Simon Cox Blog: Reimagining Evangelism in Our Mission

Wednesday, 12 April 2017

Reimagining Evangelism in Our Mission

Early Bird Registration Ends Saturday

This June, we are bringing together hundreds of people to talk about Jesus, culture, and our witness in the world. We are calling the conference Amplify: Reimagining Evangelism in Our Mission. We have carefully chosen those words—Reimagining Evangelism—for a reason. Let me explain.

If I am honest, I will say that in many senses, we've lost our imagination, passion, and direction for evangelism. We need to put evangelism back into our imagination.

Evangelism has fallen on hard times. People are more likely to make fun of evangelistic methods than actually engage in evangelistic practices. Churches love discipleship and they love social justice, but if the Church is going to fulfill its mission of showing and sharing the love of Jesus in our world today, both of these need to link arms with evangelism. We have to tell people about Jesus.

Last year I wrote an article for the Washington Post, which they titled "Call yourself a Christian? Start talking about Jesus Christ." In that article, I reminded Christians that Jesus’ last words should be our first priority. The idea here is simple: Christianity is a missionary faith. As a missionary faith, our role in part is to share the good news of Jesus Christ. We have to get that back in the center of our imagination.

Additionally, we need to reimagine evangelism. Things that worked in the past likely will not work today. The first person I witnessed to was my dad. Forty years ago, I was a brand new Christian. I went home and said, "Dad, are you saved?" He answered, "Saved from what?" And I said, "I don't know, but you need to be."

I've learned a little about sharing the gospel since then. We’ve got to continually ...