Conversation about God in western culture faces a real dilemma. The public is simultaneously eager and embarrassed to talk about God. They welcome spirituality and dislike religion, which means that just organizing ideas about warm fuzzy feelings somehow seems wrong. Once the hugs are over and the music stops, everybody gets tongue-tied. Ironically, Christians seem just as confused: excited and shy at the same time. We are so pleased to know Christ and so wary to share the opportunity with others. Seekers and believers are like teenagers who like each other but don’t know how to dance. Two recent books on evangelism try to remedy that dilemma.
The first book is: Got Style? Personality Based Evangelism by Jeffrey A. Johnson (Judson Press, 2009). There have been a number of personal growth books tied to personality such as Corrine Ware’s Discover Your Spiritual Type (Alban, 1995) and Soultypes: Matching Your Personality and Spiritual Path by Sandra Krebs Hirsh (Augsburg, 2006). Jeff Johnson’s book is geared to public interaction more than personal introspection. He provides excellent summaries of different “styles” of evangelism: assertive, analytical, storytelling, relational, invitational, and incarnational. The simple assessment tool gives a believer confidence for faith sharing without awkwardness. Use this for intentional lay training. Yes, even you can dance!
The second book is: Organic Outreach for Ordinary People: Sharing Good News Naturally by Kevin G. Harney (Zondervan, 2009). It reminds me of an effective little book some years ago by my friend Harold Percy: Good News People: An Introduction to Evangelism for Tongue-Tied Christians (Anglican Book, 1997). Harney’s book helps people get the attitude, shape the message, model the Gospel, and let the conversation flow naturally out of your lifestyle. It’s organized into brief databytes and reads more like a self-help book. Use this for small group discussion. The joy of dancing is mainly about looking your partner in the eyes and smiling.
The key to effective evangelism in a skeptical world is to make it “incarnational”. Jeff Jones saves his discussion of “incarnational style” for the end of the book, but it really is the foundation of everything. Even when you read the chapter, you sense that “being incarnational” is not so much another alternative style, but a basic posture of the soul. I recommend that anyone reading Harney’s book should start with Part 2, Chapter 8, where he talks about “Incarnational Living”. Then read Part 3 to get practical. And save Part 1 for last. This is more intellectual.
It seems to me that the design of evangelism books should model the actual phenomenon of successful evangelism in the mission field today. We have always tended to start with introspection, and then moved on to conversation. The problem, of course, is that we never seem to complete the introspection part. Successful evangelism starts with conversation, and uses that to provoke introspection. If we think we first have to know it all before we share anything, we’ll never get started. Grow as you go.
Tom Bandy
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