Lausanne World Pulse – Evangelism as Story Telling
By Michael Cassidy
There are, as we all know, many different types of evangelism. There is the straight didactic and kerygmatic proclamation of the gospel content with no frills of any sort added. There is issue evangelism, when we package the gospel around the addressing of an issue or use an issue as a pretext, once addressed, for bringing in the gospel. There is evangelism as apologetics, when we do the necessary intellectual jungle-clearing so that difficulties and obstacles are faced and dealt with, thereby paving the way for the simple proclamation of the kerygma. Evangelism can also be done as part of an expository exegesis of a biblical text or passage. There is also need evangelism, when we address a particular need such as guilt, emptiness, loneliness, or meaninglessness, and after or while doing so, we bring in the gospel and its relevance to that need.
While these and other methods of conveying the gospel and doing evangelism exist, there is one on which I want to focus here because I believe it has particular relevance in these post-modern times. It is a method I call story telling with the didactics of the gospel attached, included, or embedded in the story.
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A number of factors point to the need to recover |
This is very powerful because most post-modernists, especially young ones, while they do not want argument, are nevertheless ready for demonstration. If we can tell them about something that actually works and makes a meaningful difference in life, people are interested. Thundering at them with the didactics of the gospel sometimes simply produces resistance. But if they hear a compelling story about what Jesus Christ has done in our lives, they not only find it hard to argue against, but are in fact positively interested in finding out more about how Jesus can work and make a difference in their lives as well. Their inner, even secret, question is: “Can you tell me about something which really works and makes a difference?”
My Story—His Story
In a mission I did some years ago at Michaelhouse, my old high school, I made the theme of the mission “My Story Meeting His (Story).” I invited a wide range of participants, including a businessman, an actor, a pop singer, a scientist, a farmer, an actuarial professor from a university, a couple of sportsmen, and so on. I told each of them to simply speak on that one subject on which each was a world expert, namely themselves! In other words, “Just tell your story and weave in the gospel as you are led and able.”
The whole exercise worked like a charm. As the boys heard story after story, with each life testifying to being changed and transformed as it connected to Jesus’ story (his-story), the lads found themselves astonished at the way “the dice seemed to roll six all the time,” and that all these lives were changed and transformed as the individual story of each person intersected with the story of Jesus Christ.
Since that time, I have conducted several university missions using that same technique, a technique very different from earlier university missions, which were more strongly focussed on historical or philosophical apologetics.
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Michael Cassidy is the founder of African Enterprise. Author of a number of books, he has also played a key role as a Christian leader involved in reconciliation in South Africa. |