Yesterday I delivered a short RealityBites presentation to about 50 international students and lecturers at the Emmanuel Centre, Leeds University. I delivered a ten minute talk on the Prince Philip movement. Here is the story in brief -
Delighted that the Baptist Times has published another article by me on creative, storytelling evangelism. Here is how the article begins...
It was the worst of times. It was the best of times. Years ago I tried to tell a non-Christian friend, Derek about my Christian faith. I was walking along a road in Bishopston, Bristol talking football and suddenly I blurted out: "Derek, you need Jesus." Derek said nothing. He just gave me a withering look. We went back to our conversation about Bristol Rovers and their bitter rivalry with Bristol City.
Gareth Jones, our TFN director and I have recently started talking about bespoke evangelism. Gareth is quite good at this but not as good as me!
The heart of bespoke evangelism is to find out what a person enjoys talking about and then to build bridges into this enjoyable chat zone. This method of 'witnessing' is to be contrasted with bible bashing that both ignores contemporary culture and often alienates people.
Here is an illustration of bespoke evangelism that seemed to work very well:
James Chalmers was born in Scotland in 1841. He spent his life telling cannibals the good news about Jesus. In 1877 he went to Papua New Guinea, located across from the northern tip of Australia.
What did the locals look like? Many of them were committed cannibals. Some of the more depraved tribes would capture their enemies alive and would then proceed to hack off pieces of flesh while the prisoners were kept in giant larders.
Sometimes the unfortunate victims would be kept alive for six or seven days!