The Four Methods of Evangelism - Research Paper Example

How to disseminate the gospel in four ways Table of Contents Introduction 3 Methods of evangelism 3 a. Evangelism Explosion 4 b. Lifestyle evangelism 5 c. Friendship evangelism 6 d. Servant Evangelism 7 Conclusion: Application to life situations 8 Bibliography 11 How to disseminate the gospel in four ways Introduction This study analyzes the four methods of evangelism: the Evangelism Explosion, Lifestyle Evangelism, Friendship Evangelism and Servant Evangelism. A summary of each method, advantages and disadvantages of each method is described in the study. A conclusion is derived upon which two methods are chosen which I believe is the best method to apply to non-believers in my life. Evangelism, in this study, is defined as the zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel as through missionary work. 1. A non-believer is described as someone who lacks belief or faith, as in god, religion, an idea or an undertaking. Zoll 2 revealed in his study that there many Americans today are non-believers, or have no religion. In a wide range study done on American religious life, Zoll’s study showed that the percentage of Roman Catholic believers have been declining, while the percentage of those who said they have no religion at all is increasing. In the same way, the percentage of Christians who are not Catholics suffered also a decline. According to Zoll, there are 57 million Catholics in the US today, but its population has declined by percentage point to 25 percent. In 2008, Zoll reported that there is also a dwindling rank of mainline Protestants including Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians that dropped from over 17 percent to 12.9 percent of its population. Four methods of evangelism What then are the most appropriate evangelization methods to bring back or convert these non-believers to the Catholic fold or to other denomination? Is it the evangelism explosion, lifestyle explosion, friendship evangelism or the servant evangelism? a. Evangelism Explosion If one chooses Evangelism Explosion, one experiences the concept of “spiritual multiplication”. In Evangelism Explosion, people are trained how to share their faith in Christ. This approach uses prayer, actual on-the-job training where the “experienced lead the inexperienced, and applies the principle of spiritual multiplication.” The EE is a continuous process wherein it is not only winning people to the Lord on a one on one process but training those who have been won to the Lord to win and train others. EE is like being on an real life work experience as one is expected to have an “on the job training” wherein non believers are invited to go with experienced trainers and be able to witness situations wherein people learn how to share their faith. EE based their mission strategy on Jesus’ own strategy wherein He trained 12 disciples and taught them how to train others and so on, thus the theory of spiritual multiplicity started. 3 The advantage of this approach is that EE believes that by learning small parts of the Gospel each week, including Bible verses and illustrations, people will have a hold of the Gospel tool that will eventually become its lifelong mission The difficulty I see in this approach is in doing the outreach or getting to the people one wants to convince. Often enough, non believers are steadfast in their attitude and do not welcome evangelists in their home or area. I relate this from my own experience from a group of foreign evangelists who knocked on my door one day wanting to talk to me about the gospel and Christian Faith. I did not let them in, first because I could not readily understood the way they communicate, second, I was so busy with something else at that time. So they just left me with some literatures about religion that I could read later on. So here, communication, time and attitude are the concerned problems so that it will take time and patience to be able to teach people and to train them to become teachers so that the multiplicity trend will continue. b. Lifestyle evangelism Lifestyle evangelism is another approach to convert non-believers to our faith. In a survey done in 1998 by Church Growth Inc. of Monrovia, California, the personal relation has been found to be the most effective way of evangelism4. Evangelism by a friend or relative has been found to be 78% effectively done rather than by a pastor who got 6% only. It is far better than Sunday school at 5%; church service or program, 3%, Walk-in off the street 3%, special need 2%, personal visitation 2% and evangelistic crusade on TV This is an interesting revelation as I thought the evangelistic crusade aired on television reaches large audiences and become believers of faith since they draw a large number of sponsors for their program and crusade. Lifestyle evangelism starts with developing friendship and not to become a hard core evangelist of directly sharing one’s faith or by treating them only as a church assignment. I think when one is considered only as a church assignment, it is like a sales quota one has to reach, and that is the end of the mission. Sometimes, a quota requires coercion, and fulfilling the mission because one is ordered to do it, and acted without love and concern. Even the pastor who does his homework regularly is not so effective in reaching the people, and curiously enough church service or program is poorly rated. So in this statistics, nothing compares to lifestyle evangelism because of the word love and care. Many of lifestyle work begin with volunteer work and putting the word of God into action, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. In lifestyle evangelism, friendships should not be motivated by evangelistic concern because people will see it and they feel it as deceitful and manipulative. There are subtle ways to show them of our faith, for instance, we can invite them to church activities like parish fiestas to let them understand the religious tradition in a non-threatening manner, Above all, lifestyle evangelism is practicing the virtue of patience that is a considered a disadvantage of the method. One tends to think of how much patience, how time should one invest to person in order to convince him/her to one’s faith5. In lifestyle evangelism, you do not expect a person to believe overnight and immediately fall in love with one’s faith. One should understand that the non-believer has to wrestle with his own beliefs that may greatly differ with yours. c. Friendship evangelism. This approach is somewhat related with lifestyle evangelism in that approach starts with mutual trust and respect with each other that happens only with friends. Friendship evangelism means caring for people, and in this context, there are many factors to mull over in reaching them. Friendship evangelism thinks of the needs of the people they hope to reach: they need to care, to accept, to establish meaningful relationship, to stay close to them, and to help them in tough times. They do this because they follow the example given by God who gave His one and only son to the world because He loves the world (John 3:16). This method is based on the belief that the best evangelism comes when you really love and care about someone and demonstrates this love for others by showing them and not telling them. Friendship evangelism is done in many ways. Here, an evangelist thinks of the people they want to reach, and then pray for an opportunity to talk to them. He then seizes the opportunity to talk, listen and become a friend. He shows them that he cares; he spends quality time with them and concentrates on what they need; an FE goes out of his way to become the best of his friends, and then let the love of God pours on them. An FE at this point can start sharing God’s truth with them. An FE becomes the “ambassador of God” who delivers messages that speaks in behalf of God 6 Critical observation on FE is that it takes time and patience to establish friendship and start spreading the gospel. We should also remember that each individual has cultural differences that could hinder relations. Racial differences are embedded in one’s culture such as there is diversity in beliefs and religion which is difficult to erase in a short time. d. Servant Evangelism Servant Evangelism takes the power of kindness as a starting point of getting into the lives of non-believers. It has a motto of “Small Things Done with Great Love is changing the world”. SE follows Jesus’ example of noticing people with kindness, love and generosity. The SE community which was established by Pastor Steve Sjogren fifteen years ago grew from a handful to 7,500 attendances today because accordingly, followers have discovered the power and impact of “showing God’s love in practical ways”. Steve believes that “Kindness builds the bridge for the person to receive a touch of love from God. It's simple, practical, effective, inexpensive and fun!” For instance, Steve cited experience of sharing a can of cold soft drinks in the middle of a hot and sunny day by someone who is smiling, happy and having fun.7 The shortages of this approach is the lack of strength of the SE because too often this is the problem of someone who is timid, shy and introvert person, so that he/she just sets aside the opportunity of being kind to someone. Another thing is the availability of time and resources. Not everyone considers they have the time and resources to go around spreading the obedience and rally behind the kindness virtue to people SE wants to reach. Conclusion Application to life situations. There are two methods that could exemplify the evangelism prevailing in the Marriage Encounter Community: the Evangelism Explosion and the Friendship Explosion. The Evangelism Ministry was set up by Dr. James Kennedy in May 1959 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. At that time, he was disappointed when he started with a group of 50 which eventually went down to19, so he underwent a series of training on personal evangelism. It took three years before the fruit of his endeavor bore fruit because in 1962 he received a call from one of his trainees who led someone to Christ, and so this was considered the birth of Evangelism Explosion. By 1966, EE has spread in every nation in the world. He died at age 76 but left a legacy of an impressive growth of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in fort Lauderdale, Florida, a Knox Theological Seminary, Westminster Academy, The D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship, Reclaiming America for Christ, hosted the Truths That Transform radio program, the Coral Ridge Hour television program, and authored numerous books. Dr. Kennedy is an example of living out personal witness in his daily life. To him, “The best thing we can do is to obey Christ, continue spreading the Gospel, and train others to do the same”8 In Friendship Explosion, everything starts with the idea of caring for people. It is more than just leading the non-believer to Christ because receiving Christ is only the first important step, but finishing with Christ is what really matters. This is likened to finishing a good project where you put all your efforts, heart and soul from the beginning to the end. To FE, being a friend is something everybody else is capable of doing, and therefore friendship evangelism is something that we can all do. FE believes that “you and I can make a difference in a lot of peoples’ lives during our lifetime, and if every believer would be a friend to someone, and gently lead them to the knowledge of Christ….what a world we would see”. We now look which is the most appropriate evangelism approach to the Marriage Encounter Community. The Marriage Encounter is a movement in the Catholic Church aimed at revitalizing Christian marriage. It is the largest and the longest-lived pro-marriage movement in the world and is actively present in 92 countries. It is found mostly as a parish-based movement in every Catholic Church in the Philippines as well as in other parishes in the world. We then relate the “spiritual multiplicity” and friendship evangelism in the marriage community of one of the parishes in the Valenzuela City, Philippines, the Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish Marriage Encounter Community. This particular ME community started its first ME weekend seminar in 2009 with nine couples. During this weekend, couples learned the technique of loving communication which they can use for the rest of their lives. During this time, a series of presentations are given by a team of catholic couples and a priest. Each presentation allows the couples to look at themselves as individuals, look at their marriage and relationship to one another, their relationship to God, and finally, their relationship to the world. By continuing the newly acquired technique from the weekend seminar, couples continue to grow closer and live a more joyful and purposeful life with each other. As part of the experience, the availability of community of elders who shared the weekend and who share similar values provide supportive environment for further growth9. The process of weekend seminar continues semi-annually or yearly as new couples experience the Marriage Weekend, trainings are sponsored by previous classes, and multiplicity spells its growth. In 2011, the OLHRP has sponsored the 3rd ME weekend seminar, making a total of 35 couples or 70 persons brought to a closer relationship with each other, to God and to their neighbors in a span of three years. Explosion evangelism differs with friendship evangelism as it reaches out to a group of couples in a given time, and sharing and presentations are given by trained couples. Repetition of the process is encouraged by inviting more couples on an appointed weekend and trainings will be initiated by those who have been won by the process. Friendship approach is one on one process of caring and loving the target person which could be anyone of your friends, neighbors or relatives. It does not need to be a couple. There is no need of elaborate planning, timing and expense. It only waits for an opportune time to talk and become friends with them. Friendship can start anywhere, in the church, in social events, in the park, or even with somebody you do not even know. For instance, by showing kindness and being helpful when one is in great need sparks the seed of friendship. The Evangelism Explosion best describes the situation prevailing in the Marriage Encounter Community. The ME community is not at all affiliated with the Evangelism Explosion Ministry founded by Dr. James Kennedy, but the situation that is existing here satisfies the EE concept of “spiritual multiplication”. If we think about its impact to couples who have attended a WWME Weekend, we can have a clear picture of explosion. Statistics from the Worldwide ME showed that there are about 15,000 couples a year who attend the ME Weekend in the US. It has registered about an overall 2,000,000 couples who have attended a U.S. ME weekend for the past 28 years and 5,000,000 more couples attending ME weekends in other countries during the same period10. References American Heritage Dictionary. n.d. Evangelism definition. http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/evangelism . Accessed 30 May 2011 Barker, Jason, 2005. Lifestyle Evangelization. Department of Youth Ministry - Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. http://www.orthodoxyouth.org/romans/print/10lifestyleevangelism.htm. Accessed 31 May 2011 Christian Military Fellowship. n.d. Relational Evangelism. http://www.cmfhq.org/Ministries/TrainingDiscipleship/RelationalEvangelism/tabid/135/Default.aspx. Accessed 31 May 2011 Evangelization Explosion International. 2011. What is EE?. http://www.eeinternational.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=23909. Accessed 31 May 2011 Gee, Mark, 2000. Friendship Evangelism http://www.mindspring.com/~mamcgee/grace_friendship.html . Accessed 31 May 2011 ME About us, 2011. OLHRP ME Publication No. 2. OLHRP Parish, Valenzuela City, Philippines. PR Web. 2007. Evangelism Explosion International's Founder and President, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Passes Away http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/09/prweb551554.htm. Accessed 31 May 2011 Sjogren, Steve, 21011. The skill of noticing. Servant Evangelism. http://www.servantevangelism.com/articles/article.cfm?id=4. Accessed 31 May 2011 What is Worldwide Marriage Encounter, 2004. http://www.mevictoria.org/FAQ.HTM). Accessed 31 May 2011 Zoll, Rachel (2009) More Americans Say they have no Religion. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/more-americans-say-they-h_n_173044.html. Accessed 31 May 2011 Read More