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Where Have All the Evangelism Conferences Gone?

Conferences

So, back to the conferences. Since tools were ready-made for conferences, we had many conferences. But now tools are less appreciated and conferences are less common. Now, I am a believer in tools used well. I’ve even written a bit on them.

But as tools lost their favor, the goal lost its means. In other words, tools (and conferences) helped us do evangelism, which was the goal. The goal was sharing the gospel.

Now, people roll their eyes at tools and don’t go to training conferences, and the end result is a lot of angst about evangelism but not a lot of, well, evangelism.

It reminds me of that famous statement of D.L. Moody, “Well, I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it!”

Good Stuff Is Happening

In a partnership role through LifeWay Research, I am privileged to be the Senior Fellow of The Billy Graham Center for Evangelism (BGCE) at Wheaton College. In that role, I work alongside a number of gifted people who want to use the talents and energies the Lord has given them to show and share the love of Jesus with others.

To elevate the focus of evangelism, we are now launching a partnership with Outreach Magazine. Outreach has always been about, well, outreach, but this will help us elevate evangelism in a fresh new way.

Just this past month, two of my friends at the BGCE published articles as part of that partnership. Here is a peek at just two of the great minds working to spur others on to share their faith.

Jerry Root wrote an article called, “What Can We Learn From Early Church Evangelism?” Here is an excerpt:

There has been no perfect period in church history. The First Century church must not be over-idealized. According to theologian Walter Elwell, in the New Testament epistles alone, the church had to be corrected some 150 times. We must always be careful to avoid projections and over-idealizations of any time or place …

Does the early church contribute anything to today’s church relative to its mission in the world?

What are the ways Christians in the past shared their faith in Christ, and can that positively affect the ways Christians share Christ with others today?

Rick Richardson shared about his recent trip to Burning Man, with an article called, “Re-Engaging the Dechurched: Lessons From Burning Man.” Here’s a bit from him:

A team from the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism (BGCE) journeyed to Burning Man earlier this year to learn more about this community, research the dechurched and share God’s love. Many of the 70,000 people who attend Burning Man attend the event in order to express their creativity, find community and seek spiritual encounters. Ninety percent of the people the BGCE team interviewed were from mainline Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. They are, at this point, very dechurched. Most attended church in high school and earlier, but were never captured by the church. They are not hostile, just disinterested. They are spiritual, but not religious.

Here are three themes that emerged as we interviewed “Burners.” We believe these can help us better reach out to the younger, dechurched, spiritually seeking generation.

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Ed Stetzer, Ph.D., is the Dean of Talbot School of Theology at Biola Univeristy and Scholar in Residence & Teaching Pastor at Mariners Church. He has planted, revitalized, and pastored churches; trained pastors and church planters on six continents; earned two master’s degrees and two doctorates; and has written hundreds of articles and a dozen books. He is Regional Director for Lausanne North America, is the Editor-in-Chief of Outreach Magazine, and regularly writes for news outlets such as USA Today and CNN. Dr. Stetzer is the host of "The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast," and his national radio show, "Ed Stetzer Live," airs Saturdays on Moody Radio and affiliates.