Rethinking Evangelism/Witnessing – Part 1

 

For some time now, but especially during the past year or so, I have been doing some serious rethinking about how we present the gospel–aka do evangelism–at Tall Turf. Somewhere along the line, we seemed to take more of a formula or scripted approach that would end up by leading a kid to recite/repeat the “sinner’s prayer” in order to get them saved. I have never been particularly comfortable with this approach for a number of reasons. I think we need to be much more sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and meet each kid where they are. That means, among other things, that maybe we are just supposed to be the ones who cultivate/prepare the soil, plant the seed, or provide the water and sonlight needed to grow and not always end up trying to harvest the seed that has just been planted.

Anyway, there are three books that are helping me think through this more carefully. The titles and authors are as follows:

More Ready Than You Realize, by Brian McLaren

Reimagining Evangelism by Rick Richardson

Evangelism Without the Additives by Jim Henderson

I began sharing these thoughts with some of the Tall Turf’s program leadership this past spring and spoke about them during my presentation on evangelism during our summer staff orientation this year.

Until the next time …

Shalom!

Jack