One interesting fact I stumbled across in my research was the following:
A recent study by Cartwright (2004) on the mission potential of Parent and Toddler Groups found that the most significant factor which encouraged transition into other church activities was the involvement of Christian parents helping or attending the group. Also that Alpha-style courses and parenting groups had little or no effect.
You can read the whole report here but it raises interesting questions about how we go about reaching people.
Gibbs and Bolger in Emerging Churches say that we should journey with people, engage them in open discussion, having hospitality as central, creating a safe place for them to dwell and allowing God to do the rest.
And as Simon commented earlier, both Jesus and Paul had evangelistic strategies that involved 'going' and 'waiting' (Drane). Their conversations, such as Jesus with the woman at the well, are two-way, open-ended and people are left to make up their own minds.
Anyway that's enough from me but if you have any thoughts...
join the conversation
if you would like to add your own thoughts, views or ideas please email Liz for an invite
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2 comments:
Hi Liz,
I'm so glad this approach is gaining momentum. It's an approach I have been doing for many years. Sadly, my reasons are those of personel ineptitude and unwillingness to breach my personal "Comfort Zone". I just know I am not cut out for blatant evangelism. I am probably not as open about my faith as I could be, but I have never been afraid of talking about it if asked. Sometimes my actions raise people's curiosity and conversations flow from that. Glad to hear that some better brains than mine are validating the approach of just striving, however ineptly (hugely in my case, but one has to try!), to live one's life as close to one imagines Christ might do as one can. Hope to see some more people posting, Liz. You are doing a great job keeping the blog alive!
Bless you for your encouragement Mike - I'd love to see more people posting too. Hopefully it will be advertised in this week's bulletin so watch this space...
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