Evangelism is not often thought of as a discipline, possibly because evangelism is often left to those who are called to the ministry. Many lay people believe that one must have a particular spiritual gift in order to share their faith. Evangelism is indeed a spiritual discipline. Discipline is extremely necessary if evangelism is to be effective and consistently practiced. If prayer is the hardest discipline to maintain, then evangelism is certainly the hardest discipline to begin. Probably no other discipline creates such terror in the Christian as that of evangelism.
There are several things I was reminded of recently. First, evangelism is expected. All Christians are not expected to use the same methods of evangelism, but all Christians are expected to evangelize. Also, evangelism is empowered. The power of evangelism is not ourselves, but is the Holy Spirit.
Christians fear failure in evangelism, which to most means rejection of the gospel. That is not failure; not faithfully sharing Christ is true failure. We are not called to save, we are called to share the gospel. Conviction and conversion is the work of the Spirit. Success is measured by how faithfully we share the gospel, not by how many notches we put on our evangelical gun belt. Evangelism should be a natural flow of the Christian life.
It is important for us to get a fresh glimpse of what it means to be a follower of Christ. In today’s society, we have lost our sense of identity. The early church knew who they were, what they believed and why they believed it. In order to see Christianity in a new light, we must reexamine the salvation process. The postmodern view of salvation is one that tends to shift from the traditional view of God’s redemptive power of the cross and a believer’s response to that sacrifice. Postmoderns view salvation as universal. By Christ’s death on the cross, we all are assured salvation. This view comes from the religiously pluralistic society in which we live. It is hard for most postmoderns to believe that an all-loving and all-powerful God could send someone to hell for not adopting a certain belief system.
As a result, postmodern evangelicals have adopted new approaches to evangelism. One way is the approach of discipiling a person before he or she comes to Christ. This approach allows a person to ask questions and get to know more about God and His love for them and does not pressure them to hurry up and say a prayer. Postmodern evangelicals realize salvation is a process of transformation that begins with putting one’s trust in Christ. Also, once a person comes to Christ, he or she is put in an environment to facilitate growth and spiritual maturity and learn what it means to follow Christ by being immersed within a community of believers to aid in this process.
The main weakness I see is that it could be easy for a person to value the process more than the decision. In reality, it all comes down to a personal decision to accept or reject Christ’s gift of salvation. The process is good in helping people come to realize their need for Christ, but it should be viewed as a way to help someone through the decision-making process. We also need to help people develop a new thirst and hunger to hear and relate to the story of God. Narrative theology is a term that refers to the theology that can be learned and applied to one’s life when you look at the narrative stories in the Bible. It is a view of theology that finds meaning in the story itself. We can learn about the nature and character of God. The Bible is a relational book. We can see through these narrative stories God’s relationship to man, man’s relationship to God and man’s relationship to man. The Bible stories are there to teach us truth of who God is, and then we have to apply these lessons to our lives. We are supposed to interpret and apply these stories according to the original intentions of the authors of Scripture and not by our own criteria.
I believe the narrative theology really communicates to the postmodern mind. We cannot assume the people tp whom we minister every week have any biblical knowledge at all. The narrative approach helps draw them into God’s story. It is up to us to help them see God has a part for them to play in that story. We have to be careful when using this approach because we do not want to open the door for people to interject their own interpretation of the story. We have to convey the absolute truth contained in those stories without compromising the integrity of the message itself. We need to be the church of the marketplace. The church needs to get back to a holistic approach as it reaches out to the community in which it finds itself. We need to be able to explain the narratives of the Bible and use them to shine light on universal truth. We need also to tell our own narrative of how God has changed our lives. Our testimony can help illustrate that God is still in the business of changing lives. The churches that are making the most impact in their communities have achieved a balance between a narrative theology and relational apologetics. This how we are going to help turn the tide of relativism and apathy with the church and the world.
