Evangelistic Methods

Turning the spiritual tide in New Zealand will require serious sharing of the gospel of Jesus. A revival of faith will need a catalyst of evangelism. However, I have to wonder if the church has the effective methods of evangelism that will be effective in the modern world.

Jesus used to main methods of evangelism.

• Healing a sick person and preaching the good news with the crowd that gathered to watch.

• Sending a pair of disciples into a village to share the good news with the people living there.

These methods see to have gone out of favour.

The methods of evangelism that used to be effective for the church no longer seem to work.

• Large evangelistic rallies like those conducted by Billy Graham. It is hard to see this method being successful in the NZ culture.

• Door-to-door evangelism used to be popular, but it is no longer used, because it is difficult to find people at home. Even travelling sales people have given up.

• Having an altar call at the end of a sermon at church service still works, but it will only reach that segment of the population that is willing to go to a church meeting.

• The Alpha Course works for some churches, but it only seems to be effective for some types of people.

• Some pastors are pushing work-place evangelism, but this is not always practical, because managers or owners have control over what happens on their premises. People are not always free to talk about religion at the end.

This list does not inspire confidence for the future. What have I missed? If you have a method of evangelism that is effective for you in the modern world, please describe it in a comment below.