{"id":132,"date":"2009-05-04T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2009\/05\/jazz-shaped-eva.html"},"modified":"2009-05-04T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T02:00:00","slug":"jazz-shaped-eva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/05\/jazz-shaped-eva.html","title":{"rendered":"Jazz-Shaped Evangelism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Johncoltrane2\"<\/a> John Coltrane was not a Christian.  <\/span>Though he was reared in his grandfather\u2019s church and was familiar with the ways of Christ, he pursued God outside of Christianity.  <\/span>Why he did not he come back to the church we don\u2019t know, but I think the church has something to learn from him.<\/span><\/p>\n

All too often, we as Christians assume unbelievers have had no experience with God.  <\/span>Coltrane shows us that perhaps we should examine our evangelistic methods.  <\/span>Instead of trying to get people to have an encounter with God, maybe, we should assume they have already had one!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Coltrane had had a profound encounter with God that was catalytic to his becoming drug free and had an acute effect upon the rest of his life.  <\/span>What if getting people to repent of their sins is not the only way to convince someone to come to Christ?  <\/span>What if the opening question is more along the lines of, \u201cTell me when you first experienced God?\u201d ( I have been utterly amazed at the responses I have been receiving to the latter question.)<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>That\u2019s what Epiphany is all about\u2026some wise men that were doing something they were not supposed to be doing\u2026seeking guidance in the stars, astrology, instead of God.  <\/span>God met them in their sin and gave them an astronomical experience of the Christ.  <\/span>The woman at the well didn\u2019t need to be convince of her sin all she wanted was to know how, where and who to worship.  <\/span>Jesus told us that the work of the Holy Spirit is to convince the world of it\u2019s sin (Jn. 16.8-11) this frees us up to focus on what it means to know and be known by God.<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Coltrane had experienced God and was in search of a religion that could reconnect him with God…the classical approach to evangelism seeks to convince people about who they are and what God says about them.  <\/span>Maybe that\u2019s the problem\u2026people want us to present God not facts about God…when you've experienced God only God will do!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Coltrane was not a Christian.  Though he was reared in his grandfather\u2019s church and was familiar with the ways of Christ, he pursued God outside of Christianity.  Why he did not he come back to the church we don\u2019t know, but I think the church has something to learn from him. All too often,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-the-groove"],"yoast_head":"\nJazz-Shaped Evangelism - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/05\/jazz-shaped-eva.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jazz-Shaped Evangelism - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Coltrane was not a Christian.  Though he was reared in his grandfather\u2019s church and was familiar with the ways of Christ, he pursued God outside of Christianity.  Why he did not he come back to the church we don\u2019t know, but I think the church has something to learn from him. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}