1. Introduction – What is creative evangelism?
So how do we engage? What is creative evangelism?
Is it arranging a display of cup cakes with icing on top that say, Jesus loves you?
Is it dressing up as clown and juggling bibles?
Umm, no is the answer to both of the above.
Being Creative in our evangelism can come under 4 key areas.
1.Relational
2.conversational
3.Invitational
4.Proclamtion
1.Relational –
What does it mean to be human?
It is important to realise that we are made in God’s image – (Gen 1:26)
We worship Father, son and spirit who relate to one another and give us the basis for a loving relationship.
We should be able to relax a little knowing that it’s ok to be human rather than trying to deny our God given humanity. Being relational means we love people. Jesus did not say Love God and that would be fine.
Students can be tempted to retreat from the rest of their campus and gather in a holy huddle. This has possibly stemmed from creating a sacred/secular divide.
They may believe that what is sacred is bible studies, prayer meetings, exec meetings and small groups. They may not see football, tennis, playing music or eating meals with friends as sacred. There is often an underlying view that anything material is bad it is all about being “spiritual”.
This viewpoint transposes in how they relate to others. Imagine a lunch bar taking place in a room on campus? The Christians gather together in the corner of the room laughing and joking but also slightly nervous about putting on an event.
In the same room sits a guy who is a fresher, he sits looking uncomfortable, wondering if he should stare at his cheese sandwich for the tenth time! The Christians continue on talking to each other whilst he and 3 other students sit on their own in different parts of the room.
The Christians believe the gospel is true but are not living it out. There should be an awareness of others a desire to want to embody the gospel to show an interest in the lives of others in the room.
When we realise we worship a triune God Father, Son and Spirit relating, talking and loving each other, we should be more loving to others.
2. Conversational – what is the difference between speaking the Gospel and communicating the Gospel?
It is really easy to believe that all we need to do is shout and repeat John 3:16 as loud and as many times as we can and people will be saved. This however is just speaking the gospel as opposed to communicating the gospel.
We need to share the gospel in a way people can understand.
What are the keys that unlock somebody’s worldview? How do we reach the hedonist, who likes to party hard and does not believe he has a worldview?
We can already see that if we want to reach “Mark” the hedonist we need to know where and how to relate to him. He is likely to be down the pub. We may need to relate to him in the “Stags Head” pub and show an interest in his life.
But we also need to converse with Mark. What is Mark’s world? Is it drinking? Playing football? Having casual relationships with women?
We might want to ask what he gets from getting drunk? What he is looking for in a relationship?
Why he loves to follow his favourite football team?
Often questions lead to other questions and topics.
He may say that he just wants good sex in a relationship. Is that all he will ever want?
What about friendship? What about love? What is love?
Engaging with the culture of the day (as Paul did in Acts 17) helps people make a connection that the truth of the gospel speaks into today’s culture and our contemporary lives.
If we encourage students to be asking good questions and conversing well, it will not be long before they get to share the gospel in meaningful way.
3. Invitational – Many CU’s are good at inviting people to events. There are however those who would still shy way from this. Many students wonder why people don’t come to events. The answer is sadly because they either don’t have any friends or not conversing well with their friends. We still need to put on good events and invite people. It is useful to be creative in our event titles
. What are recent films that are out?
What songs are being sung?
Who are the people everybody is talking about?
What are their views?
It is good to the think about the role of evangelistic bible studies. It is also worth looking at seeker courses Christianity Explored and Alpha as possible resources.
The aim is to invite people to either an event or to explore in a more informal basis what the gospel is about.
4.Proclamation – It is important to proclaim the gospel clearly and we can’t be friends with everybody on campus in order to reach them.
. How can we clearly proclaim the gospel into this culture?
“He said to them go into the world and preach the good news to all creation” Mark 16:5
It is important to think about ways we can clearly proclaim the gospel.
What are the questions people are asking? What are the issues/topics people are discussing?
What titles are we going to have for our talks?
Where will we do our talks?
We can all be more creative in how we share the good news; it just takes a little time to evaluate our culture and how we might engage.
Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.” Francis Schaeffer
3. Evaluating our culture on campus
It is important to not just put on evangelistic events in a random fashion.
Too often students emulate the previous mission teams plans and put on the same talks in the same places.
It is important to evaluate who is in a CU?
What are there interests? Are they engaged with their non-Christian friends?
Are they involved in clubs and societies? Do they have friends from their course?
What questions are their friends asking?
We have produced at new version of the evaluating evangelism questionnaire.
This is attached to this resource and there are more copies available from the office or you can download it from the website.
For further resources check podcast – Connect 4 at
www.uccf.org.uk/evangelism-podcast
Clive Parnell