Category Archives: Evangelism & Mission

The Gospel according to Tom Wright

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One of the more controversial aspects of the teaching of Bishop Tom Wright is his understanding of the Christian gospel, and of the task of proclaiming that gospel.

He notes that much ‘evangelism’ has consisted of

‘taking the traditional framework of heaven-and-hell expectation and persuading people that it’s time they considered the ‘heaven’ option and grabbed it which they had the chance.  What’s stopping them getting there is sin; the solution is provided in Jesus Christ; all they have to do is to accept it!’

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A Christian basis for befriending

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Here are some notes on a teaching session on this subject.

Aim

To explore together the biblical basis for befriending, and to discuss the place of evangelism in our friendships with those who are not yet believers.

Activity in pairs

Pair up with a person you do not know very well.  Spend a few minutes talking to one another about how you became Christians.

Teaching on friendship in the book of Proverbs

Constancy Some people are fair-weather friends, Prov 14:20; 19:4,6,7, but a good friend ‘sticks closer than a brother’. 
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The ethics of evangelism

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I found the following helpful outline of the ethics of evangelism in an unexpected source.

(1) We are Christians, called by God to honor Jesus Christ with our lives, abiding by biblically defined ethical standards in every area of life, public and private. This includes our efforts to persuade coworkers and others to believe the good news about Jesus Christ.

(2) Wherever we live and work, we seek to follow the mandate, motives, message, and model of Jesus, who still pursues and reclaims those lost in sin and rebelling against Him.…

Quotes on Evangelism

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“I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure, so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts…No amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition, of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep, impassioned sympathetic love for human souls.” (David Brainerd)

“We are content to be the keepers of the aquarium, rather than be fishers of men.”…

The importance of witness-bearing in preaching

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Michael Green puts it well, I think:-

I miss this note of witness-bearing in contemporary Christianity. Many preachers bring carefully prepared scripts which they read with greater or less skill and conviction. But rarely do they let you know that this stuff is their very life blood. Rarely do they allow their own discovery of Jesus, their own profound convictions about him, the difference he has made tot heir own lives, to surface in their address.

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The Gospel – its content and communication

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J.I. Packer explores this topic with cross-cultural evangelism in mind.  Here’s a summary.

1. Three preliminary thoughts

(a) The communication of the gospel must be determined by its content

The content includes a diagnosis of the human condition, value-judgments on the life that is, and the life that might be, lived, and a call to respond in radical commitment.  Now this content must be verbalised, and it must be preached (i.e. explained and applied).  Such media as instrumental music, pictures, sculpture, or dance may reinforce the message, but only preaching can communicate it. …

The Emerging Church in its own words 5

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Chapter 6 of Gibbs’ and Bolger’s book, Emerging Church: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, is entitled, ‘Welcoming the Stranger’.

Here are some extracts.

I’m more convinced than ever that we don’t have a clue about Christianity.  I’m not an orthodox Christian anymore; I’m not Protestant.  The kinds of questions we are asking are very different from the questions asked at other times.  Is Christianity necessary?  Whose religion is it anyway?  What does it mean for us to incarnate Christ, to live redemptively in a materialistic world? 

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The Emerging Church in its own words 3

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Chapter 4 of Gibbs’ and Bolger’s Emerging Churches: creating Christian community in postmodern culture is entitled, ‘Transforming secular space’.  Here are some extracts.

Breaking down the dualisms of modernity

‘A consequence of the creation of a secular realm was modernity’s penchant to break everything up into little parts for classification, organisation, and systematisation.  Thus, in the modern period, many dualisms were introduced to church life that had not been problematic before: the natural verses the supernatural; public facts versus private values; the body versus the mind and spirit; faith versus reason; power versus love; and the list goes on. …

Unlocking the mind of the unbeliever

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In a recent article in Evangelicals Now, Andrew Baughen reports on a gathering of UK evangelists with Tim Keller.  The Clerkenwell Sympsium, as the gathering was called, explored an approach to evangelism that seeks to uncover the various barriers to belief and to suggest ways of overcoming these, so as to lead a person, using a conversational approach, towards an understanding of God’s point of view.

A.  RELATIONSHIP BUILDING – Go to people as Christ’s ambassador

Lock 1: Truth suppressed by wickedness (Romans 1.18)

  • Unbelievers avoid Christians when they know they will be challenged about their lifestyle.
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Puritan evangelism

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J.I. Packer has an interesting note on the Puritan approach to evangelism.

Their programme as evangelists (Packer writes) was no more specialised than this: to teach and apply the Scriptures in a patient, thorough way, ranging wide in their declarations of the whole counsel of God but constantly returning to three themes.

Theme one was the length, breadth, height and depth of everyone’s need to be converted and saved.

Theme two was the length, breadth, depth, and height of the love of God, who sent his Son to the cross for sinners, and of Christ, who from his throne calls burdened souls to himself for their salvation.…