Lausanne World Pulse – The Evolution of Evangelism: Ideas for the Road Ahead

June 2006

By Mark Russell

What makes Patrick so interesting (and so applicable for our discussion) is how he went about proclaiming the gospel to the Celtics. First, despite the fact that the people had enslaved him, he did not condemn them. Rather, he shared life with them. Second, despite the fact that he desired to teach the truth to them, he was also determined to learn from them.Patrick formed communities made up of believers and unbelievers. They learned from one another and journeyed through life together. The believers worked together as a team and were partners in conversation with the unbelievers. This is a case study for the concept that people belong before they believe and that faith is more caught than taught.

This is significantly different than many of our current methodologies. According to George Hunter, “In significant contrast to contemporary Christianity’s well-known evangelism approaches of ‘Lone Ranger,’ one-to-one evangelism, or confrontational evangelism or the public preaching crusade, (and in stark contrast to contemporary Christianity’s more dominant approach of not reaching out at all!)…The Celtic Christians usually evangelized as a team—by relating to the people of a settlement; identifying with the people; engaging in friendship, conversation, ministry and witness—with the goal of raising up a church in measurable time.”¹

Shanghai, China—an area in need of the gospel.

As a missionary in Chile several years ago, I started to think through how I could help people evangelize more effectively. The aforementioned anxiety issue continually perplexed me. Most people just did not want to evangelize. I soon stumbled into what I have coined the “conversational community.” I formed a group of Christians and we invited several non-Christians to join us. The original idea was to demonstrate evangelism to them so that they would do it later. However, I realized that in a group setting many people’s apprehensions regarding evangelism fell away. The same people who had sought to avoid evangelizing now explained the gospel message lucidly and effectively. Their anxiety had come from the perception of evangelism as a solitary exercise. It was not long before fruit was produced in our small humble group and we had increasing numbers of people who desired to be a part of our community. Later we moved to Germany and I sought to intentionally implement this strategy. Germans were not so quick to respond. This convinced me all the more that evangelism has to be of a progressive, ongoing nature, as opposed to a draw-the-line-in-the-sand-and-now-it-is-your-time-to-cross-over nature, as I had previously learned. In a conversation we need only share our story; we do not need to provide all the answers. In a community we do not need to do everything; we only need to do our part. In an age where experience is valued over truth, the conversational community creates a context for people to experience truth.

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Mark Russell is a doctoral student at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, USA. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky with his wife and their two children.