Helping young (and older) Christians do evangelism today

 

I am particularly indebted to an article by James Chambers that points out how our usual pitch for the Gospel may sound to today’s young:

“What are the most common components of the Gospel message you hear when it’s preached?

I asked this question to evangelists while leading a seminar on The Gospel & Emerging Communication, and they responded with the components you’d expect: God will forgive my sins; I will not go to hell but to heaven; God will make my life better; God wants to change my behaviour; I can be individually reconciled to God.

The follow-up question I asked next is the second question I’d like you to consider: If a millennial (holding the seven values mentioned above) heard you preach these Gospel components, what thoughts, questions, and responses might be elicited?

Just then, the evangelists had an epiphany about how the common Gospel message could be interpreted by millennials. Here were their responses:

• This Gospel is selfish. It impacts people on an individual level, reconciling them to God and improving their personal lives.
• This Gospel is naïve. We’re portrayed as escapists who just want to get to heaven, producing no earthly good beyond moralism.
• This Gospel is impotent. It doesn’t acknowledge the needs of our society or offer any solutions.”

 

Convictions to drive evangelism

We need to take these challenges seriously and give our young, and indeed all of us, real help in doing evangelism today. Our starting point must be the Scriptures but we also need the unchanging truth of the Bible to be in dialogue with the questions of the day.

Here are a number of convictions about God that can guide evangelism today.

1 . The God of Salvation

The primary problem of humankind is that we are sinners estranged from a holy God and that the only solution to the problem of sin is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith”. (Romans 3:23–25, NIV)

Whatever challenges we have in sharing the Gospel today, we cannot not preach the Gospel. It is at the heart of biblical faith.

Humankind is lost in sin and death but God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten son so that those who believe in Him can have eternal life. We must share the Gospel humbly and sensitively but we must share the Gospel.

 

This is an article from the Christian website, Salt&Light. The full article can be found by clicking on the link below: https://saltandlight.sg/evangelism/helping-young-and-older-christians-do-evangelism-today/

 

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