How Many Kinds of Evangelism Are There?

How many kinds of evangelism are there? In this thread please name a kind of evangelism you are familiar with, and define and explain it. You may also tell what you like or don't like about that particular kind of evangelism. However, since this is a fellowship thread please don't debate it. :type:

 

Wow! Answers already!

Great posts, Brother Tim. Good thinking. In my own recent thinking I've started to make "relational evangelism" a more general term, with things like "lifestyle evangelism" (which must have a presentation of the Gospel, as you say, to be real evangelism) or "friendship evangelism."

Friendship Evangelism is the title of a 1978 book by Mennonite Britisher Arthur McPhee. He says in the preface, "Friendship Evangelism sets out to show that your greatest witness is your deepest relationship, what such a relationship means in the over-all task of making disciples, and how such a relationship comes to be" (p. 9). This book is a mixed bag, and I think the books on lifestyle evangelism are some better. The difference between lifestyle and friendship evangelism seems to be in the concept of friendship, maybe more intimate than just any relationship. The main negative of the book is that he tells about witnessing to various people, but I can't find anything about someone getting saved through his witness!

 

Okay, brother.

 

Amen, Brother Bill. Personal evangelism is the most fundamental kind. I would define personal evangelism as one person giving the Gospel to another person. The title of one book I have is, Won by One (Clarence Sexton).

 

This is a good little book (82 pages), written by Dr. Sexton in 1980, well before he started his college, etc. I knew him in those days through working at Fort Bluff Youth Camp, where his church sent their kids for camp. He did a good job with this one.

The first three chapters give reasons why we should work to win souls: the Great Commission, Christ as our example, etc. Chapters 4 and 5 are about overcoming difficulties. In Chapter 6 he talkis about sharing your personal testimony, which is the simplest method of evangelism. He deals with getting out and finding lost people after that, then follow-up, etc. In Chapter 12 he gives his version of the Romans Road, and in the last chapter he encourages the Christian to be a good witness at all times and be prepared. I would recommend this little book as a good textbook for a local church course in soul-winning, since it has review questions at the end of every chapter. It may not be thorough enough for a college textbook, though. :type:

 

Think about witnessing for a moment. I consider this a separate kind of evangelism. We witness about what we know and have seen. This means to witness is to tell someone what happened to you when you got saved, and/or tell them about your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This means you may not completely give the Gospel when you witness, but just the same you are planting seeds. And if you do give the Gospel clearly when you witness, someone may trust Christ as Savior. :type:

 

I'm not criticizing his being a Mennonite, though there is a strong liberal strain in some Mennonite groups. As a matter of fact, this author quotes favorably notorious liberal Fosdick.

What bothered me were the times he told of witnessing to someone who didn't get saved but then never following it up--never got their address, never wrote or visited them, never followed through till they got saved. He actually seemed proud of witnessing to them without seeing them get saved, in a way, because that was his method of friendship evangelism--never put any pressure on.

 

"Mass evangelism" is often contrasted with personal evangelism. Here is my definition. Mass evangelism: any method that seeks to present the Gospel to large numbers of people at one time.

Most commonly in history, mass evangelism has been used to refer to special evangelistic meetings such as the cooperative meetings held by Moody and Torrey in the second half of the 19th century, then many others in the first part of the 20th century. Billy Graham is the most well known practitioner of mass evangelism, but many others, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, held city-wide crusades in which thousands heard the Gospel at one time: Billy Sunday, "Gypsy" Smith, John R. Rice, Bob Jones, Sr., Monroe "Monk" Parker, etc.

In the "city-wide campaign," the evangelist would go himself or send an advance man to round up as many Bible-believing churches as possible to participate. A large venue would be rented, leaflets and posters printed and other preparatory work done. The meetings would sometimes last for weeks or even months, depending on how the Holy Spirit moved. Hundreds or even thousands of souls would be saved and added to the churches.

Billy Graham is noted for two innovations: seeking cooperation from liberals and Catholics (thus jump starting the ecumenical movement and new evangelicalism), and taking the city-wide campaign a step further and having gigantic area-wide campaigns with radio and television coverage. His defender Robert O. Ferm called Graham's method "cooperative evangelism" in a book by that name in 1958.

Would anyone care to describe other methods of mass evangelism besides the city-wide campaign, or cooperative evangelistic campaign?

 

Good point, Tim, maybe the definition needs tweaked to take the Internet into account. How about if I put the word "actively" in it? The Internet is basically a passive thing, in that people have to find your website on their own in order to read its plan of salvation.

Again, one difference between an Internet website and mass evangelism is that there is no guarantee of "large numbers" of people seeing the website at one time. The large numbers at one time can only be achieved on the Internet by a mass e-mail mailing, and I haven't heard of that being done yet, though maybe it has. The minus for that method would be its similarity to spam.

New definition of mass evangelism: any method of evangelism that actively seeks to present the Gospel to large numbers of people at one time.

That leaves us with a new type of evangelism known as "Internet evangellism" or maybe "website evangelism." Anyone want to define it?

 

:laugh: :laugh:
"Don't lurk, take the leap into the arms of Jesus!"