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What is evangelism

the man about Jesus and the Gospel. Before long, Larry and Bob's argument over this turns physical, with Larry storming out of the room.

Here is where Phil gently addresses Bob. Here is snippets of the conversation:

Phil:
"The question you have to ask yourself is: Has it touched to whole of my life? That means that you preaching Jesus is no different than Larry, or anybody else, preaching lubricants. It does matter whether you are selling Jesus, or Buddha or civil rights or how to make money on real estate with no money down. That doesn't makes you a human being. That makes you a marketing rep.

"If you want to talk to someone honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids, find out what his dreams. Just to find out. For no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation, to steer it, its not a conversation, its a pitch. And your not a human being. You're a sales rep."

This powerfully scene illustrates the pitfalls that we face when our best intentions collide with inappropriate methods. Too often we mimic the marketing models of the world, clinging with hope to their effectiveness and success, failing to see what the very nature of those methods do to the quality of the message we share. So what then can we do?

First, I want to be clear about something. I am in no way suggesting that proclamation evangelism is completely wrong, nor that many of the old models and methods must be forever abandon. Rather, I am suggesting that we as we seek to share the genuinely Good News of Jesus Christ, we must understand the powerful interplay between the medium and the message. There will be times when one approach is appropriate and necessary, and others where the same idea is not. The danger is when we use a few methods as the norm or pattern for all or most evangelism. The results, as we are increasingly seeing, are "easy-believism", increasing (and justified) critique of the Christian community and consumeristic, efficiency-based approach to "saving souls".

This will essentially require that we take very seriously the impact our faith has on every level of our lives. I am not suggesting that it will require us to be perfect and without fault (though higher standards of ethics and morality should obviously be a result). We must live our lives honestly before God and man, in our strengths and our weaknesses. As we are real and authentic with our own pursuit of wholeness out of our very real brokenness- without judgment, but with grace- engaging the transformative


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What is evangelism

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