In the week that I came to write this, I heard of five conversions. Two were teenagers, brought to trust in Christ through the youth tracks at Word Alive. Another was a student with no Christian background who, seven months before, was given a copy of John's Gospel by a friend. When he eventually read it, he emailed his friend: 'I've read it... I believe it!' The others were a couple in their early 40s, the husband converted (out of considerable opposition) six months before his wife.
This is great news. The title's question assumes that we know what evangelism is and focuses on how we do it, in particular on where to start. The assumption should be true for evangelicals, who are, above all, people of the gospel, the message. So how do we start to convey that message?
What's it all about?
As soon as we set out some elements of that message, the problem (or opportunity) becomes clear. The gospel is about God - creator, sovereign, holy, wrathful, merciful. It is about humans - created, rebellious, self-centred, guilty, facing judgement. It is about Jesus Christ - who he was as the God-man, what he did on the cross in the place of sinners. These claims, in whatever contemporary language we express them, are doubly alien to people today. Alien because all humans in all history are opposed to God; and alien also because most of our contemporaries reject absolutely any absolute or universal statements.
