ok so i'm thinking about last night and our conversation(?) about mission and evangelism and helping people find God. i think the thing that sticks with me the hardest is the statement that we have it in our hearts to help people connect to God and many of us have friendships with people that are moving in that direction, but we reach a point in the conversation where we don;t know what to do next. it is like in rejecting some of the evangelism "strategies" that we have seen abused over the years, we have left ourselves with a vaccuum that we don't know how to fill.

honestly, i am searching for answers to that question. what does it look like? i was checking out one of my favorite speakers last night (mark driscoll from mars hill in seattle) and i listened to his talk on mission. here is an excerpt from his notes that spoke to this issue and may have some direction for us:

At Mars Hill Church, we see every Christian as a missionary and every relationship as an opporunity:

Routine Presentation Evangelism: (believe in Jesus, then belong to church)
Presentation of Gospel information
Call hearers to a decision about Jesus
If an affirmative decision is made, the person is welcomed into the church
Friendship is then extended
vs.

Reformission Participation Evangelism (belong to church, then believe in Jesus)
A genuine spiritual friendship is bujilt between the Christian and the non-Christian
The non-Christian see authentic faith and ministry lived openly and participates in it
The Gospel is naturally presented in word and deed in the friendship
The conversion to Jesus follows conversion to Christian friendships and to church

You can read the rest of the notes and listen to the sermon here go to menu>mp3/audio>sermons>spiritual topics>missions. He gets off his notes at the end of the sermon, so you don't get to hear him flesh out this part of the talk much, but it gave me a launching point for my thinking about it.

much more to come soon i'm sure.
J