Simon Cox Blog: The “E” Word: Why Many Avoid It, and How We Can Reimagine It

Tuesday, 25 April 2017

The “E” Word: Why Many Avoid It, and How We Can Reimagine It

Part One in a new series.

If we are honest, we must say that in many senses, we've lost our imagination, passion, and direction for evangelism. We need to put evangelism back into our imagination. To some, I may sound like a broken record (if you are old enough to remember records!). But I honestly believe there is nothing more worthy of pushing into and prodding the Church towards as making evangelism part of our daily lives. After all, it was the last command of Jesus before His ascension!

But why do I use the phrase “back into our imagination”? A quick definition from Merriam-Webster tells us that ‘imagination’ means “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.”

Evangelism has fallen on hard times and this definition is apropos. When it comes to evangelism, our imagination has become dim and marred in many ways. Most of us know someone whose heart beats for telling people about Jesus, and when we are near them, we are reminded of how we are not them.

Truth be told, 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 ...