Evangelism: A Definition

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evangelism, faithful practices, youth ministry

I pulled the following defintion out of my notes from the Evangelism workshop at last weekends Faithful Practices Conference (lack of grammar due to the note-taking quality!):

Evangelism is a set of intentional activities governed by the goal of initiating people into the body of Christ.

Why [evangelize]? Living life the way God intended it to be, to experience here and now the most of the kingdom of heaven.

Okay, so, what do you think? One of the parts of this definition that I like is that it does more than speak of evangelism as an effort towards a one-time event. There is still a quality of some sort of conversion experience in the language, but it goes beyond that, which I think is important. For many, there is no one-time, get on your knees and tearfully ask Christ to be your Savior. Instead, many people experience a gradual conversion (I would say we are CONSTANTLY on the path of conversion, that it is never a completed process). There is communal language in this definition; the initiation is a personal thing but it happens IN THE CONTEXT OF COMMUNITY - very important.

Also, and this it something I have to really think on and pray about, is the idea that "evangelism is a set of intentional activities." I definitely would self-identify as one who hopes that the way I live is a witness to the love of God and thus becomes an instrument of evangelism. But I think that I need to think through what it means to be intentional about a goal of inititiating people into the body of Christ.