Re-imagining Evangelism
When you hear the word “evangelism,” what do you imagine? Conventionally we imagine it as taking the message of the gospel and sharing it with others, many times trying to convince them to believe. You can find parallels to this in the marketing with the concept of a “push strategy”. It’s where you have an idea, and you “sell” it to your customers. Passing flyers, cold-telemarketing, and door to door sales are all examples of push strategies.
In any type of push strategy, there is the hurdle of overcoming the consumer’s skepticism, which by default increases your need to “sell” the idea. When applied to evangelism, this skepticism only heightens. Think about it: you are basically telling them that everything they have believed in up until now is wrong, and in order for it to be right, you need to turn your life around 180. As the world’s greatest news, the Gospel can also become a person’s biggest slap in the face if you deliver it in an insensitive way.
Something like Rep the King sweaters are backwards in conventional Evangelism in the sense that it follows a pull strategy. Instead of “selling an idea,” you create a space in which they enter, and instead of you pushing to talk about Jesus, they initiate dialogue and start asking the questions. “What are you wearing? Who is the King?”
Suddenly a space is created where you can talk about God in a non-intrusive way. Instead of forced conversation, open and natural dialogue is created. And they have to listen, because they asked the question.
KingdomCulture is about creating spaces. I think we can even learn from Jesus’s ministry. He wasn’t about trying to convince the crowds to follow him and believe his message was true. The masses followed him, in part because he had an ability to stay relevant and genuine to his audience. So how can we create spaces and opportunities to talk about the gospel in non-intrusive ways? How can we creatively share the love of God in ways that stay relevant to our communities?
This is KingdomCulture.
(via ntxhaishmoob)
