A New Approach to Evangelism

In the past, we used a version of evangelism that memorized scripture and followed a script with leading questions designed to move the subject to a “Yes” answer.

“Yes, I want to go to heaven when I die.”

“Yes, I believe Jesus is the Son of God, that he was crucified and rose from the dead.” “Yes! Yes.”

“Well, then,” we said to them, “The Bible says in Romans 10:9, ‘that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Congratulations – you are now a Christian.” No emotion. No heart witness. Not even any real conviction. Only a superficial acknowledgement of the facts, that fifty years ago, almost all Americans believed.

Times have changed.

A conversation with a young millennial or Gen Z, and you are likely to be met with frontal resistance. “No, I am not sure I want to go to heaven, or that such a place exists.”

“No, I am not sure that Jesus is anything more a myth – he’s like the tooth fairy, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.”

“‘Rose from the dead?’ Are you out of your mind.” You will find little reverence for holy things, no tolerance for mystery, and no willingness to take a leap of faith in the dark. How do we reach such a culture?

We need a new approach to evangelism. The older approach above is evangelism on the continuum of truth. It seeks an affirmation to scripture as the gateway to salvation. We quote one verse, and then another passage of scripture, soliciting agreement – but the agreement is often superficial, one-dimensional, cognitive assent only. In this approach, we majored in truth. We reached into the apologetics bag, laying out the case for Christ. We may have won the argument but still lost the soul.

Is there another way?

In Acts 16, there are three gateways to salvation.

• First, Paul engages Lydia on the continuum of truth. She is a truth seeker. You will meet some Lydia types – open, ready, hungry for truth (Acts 16:13-15).

• Paul then encountered the slave girl. She was under the control of an evil spirit, following them in the city, channeling the demon inside her. She was not rational enough for a truth encounter. She was not sober mentally. She was deluded and under Satan’s power. She needed to be delivered by a power encounter. She needed liberty that could only come by the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 16:16-18).

• The jailer had no doubt heard components of Paul’s preaching, and he had witnessed something of the slave’s girls’ deliverance. But he was not moved by either truth or a manifestation of power. Only when Paul and Silas were praying at midnight and an earthquake broke off their stocks and bonds and flung the prison doors open, and Paul refused to escape, knowing that fleeing would lead to the guard’s death – only then did God have his attention. “What manner of love is this?” – he must have thought to himself. Moved, that he had lacked compassion by throwing them into the inner prison without medical aid, he took them to his home and treated them. He may have missed the clues around the story of the slave girl, but he certainly could not miss the love Paul demonstrated toward him in the face of his callousness. He and his household heard the story of Christ and were saved (Acts 16:25-34).

Three Gateways – Truth, Love, Power

Think about lost family members and friends. Each of them may demand a different approach that opens them to the gospel. Who, in your circle, is open to truth – they are the easiest to win. Who is wrestling with some deadly habit, some addiction? Or they have gone deep into the woods of spiritual bondage. They have a cold, hard heart. They may be won only by an encounter with God’s Spirit. God will have to break the power that is controlling their lives. Then, there is the other person – they too are cold and indifferent. They have no interest in the gospel message, and they are not impressed with a miracle. But when fear surfaces in their lives, and they face the possibility of some calamity or even death, they are open to kindness, to God’s love. Who in your circle fits the profile of Lydia (truth seeker), the slave girl (needing a power encounter with God), or the jailer (the compassion, love gateway)?

These three approaches are not exclusive of each other. For example, the great truth is the unconditional love of God. And at the center of God’s love, one finds truth. It is not love that trues; it is truth that trues. Love is the sugar that makes the bitter medicine of truth go down. Love is the anesthesia. Without truth, there is no change. Nor can there be true love. Without truth, love is only a wrapping for a lie. Where love and truth intersection, we experience the Holy Spirit’s regenerative power, new life, liberation from the old to the new. Thus, love, truth, power.

There are times when the best arguments for truth don’t seem to work with this generation. A bridge is necessary to carry the heavy blocks of truth across. That bridge is love. In my youth, you could say “Jesus” and half a dozen people would admit that they needed God. You could catch fish with an un-baited hook. Not now, not generally. Then you witnessed and won the person to Christ usually in one encounter and then encouraged them to get into church and into a discipleship program. Evangelism – then discipleship. Now, witnessing is a process. It is not a one and done deal. You disciple the person toward conversion.

In the first three centuries of church history, a long season of discipleship often occurred. It sometimes lasted a year or more. At the end of that season, the individual seeking conversion went through an exorcism. They confessed their faith in Christ publicly and were baptized and only then did they receive their first communion. They were anointed with oil and prayed over, for the fullness of the Spirit, as a seal of their salvation. Why the long discipleship program? These were converts out of paganism. They had no background in Christianity. Salvation was a journey. It should not shock you that in this Harry Potter age, we now appear to be an occultic culture. A break needs to be made with such darkness. We may need to reconsider our evangelism-discipleship model. Are we filling up the church with folks who have never made a clean break with the world? Who has simply added church to their weekly schedule? Are we seeing converts who are being radically changed?