How do we reach this generation

"I recently heard Stuart Murray give a seminar on 'Evangelism in our culture' - I believe this stuff needs to be shared - so here it is..."

Stuart Murray's take on 'Evangelism in our culture' starts by asking the question:
"where does the gospel connect with where people are at today?".

There has been a shift from a 'guilt' culture to a 'non-guilt' culture. Up until the last 50 years (when the UK was regarded as a 'Christian country') most people were expected to attend church and felt guilty when they didn't go. Today, our culture is fragmented, and is made up of amongst others: a desire for self-worth, an unwillingness to commit, a yearning for friendship, and a keenness to experience many different things.

Today, young people prefer to make meaningful friendships first by belonging to a group and be accepted for who they are, without having to first subscribe to a belief and a code of conduct. They would rather hang around and see faith in action before committing themselves to a new way of life.

Conversion won't necessarily happen at crisis points, e.g. at times of illness, redundancy, or bereavement - it may well take longer. Both parties will need to 'walk together' getting to know each other; this will require patience as building relationships can often take a while.

We need to be-friend people BUT for the right reason. As David Watson once said, "Do you love someone because you want to see them converted, or do you want to see them converted because you love them?"

We need to move away from those large Billy Graham crusade-type missions or the smaller variety that local churches often try to put on every 5 years. Instead we need to build relationships with people, spend time with each other and listen more. We need to make more time for our friends, neighbours, & workmates etc. You might be thinking that this all sounds a little small scale - after all there are billions of people out there in the world that need to hear the message and I only come into contact with a handful of people. However, I was reminded of the following words from David Watson's book on Discipleship:

"According to the tradition of the church, there has been either gross neglect in the area of evangelism, or an over-dependence on the big-time evangelist to do the job committed to the church. Neither attitude is biblical. Although some are called to be evangelists for the benefit of the whole church, the New Testament lays the emphasis clearly on the witness of every Christian. Dr. James Kennedy illustrates the value of this in the following way. If you were an outstandingly gifted evangelist with an international reputation, and if, under God, you could win 1000 persons for Christ every night of every year, how long would it take you to win the whole world for Christ? Answer, ignoring the population explosion, over 10,000 years! But if you are a true disciple for Christ, and if you are able under God to win just one person to Christ each year; and if you could then train that person to win one other person for Christ each year, how long would it take to win the whole world for Christ? Answer, just 32 years!!! In churches where discipling is taken seriously, there are few, if any, specifically evangelistic services with a gifted evangelistic preacher. Many, however, are still being won for Christ through the individual witness of each Christian.

"It's time for us to start thinking about the community we live in and
investing quality time inthose people we naturally come into contact
with through our social or occupational lives." Andy