Adventist Evangelism

You know, we really need to re-think how we go about our evangelism. I've been in the Adventist church for my whole life now, and I can identify three types of evangelism that we generally try.

1. We do door-to-door evangelism, selling our books to unsuspecting vict-, I mean, people.

2. We hold public evangelism campaigns, inviting in for a four (or five) (or six) week series in which we seek to convince them of the truth as we believe it.

3. We write it off as old-fashioned and just avoid the whole idea of evangelism all together.

I can't help but wonder if there are other ways.

Mark Beeson has posted an interesting rant from Penn Jillette, you know, the Vegas magician who also happens to be a devout atheist. In the video, Penn tells the story of a guy who shared the gospel in a simple way. Two things strike me. First, this atheist skewers Christians who believe in "heaven and hell" yet don't care enough to share with those who don't know. Second, he comments on the way in which this guy shared the gospel. Unapologetic. Non-defensive. Full of genuine care and actual friendliness.

We have a message to share. We can't get away with just writing off evangelism. But it seems our evangelism has become more focused on producing baptisms than on investing in people.

I can't help but wonder: might we be more effective in our evangelistic effort if our M.O. was that we are people who care about other people? If we shared our message unapologetically, non-defensively, yet out of an abundance of genuine care and respect for the people we're sharing with, we might see that the beauty of the gospel and the people through whom it flows would have an attraction that we've never seen before. There's no doubt: there is a precedent in Scripture for mass evangelism, but some of Jesus' best work was one-on-one, demonstrating his care for the individual.

I know, Penn Jillette is only one voice. But how would our evangelism change if we listened carefully to his experience?