\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDuring\nmy Bible College days I worked as a Youth Pastor. During my first year the\nsenior pastor retired and I found myself on the committee appointed to call a\nnew pastor. Part of the calling process meant the potential candidates were\nexpected to preach in an evening service. One of those candidates stands out in\nmy mind. After he was introduced he took off his coat, threw it on the floor\nand for the next 30 minutes thumped the pulpit, screamed at the top of his\nvoice and dangled the congregation over the fires of hell before passionately\ntrying to get someone (anyone) to put their hand in the air and say the\nsinner\u2019s prayer.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was one of the most\namusing performances I had ever seen, but where did this approach come from? Much\nof what we think of as evangelism is really a modern invention, much of it\nflowing from the revivalism of the American frontier that began in the mid 1700s. Those methods made perfect sense in their\ncontext. People generally knew the\ngospel; they had been raised in a culture saturated by it. Their refusal to follow and their\nindifference to Christian behaviour were the result of rebellion not\nignorance. It is no wonder the\n\u201cevangelists\u201d of those days would ride in on their horses and preach with high\nemotion and hot rhetoric! They were scolding recalcitrant children who knew\nbetter!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the mid \u2013 1900s, the situation had changed. Then it was less the hell-fire-and-brimstone rhetoric that reached the masses, although a sizeable subculture of people had developed for whom this style of preaching became a kind of acquired taste, people who learned to enjoy the idea of flames and torture \u2013 as hard as that may be to believe \u2013 and who learned to savor this technique of performance \u2013 perhaps not unlike the way people today appreciate professional wrestlers. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n By the 1950s, rather than hot rhetoric, more and more of it was cool logic that seemed to win the day. And again, for a world whose ethos most resembled that of engineers and whose lives had been formed by two world wars, it is no wonder that evangelism took shape in diagrams of bridges and engineer\u2019s steps and laws (like those of physics), and the language of \u201ccampaigns\u201d (like military campaigns and \u201ccrusades,\u201d) so that apologetics was about amassing logical \u201cammunition\u201d in the form of irrefutable arguments. Somehow, this language does not strike me as the sound of good news. In more recent years, we have moved from warfare imagery to more legal language, reflecting our litigious society, with the vocabulary of \u201ccases\u201d and \u201cevidence\u201d and \u201cverdicts.\u201d (Brian Mclaren) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So in the process of\nmaking our message clear, simple, compelling, and well-packaged (we might even\nsay \u201ccanned\u201d), have we squeezed out the wonder or in some way squeezed out the\ngospel itself? Perhaps the best way for\nus to rediscover the gospel, wonder and all, is through the kind of spiritual\nfriendship we see in the church in the first 3 centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who are wondering, I learned all that \u201cevangelism stuff\u201d \u2013 the steps, the laws, the diagrams, the verses, the arguments, the responses to objections, the \u201canswers\u201d to questions. I don\u2019t use that stuff anymore because it is and has always been quite intimidating to most people rather than motivating. It definitely fails to reach the heart of a person in the current era we live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Invitation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are interested in looking at how best to engage potential disciples in our current cultural context you might find this blog site helpful. Just go to Blog Subscription on this page (top right side) and register to receive regular blog notices via email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the blog spikes your interest, we would also encourage you to pass the\nURL on to friends who are also looking at how best to engage potential\ndisciples in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During my Bible College days I worked as a Youth Pastor. During my first year the senior pastor retired and I found myself on the committee appointed to call a new pastor. Part of the calling process meant the potential candidates were expected to preach in an evening service. One of those candidates stands out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n