The Four Approaches to Evangelism
by Jim Henderson

In our lifetime the practice of evangelism has undergone several revisions. Whether conscious of it or not we are influenced by each of the four M's of Evangelism.

Man Evangelism – Billy Graham (need I say more?). We've lived in an era where the Man as The Evangelist has moved from large city crusades to working his persuasive charm on an international scale, reaching millions via TV and satellite. And much like ESPN reruns of classic sporting events, you can watch Billy Graham crusade reruns now. He is the “main man” of evangelism and many other men and women choose to mimic his style of evangelism. The Man as The Evangelist is a dominant and bigger-than-life person with a flair for speaking and holding forth in public. He speaks. People choose. And he moves to the next stage. Think of celebrity generals of WWII like Patton or MacArthur.

Message Evangelism – Somewhere along the line people decided to get into the proclamation game. They heard the man preach the message but they wanted to play too. People returned from WW II anxious to be participants, so they wrote tracts to tell others about new life in Jesus. These tracts took on a wide variety of styles but the one that emerged the winner of this medium was The 4 Spiritual Laws. This tract is a clean, concise, and non-emotional way of explaining the “plan” of salvation to people whose confidence in knowledge was just beginning to pick up steam. It uses the metaphor of the locomotive with the train cars and a faith based on reason. Others followed and Christian literature took off in the marketplace. Now we find the message evangelists all over—in telephone booths, bathrooms, and at the gas pump. Message evangelism continues to reign as the evangelism method of choice. One of its side benefits is its ability to free us from the uncomfortable expectation of speaking by speaking for us. Our consciences are clear and the job gets done. We drop the tract, they choose, and we head off to another strategic drop spot.

Movement Evangelism – A more recent trend has been the effort to make evangelism more “normal.” Outreach programs have emerged with many different emphases--feeding the poor, pregnancy counseling, Promise Keepers, and so forth. One of the more innovative approaches has been Servant Evangelism. SE inspires the giver at least as much if not more than the receiver. It seeks to create an “Ah ha” experience so they will mimic the behavior in their normal lives. It seeks to capture the brief attention of those being SE-ed . More and more of these kindness evangelism programs are emerging as a way of letting those who don't want to preach participate in meaningful ways. SE is contagious and closer to natural behavior than most programs.

Moment Evangelism – “We remember moments, not days” Parvese
Moment evangelism is an emerging new spiritual practice that attempts to become an integrated part of people's everyday lives. It's not a program, pitch or a presentation. It's not about a man a message or even a moment. It is the responsive interaction of those who know Jesus with those who don't. Moment evangelism doesn't seek to replicate itself but to integrate itself in our lives. It doesn't invade--it infers. It feeds off the idea that God is already at work, is passionate about the people formerly known as lost and is completely satisfied with our brief and normal interactions with the people Jesus misses most. Approaching evangelism more like a midwife than a surgeon, moment evangelists see themselves as partners with the process more than initiators or concluders of it.

Summary
Each new approach to the spiritual practice of evangelism plays off the previous and each new revision comes faster. It either owes its insight to a reaction to an earlier approach or a modification of it.