If your name is Stan, and you still have my copy of Live to Tell: Evangelism in a Postmodern Age, or if you’ve never even heard of Brad Kallenberg… this is a great re/inter-view of the book/author:
[RM:] Can I ask what the ?rubber meets the road? for evangelism is right now? In other words, can you give some examples, in your opinion, of ways evangelism needs to go?
[BK:] Well, it seems to me that there are two strategies. One strategy is to translate what you?re saying down to the level of the person who doesn?t understand you. I think that?s what modern liberals, and, in some sense, modern evangelicals have tried to do. And that dumbs down the Gospel to their level.
The other strategy is to say, ?Well, what will it take to bring this person up to our level of understanding so that they will understand the Gospel on its own terms?? I think that?s the conceptual level we want to work from. What will that take? Well, it will take more than a 20-minute presentation. It?s going to take us inviting them in to see the church being the Church, not pretending to be something else. All the while we trust that the Holy Spirit will do the job of illuminating.
We want to see the Church living the life in community, not perfection, but reconciliation. We offend each other all the time, so we should be confessing our sins to one another all the time too! We should be forgiving each other all the time [and] caring for one another all the time.
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