Commercials, commercials, commercials. You can’t watch a TV show without seeing them. Since TVs became commercially avaliable in the late 1930s*, they have become a fixture in the American home. And over the years, what is on TV has changed greatly as have the advertisements show during them.

Why have they spent so much time and effort on these commercials? Because they’ve found them to be effective means of impacting the way people behave, whether it is to vote a certain way, live a certain way, go to a certain place, or buy a certain product. They are all paying money to get a moment of your time to change the way you live and behave.

They all have a message they are trying to communicate, and they’re trying to do it as effectively as possible. And guess what? They are constantly changing. An old commercial by Coca Cola and a newer commercial by Coca Cola These commercials have changed in style, but the ultimate message is the same, right? Drink Coke, buy Coke.

Why do they do this? So that they can be more effective at getting your attention and changing you, which results in greater profits for them.

American businesses realize that they can communicate the same message in different forms, but why are we so worried about doing this as Christians? Why do we get so caught on a single style or method of evangelism that might have worked well with a certain generation, in a certain place, or at a certain time, and fail to move on to new methods, as if it would be equivalent of blasphemy? Think about the way you talk about your faith or share it with others? Isn’t there other ways to share about Christ than an evangelistic campaign, street preaching, or tracts? Are there other times of the year to invite your neighbors to church and more creative ways of doing it than just before Christmas and Easter? Can’t we break out of the mold a little, and try new ways of bringing the message of Christ to people?

During my final semester at Moody (www.moody.edu), as I completed my degree in Evangelism and Discipleship, I had to write a final paper to culminate my learning. I used this as an opportunity to examine some of how our culture is changing and how we are sharing the gospel/evangelizing/sharing the good news/telling our personal faith journey’s (or what ever your variation of saying this is).

I’m going to start out by admitting a few biases. I don’t think change is bad. I’m a fan of understanding your audience and communicating through a means that won’t poison the message or the hearer from even starting to listening to it. I accept that the Bible is an awesome big book of truth, and that it has many different parts because there are many different situations in life that need to be addressed. So from that I gather that 1 verse is never the end all be all of sharing the message of Christ. And finally until I can come up with more, I know I will offend some of you because I might talk about evangelism and not discipleship, or I might refer to sharing the gospel more than sharing God’s love, or I might talk more about talking with people than doing. Such is life in my mind. We are pendulums swinging back and forth from one extreme to another. We never are perfectly balanced in life, so I won’t attempt to claim I am. Please if you disagree, great, comment, create your own blog, challenge my thoughts, help me keep my crazy thoughts and ideas in check.

So here I’ll end my ramblings, and move on to the topic of this post. Just another thought from a child of God who is inwardly turned upside down by Him, but still alright.

evangelistic methods after modernity

I’ve found today’s society to be marked by three general characteristics:

post-modernism…truth is absolute…or is it?
post-consumerism…I have to get the newest…but maybe I don’t?
post-interruption…look at this flashy ,cool, new…please put me on your “do not call” list.

And as I consider the emerging society that we live in, I feel that street preaching-based forms of evangelism, tract and bible distribution, confrontational and five-law based evangelism’s are defunct and useless.

Now that I’ve gotten your attention with my extreme claims, I’d like to over the next few posts explain why I believe our culture has changed, what it is becoming, why our current methods are loosing effectiveness, and begin to explore what’s to come for the future of evangelism.

Tonight as my wife and I were trying to fall asleep, we heard voices out in the dark alley behind our apartment. My response to this was threefold. First, I didn’t really notice it. But I gradually started noticing it more. Then I thought about turning on a fan to avoid hearing their voices and to block them out. But after my already cold wife said no more fans, I had my third and final thought, and that was could call the police. (Now I didn’t consider this third option too serously, but…)

But this concept of dealing with unwanted noise is similar to how our attempts to evangelize can be. We are good intentioned Christians talking about Christ as best as we can in a dark world. And often we get the same response from the people who hear us as I responded to the unwanted hangout going on in my back alley tonight. They might not notice us at first, then they may try to block us out, and finally they migr try to stop us using whatever means they can. Can I share my faith in a way that is not unwanted noise in the alley, but instead the invited friend who’s been asked to visit, or who is being visited?