Image Source: Christianity Today

Advancing the Gospel simply means to communicate the message of the Gospel to others.  The premise is, if people are properly exposed to the Gospel, the Holy Spirit will work in them to bring them to accept it.  In other words, Christ changes hearts. Our job is simply to tell.

But in what ways can we ‘tell’?  Does ‘telling’ always mean sitting alone in a room with another person and verbally explaining the Gospel to them, front to back? Of course not. Even Jesus communicated his message to his people in many different ways while he lived on Earth. Parables and acts of healing, for instance, were two ways he often communicated his glory to others.

Can we identify some key ways that businesses can communicate Christ to the world?

No list would be complete, but in class, I noticed that one very powerful form of Gospel-communication often seemed to come up in conversation: narrative.

Like any great narrative, the Gospel narrative features dynamic characters, complex themes, and a linear progression of events which, in harmony, point to one central truth: the glory of God. We in business can, in a sense, steal that story. In the same way a theater company can produce an on-stage version of the Gospel through a script mirroring its plot, we can mirror the Gospel narrative by imaging key themes from it, like redemption and sacrificial love, in the narrative of our brand.

Consider prescription lenses. An individual who has looked at a book without wearing the correct lenses for his eyes may not have been able to read that book. Though having looked at it, he will not be able to receive any meaning from it, because he cannot see it for what it is. When we present the narrative of the Gospel through our brand, we add an additional lens to the pool of prescription lenses in the world through which people may see the Gospel.

Now even when a person has found the correct prescription for himself, he may not accept the words in the book he is looking at. But at least he has been able to see them properly.  Our efforts to communicate the Gospel message to him were successful.

The business sector has great potential for advancing the Gospel because it can be used as a platform to communicate its narrative in powerful and creative ways.