While teaching a course in evangelism at Wycliffe College, the Rev. Canon Dr. Judy Paulsen noticed a strange thing. Most of her students, who were preparing for ordained and lay leadership in the Church, had a negative view of evangelism.
In their first class, the students were asked to respond to the word “evangelist.” Upon hearing the word, many said “Billy Graham” while others said “television,” “crusade,” “Mormons,” “street preacher” and “used car salesman.” One young woman simply drew a blank. When asked why, she replied, “My stomach just kind of tightened up.”
The students weren’t alone. A public opinion poll conducted in Canada some years ago found that only a sliver of the population viewed the word “evangelism” positively. Even among those deemed to be “religiously committed” (they believed in God, prayed and participated regularly in their faith community,) just 29 per cent said the word had a positive meaning. What’s more, other studies showed evangelism to be a low priority for churches. Many didn’t do it at all.
“After a couple of years of teaching the course, I realized we had to get a new framework – we had to begin to look at the problem,” says Canon Paulsen, who has just written an engaging new book on the subject, A New and Ancient Evangelism: Rediscovering the Ways God Calls and Sends.
Canon Paulsen, a professor of evangelism at Wycliffe College, served for 15 years as a priest in the Diocese of Toronto. She is the coordinator of the diocese’s Season of Spiritual Renewal, which seeks to refresh the spiritual lives of Anglicans in the diocese.
She says there are many reasons for the negative view of evangelism. One of them is the “sales-pitch” model that has been used by individuals and churches for decades. “It’s a model that says if you have the right strategy and the right tools and the right personality, then you will have the right arguments to convince people into the faith,” she says. “We know that most people recognize that there’s something wrong with that model. It’s not very relational – not based on authentic relationship – and it tends to flatten other people’s pre-existing spiritual views. Its biggest problem, though, is that it leaves God out of the picture. It’s very centred on a recipe and our ability to use that recipe.”
She knew the Church had to teach and practice evangelism in a different way. “How do we equip people to share their faith in a more relational, authentic and winsome manner? How do we convince people in the pews that they have something to share – the way that God has touched their lives, why they come to church and worship God, the moments when they’ve been especially aware of God’s presence?”
She turned to the stories of evangelism and conversion in scripture, to see if they could provide any lessons and insights. She was surprised at what she found. “When you start to explore these stories, you see that the sales pitch model is completely absent,” she says. “These stories are full of mystery, and they always start with God’s action first. They’re full of things like visions and dreams, of individuals obeying something that God has told them to do, of ordinary people who have found something in the person of Jesus and they simply can’t wait to tell other people because it’s something so revolutionary and life-transforming for them.”
She revised the course she was teaching – and still teaches – using these conversion stories and the wisdom they offered. The 13 stories and their insights form the heart of her new book.
The stories are from the Old and New Testament and show the conversion of people from all walks of life, including a blind man, a seeker cut off from God, a desperate general, a prison warden, a child prophet, a religious extremist, a successful businessperson and a tormented soul. The people come to God in many different ways, often with the assistance of ordinary people who have no religious education or training; they are simply helping the person along their spiritual journey that has already been started by God.
“Sometimes we think we need to have a big platform to be used by God, and that’s simply not true,” says Canon Paulsen. “In these stories, we see a word of hope spoken here, an invitation extended there, a word of encouragement offered. These are the simple ways in which God uses what we offer and then multiplies it.”
At the end of each chapter are a few questions for small-group discussions. In the book’s appendix are experiments a church could try to help seekers along their spiritual path. These include holding a Dinner Church or simply inviting a friend or two out for a cup of coffee.
Canon Paulsen hopes churches will use the book to get clergy and laity thinking about how God calls people and how they can join in that work. But she cautions that the Church itself has some thinking to do as well.
“There is no lack of resources on evangelism. What I think is lacking in the Church is the idea that the gospel is life-giving,” she says. “We’ve also bought into a narrative that says everybody is too secular, and it just isn’t true. There are many people who have no faith connection or connection to any sacred text, but they have spiritual questions and longings.”
She adds, “I guess the deeper question for the Church to ask itself is, do we care about these people? Do we believe the gospel message is life-giving? I think these stories from scripture help us explore these questions because in them we see people’s lives changed in pretty amazing ways by their encounter with Christ.”
A New and Ancient Evangelism: Rediscovering the Ways God Calls and Sends, published by Baker Academic, is available from Indigo and Amazon. For bulk orders in Canada, contact Word Alive at [email protected].
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