1. Door to door evangelism is seen as an unwanted invasion.
2. Initiating conversation at Starbucks is welcome.
3. The evangescript is perceived as invasive and fake.
4. Showing how real-life concerns connect to the gospel is well-received.
5. The churched are often as clueless about the gospel as the unchurched.
He fleshes out these points in the whole article.He closes by saying:
No, this isn’t technical research pulled together by Ed Stetzer and the people at Lifeway. These are conclusions I have come to after living in this community for 31 years, sharing the gospel here for 14 years, and serving as pastor here for seven years. While I believe God can use all kinds of approaches to evangelism, I am convinced that in my suburbia unscripted, conversational evangelism is generally a better way to share Christ with strangers than reading from a tract, or reciting a script. My culture requires more natural conversation skills that are developed through practice. It demands a strong theological framework from which we can make connections between real-life concerns of the people we meet to the gospel they need.
4 comments:
5. The churched are often as clueless about the gospel as the unchurched.
That's an interesting point. Is that really true of Christians as a whole? If so...how can they be Christians?
To possibly answer your two questions-- "Churched" doesn't necessarily mean "Christian," i.e. actually saved by Christ and following Him.
ygxuyI was trained to evangelize using a "scripted" approach, and I think that both the scripted and more conversational approaches have their drawbacks. I agree with many of Joe Thorn's points in his article. At the same time though, while conversational evangelism might be preferable to a more scripted approach, do we always really have time to build friendships in order to share the Gospel? Actually, isn't that concept slightly "scripted," in and of itself-- building friendships "in order to" share the Gospel?
The bottom line for me is, the Gospel is a matter of great urgency for peoples' lives, both eternally and temporally. There really is no more urgent message which people need to hear. It is not a "sales pitch" (although it can admittedly seem like such to non-Christians)-- it is a warning about the serious danger that unrepentant sinners are in, and a joyous message about the forgiveness and grace which Christ holds out to them. While we obviously need to share this Good News with graciousness and humility, I don't believe that we should limit ourselves solely to building friendships for the sake of evangelism. It might be the preferable approach, when God allows the opportunity. However, even in post-modern, skeptical America, there is still a place for the Gospel message given to non-Christians "on the spot." If Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have the Godly courage to do it (as well as Christians all over the world, in much more dangerous circumstances)-- why shouldn't we?
Ignore the first five letters in that last post... I was doing the "Word Verification" part, and the letters got mixed in with my post!
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