A broad look at the broad topic of evangelism.
Inter-religious Dialogue (IRD) is often looked at critically, or straight-up negatively by Evangelicals. I teach a course called “Dialogue with Asian Faiths” and for me, I take the title seriously. It is about dialogue (two-way) conversation with people of other faiths--- especially the great world religions that have their origin in Asia (which is pretty …
Continue reading Reasons for an Evangelist to Take IRD Seriously
A friend of mine is writing a paper on the use of the Qur'an as part of the evangelization process of Muslims. In his research he got some pushback. Some feel that it is inappropriate for a Christian to use a non-canonical work (obviously using the term 'canonical' from the Christian rather than Muslim perspective). …
Continue reading Using Non-Christian Works to Lead People to Christ?
Photo by Sippakorn Yamkasikorn on Pexels.com I did a lot of fishing when I was young. Truthfully, I did not care for fishing all that much. I enjoyed hiking and exploring, but fishing only allowed one to do those things for a short while followed by hours of sitting or standing in a hot sticky …
I was listening to the podcast "The Missions Podcast" (by ABWE). They had a guest, E.D. Burns, who wrote a book called "The Transcultural Gospel: Jesus Is Enough for Sinners in Cultures of Shame, Fear, Bondage, and Weakness." I have not read the book, it just came out, but here are a few quick thoughts before …
So I was talking to a friend of mine named Tom (his name is NOT Tom) who is a minister in an Asian Country where Christians are a tiny minority. He was talking about mission work in his country. He noted that missionaries had brought a lot of good things to his country... such as …
I was listening to a podcast of N.T. Wright. He was talking about Evangelism. In it he spoke somewhat negatively about "The Sinner's Prayer." He suggested that when a person decides to follow Christ, that saying the Lord's Prayer may be a better choice than the Sinner's Prayer. We probably need to step backwards and …
Continue reading Choosing Between the Sinner’s Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
I had asked my students in my Asian Faiths class to read the Camel Method. It is a method for sharing the Christian Gospel to Muslims utilizing a few select passages from the Qur'an. I asked my students to talk about their thoughts on this method. I then responded with the (somewhat amended) posting: I …
How does one value one's Faith. In this case, I am using "faith" to mean the religious belief system one adheres to in some way. I saw something interesting in the book THE SKILLED HELPER, by Gerald Egan (I am quoting from the 1975 version). "A value, according to Raths and Simon (1966) is something …
Darrel Whiteman says that one of three reasons for good contextualization is to "Offend for the Right Reason." After all, Paul noted that the Gospel message is foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews. Yet at the same time, Paul did try to make the Gospel message palatable or adorned for …
In ministry, we are guided, in part, by the Great Commission--- to share our faith in season and out of season. And often, this drive to share our faith can often be conflated with a drive to grow our church. I have had this happen to me as well. I have had people share the …