug Shauppe: 42:11

what I'm looking for is what am I training opportunities? And then after a training opportunity, I expected at least one, God moment will come out of it. And then I track with the God moments because one, God moment could become a God. movement. So I'm expecting it, I'm looking for it. So if I were in a witnessing community, that's what I would do. I would train and equip, make it real practical, but then follow it track with this. Like where's God working. And then when you see where God's at work, boom.

David: 42:43

Okay, Doug. That's no, that's a good answer. I love it. I love the detail. That's it? Yeah. It's super helpful. Well, uh, Doug, I do want to wrap up soon here to respect your time, but if I could ask, um, one other question just related to the various modes of evangelism or the various approaches that, that people will use. Um, I'm curious what you think about that because clearly, you know, you and your own ministry hit, uh, hit a certain roadblock and you're like, okay, I gotta solve this. And we got to figure out how to break through this barrier. You talked about that kind of the late nineties epiphany that. You and a few other members of the InterVarsity, uh, movement had. Um, but of course there's still a lot of people out in the world today using a variety of evangelists, stick methods, uh, events, and, um, just kind of. Like initiating conversations in the spur of the moment with strangers. And, um, I'm just curious what you think about, uh, I mean, contact evangelism. That would be another one. Um, I'm curious what you think about the various types of evangelism and I'm not, I'm not saying, Hey, let's, let's cast stones here. That's not what I'm trying to go, but just, I'm just curious how you think about it. Do you think that there are different tools for different scenarios? Do you see value in other approaches? Do you think that. Um, you know, this is really the best way that what you've described this as the best way to spend one's time. Um, I'm curious, how do you think about other methods?

Doug Shauppe: 44:06

Yeah. I love them all. And the cool thing about God is he'll use them all. Um, you know, the apostle Paul says. If the gospel is preached out of rivalry, it's still preached. Like God can take mixed motives, weird stuff and, and transform people's lives. Uh, so the moment that I'm like against a certain style, then God goes and uses it and like, Doug, see, uh, so, um, love covers a multitude of sins in evangelism. Joy covers a multitude of sins in evangelism. So as long as you're loving and joyful, you can say dumb stuff, you can do dumb stuff, and God is like wooing and winning folks. So it's not about getting it right. It's not about getting it. Perfect. It's not like the perfect technique. It's about love and joy and That's contagious. That's attractive. Um, I think that there are some evangelists efforts that are more about me than about the person that I'm trying to love. Because I want to be bold and I want to be faithful. And so I'm doing things that make me feel good about being a courageous witness versus I'm thinking about you and what you need in your journey. And so if I was talking to somebody who was doing some weird stuff in evangelism, I would say, you know, what, what do your friends need? Where are they at? Let's help them grow toward Jesus instead of like raining on their parade, quit preaching, blah, blah. I just want to help people become more thoughtful about the person they're talking to and different contexts. It looks very different. Direct culture, indirect culture, side door, front door. Anyway.

David: 45:50

Yeah. Doug that's. That's great. Yeah. You know, you talk about culture. I remember coming across that in some of your writings. Was that in breaking the huddle? Where is it that you addressed these indirect culture? Direct culture? Do you remember?

Doug Shauppe: 46:01

Um, we do some in breaking the huddle. There's a chapter about, uh, Latino ministry, uh, in one of our campuses. Um, so we were getting into it there. Uh, I think it's chapter six of breaking the huddle. Uh, let's see.

David: 46:17

Well, you don't have to search where I can find it.

Doug Shauppe: 46:19

I have another book that I wrote a third book called being white and multi. Ministry being white in a multi-ethnic church. So that one is explicitly around helping people like me, white people be cross-cultural. Um, so if, if someone really wanted to dig in there that, uh, I don't make any money on the royalty fees from that book, it all goes to native American men.

David: 46:39

Oh, cool. Well, Doug, Hey, I just want to say a big thank you for your time today. Uh, as we wrap up, is there anything else that you would want to say or any word of encouragement to the student or the college leader that is wanting to grow in evangelism?

Doug Shauppe: 46:52

yeah. Two things. Number one, evangelism is not like high diving, high divers in the Olympics. They got to get up there. They got to do a triple flip and just park the water perfectly to get there. A lot of people think evangelism is about getting it right. Or getting it perfect. And they never want to dive because they can't get it right. Or can't get it. Perfect. evangelism? is like baseball. You get up to the plate, swinging a mess and you strike out and then you get up and, and play it and you swing and a miss and you strike out and then you get up a third time. He's swinging a mist. You get a single you're batting 3 30, 3 that's all star level. So cut yourself some slack and just, yeah, you're going to straight. Yeah, you're going to goof it. Yeah. You're going to fall down. That's totally fine. Dust yourself off. Get up again, be a learner and then to become good as the five thresholds or to become really competent in this process takes about a year of diligent dog-eared intentionality. So I'm making it sound easy to. It's hard to become a good friend who knows like within five minutes, what, what threshold somebody is at. So this can actually become a worldview, but you really have to go out and have a lot of conversations and just learn about people and be a good question. Asker. So get started. It's like baseball. It's not about high diving and don't expect that you'll be great overnight and that's okay. Just keep working at it. Like you're pro.

David: 48:23

So I guess so good. Yeah. That's encouraging to me as well as, as I have not arrived, I am personally trying to grow in my witness.

Doug Shauppe: 48:31

We all are.

David: 48:33

Well, well, thank you again for this. Hey, I want to encourage the, uh, the listeners here. Check out Doug's book, breaking the huddle. Fantastic book. I'll be sure to link to it in the show notes. Uh, Doug, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate having you

Doug Shauppe: 48:47

Thanks Dave. Thanks