Monday 26 December 2011

Contemporary Trends In Evangelism

I'm going to be spending a fair chunk of time between now and the start of next semester tarting up my MA module, Contemporary Trends in Evangelism.  Thought I'd send a call out to see if anyone would like to suggest anything that ought to be included. 

As it stands we take a look at:
  • the shift in the dominant paradigm of evangelism from the revivalist rally to process evangelism courses 
  • church planting and contextualisation
  • evangelism as faithful, distinctive ecclesial witness
  • evangelism and worship
  • evangelism, community ministry and social action
  • evangelism and the emerging church movement
  • evangelism, pluralism and dialogue
  • evangelism in the digital age

Anything else you can think of that ought to be included in an M level course?  Any key resources that I ought not to overlook?

As a reward for being so helpful, I thought I'd scatter on the floor of this 'ere blog a few fragments that I've snapped off my recent thinking about evangelism.  Perhaps one or two might twinkle just enough to catch your eye and please you.

Here's fragment number one.  More to follow - a bit like iTunes' 12 days of Christmas ap, only a bit less exciting and with a smaller take up and there might not be 12 of them and I probably won't be posting one a day for the next 12 days, but otherwise ...

Evangelistic Fragment One: On Motives.Good motives for evangelism include a concern for truth (the gospel is true), a longing for others to flourish (the gospel does you good) and a desire that God should be glorified (the gospel is not just an abstract truth, the gospel is not just about human benefit it is also a worship-inspiring disclosure of divine being).

7 comments:

ashley said...

One area we've found very helpful in a multi-cultural setting (over 30 nationalities) in the church, is the idea of being family and that everything revolves around relationship.
To be able to recognise and understand, what is cultural and what is other faith traditions. (there are many simalarities) I believe this is key to how we reach out with the 'good news' showing people of all nations the love of the incarnate God in Jesus.
Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Great to open this up Glen. Some thought-provoking snippets which are appreciated.

One topic I wonder could be included as a contemporary trend, (if not included in another module), is the fact that since 2008 the world has become a predominantly urban environment with most people living in cities. I often challenge students that if churches and agencies are not ensuring that their communication strategies are relevant for our urban environments then they are rapidly becoming less effective at reaching the majority of our population - a challenge for those denominations which are predominantly suburban in nature.

There's a great link to the facts here (but loads more available elsewhere): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/world/06/urbanisation/html/urbanisation.stm

Glen Marshall said...

Hi both, Yup, I reckon that the whole urban/multicultural agenda is huge.

Peter Dominey said...

I'll chip in with "Evangelism and Conversion".
What does conversion look like?
Some shifts from conversion "from" to conversion "for"...
Some shifts from others being converted to the evangelist being converted - two way conversion...

Peter Dominey said...

I've no idea why Google is calling me "ddddddddddd"! (Peter Dominey)

Glen Marshall said...

Thanks Peter, been wondering for a while now if there isn't mileage in revisiting our understanding of conversion.

Re ddddddddd - I'm assuming it's nothing to do with the size of your chest.

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