Jerram Barrs asserts in his book, “The Heart of Evangelism” that people are not projects. This seems like an obvious assumption, people are people. But somehow, in our evangelism this basic concept often gets tossed under the bus.
The methodology of evangelism is a highly debated topic; everyone has a strategy which they try to apply with broad strokes, calling it a revolutionary “new way” of doing evangelism. Barrs does not give us a radical “new way” of conducting evangelism, he reiterates the old way.
Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul approached evangelism in a very different way than these so called “New Approaches” to outreach. For them, evangelism is embodied in the purity of truth.
They separate their cultures from the truth so that truth can be applied to the cultures it transcends.
Barrs accepts and promotes this, saying that we cannot have a single method of evangelism and apply it to all situations and people.
Our evangelism should be theologically based not methodologically based. We should be transmitting the truth in whatever way possible to reach the lost. If truth is our focus, then we will not compromise under any circumstance or culture. Christian truth transcends culture not because every culture shares a piece of it, but because the truth remains the truth despite what human culture thinks.
The heart of evangelism is the truth of the gospel, a piercing truth that can transform and eradicate the hearts of darkness which we inherit at our birth.
2 comments:
This post had a certain je ne sais quoi, until that unique picture was removed. It's sad that in this age of extreme communication, we must also endure such censorship. I have no more joie de vivre.
La sauce est tout!
What is truly stunning is that you saw the picture at all, I placed it online for only a few minutes before thinking that it detracted from my point. I am truly sorry that the joie de vivre has been sucked from you because I edited the post.
And the sauce is indeed everything.
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