it's facinating how on a cultural level, jesus has been portrayed as the "great hook up" and marketed on the basis of what he can do for you, and conversly, what you can get out of him. theologically, this is one of the great mistakes of modern evangelism... i'm facinated by this phenomenon and the possibility of what it means for the church to address this wrong. that's what i had in mind when i painted this one: http://elnellis.blogspot.com/2006/05/fear-shame-or-e-z-free.html
phil, i've been thinking about this whole approach to modern evangelism lately as well. i've been asked to go to our church's elders meeting on wednesday night to talk with them about the in's and out's of the emergent church as they're curious as to what it's all about. one of the areas that i really see a difference is the area of evangelism, as you've just mentioned... i was thinking about it today in church as we have a summer day camp for kids to come to and we see about 1000 kids pass through in a given summer. each week our youth are responsible to do "interviews" with the kids on their teams, present the Gospel to them, and then lead the kids to Christ if they want to. and for the past several years there was always a weekly report of "hey, Praise God, we had 50 kids get saved this week." this year and the past couple of years, the reports are more along the lines of 10 kids instead of 50. and i wondered if that's because our youth are beginning to question the methodoligies of modern evangelism and are no longer going the route of "hey, you need a Jesus [or mentos] to make your life better and you'll get to go to heaven too... you DO want to go to heaven, don't you?" and are really pressing in to see where the children are at on a spiritual/affective/cognitive level as it relates to the Gospel...
i may ask a few of my youth why the numbers have dropped the past couple years... i'll be interested to hear their responses...
2 comments:
it's facinating how on a cultural level, jesus has been portrayed as the "great hook up" and marketed on the basis of what he can do for you, and conversly, what you can get out of him. theologically, this is one of the great mistakes of modern evangelism...
i'm facinated by this phenomenon and the possibility of what it means for the church to address this wrong.
that's what i had in mind when i painted this one:
http://elnellis.blogspot.com/2006/05/fear-shame-or-e-z-free.html
phil, i've been thinking about this whole approach to modern evangelism lately as well. i've been asked to go to our church's elders meeting on wednesday night to talk with them about the in's and out's of the emergent church as they're curious as to what it's all about. one of the areas that i really see a difference is the area of evangelism, as you've just mentioned... i was thinking about it today in church as we have a summer day camp for kids to come to and we see about 1000 kids pass through in a given summer. each week our youth are responsible to do "interviews" with the kids on their teams, present the Gospel to them, and then lead the kids to Christ if they want to. and for the past several years there was always a weekly report of "hey, Praise God, we had 50 kids get saved this week." this year and the past couple of years, the reports are more along the lines of 10 kids instead of 50. and i wondered if that's because our youth are beginning to question the methodoligies of modern evangelism and are no longer going the route of "hey, you need a Jesus [or mentos] to make your life better and you'll get to go to heaven too... you DO want to go to heaven, don't you?" and are really pressing in to see where the children are at on a spiritual/affective/cognitive level as it relates to the Gospel...
i may ask a few of my youth why the numbers have dropped the past couple years... i'll be interested to hear their responses...
and, yes, brian... "yikes" is right.
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