As a church that cares about Jesus and seeing others follow Him and find themselves get caught up in His story (instead of the many stories we live instead), we have been trying to think creatively about how to be a little more intentional (yet still incarnational) with our efforts at evangelism (ghasp! the E word!).
I personally think the word evangelism has gotten a bad rap due to the ways we Christians have gone about it in the recent past (sealing the deal, finding targets, war analogies, etc). Despite the fact that a lot of people are freaked out when they hear the word evangelism, I’m still convinced that its not evangelism itself that sucks. I think some of the ways I have approached it in the past have sucked. But, not evangelism itself. (Perhaps the best commentary on contemporary evangelism that I have seen was in the Hollywood movie “The Big Kahuna.” Its a real provocative movie that takes a look at the “sales” nature of evangelism and is great to watch in a small group or with a few friends. )
Anyways, like I said, as a church that still cares about evangelism (hopefully done in a helpful, Christlike way) we are working out what it would look like to have a team of people who are gifted as evangelists (or Storytellers as JR helpfully puts it) lead the rest of us in “doing the work of evangelists.”
So here is my question for all you people who read this blog…I’m not necessarily trying to get free help here, I am just really curious how you might look at this topic…
How do you think a church can give those gifted as “evangelists” a chance to lead the rest of the community?
What would an evangelism, or storyteller or community outreach team look like in a suburban, postmodern, consumer, almost post Christian culture?
So, what do you think?