I was schooled in traditional ways of ‘doing evangelism.’ I was taught how to preach at a mega-decibel pitch in open air meetings, and how to use the wind to carry my voice! I was introduced to the subtle art of door to door witness, and how to get the ‘four spiritual laws’ and ‘the abc of salvation’ into an everyday conversation about the weather! I discovered how to ‘get people in’ using a movie starring Billy Graham and Cliff Richard and how to organise a church coffee morning with an evangelistic spin!
Many of these evangelistic formats seem singularly inappropriate today, however. The culture has moved on-and what worked yesterday is no longer effective in our ceaseless task of sharing the Good News about Jesus Christ. I can see the beginnings of a quiet revolution in the field of evangelism, however, and I believe that what’s happening has enormous significance for the future life of the church.We are living in a ‘spiritual age’, and statistics illustrate the enormous cultural shift which has occurred over the last ten years. A survey by Hay and Hunt has revealed that whilst in 1987 48% of the UK population admitted to having a spiritual or religious experience, this figure had risen to 76% by 2000. In 1999 3:3 million Christian books were sold, but 3:2 million which covered such subjects as New Age, the Occult, paranormal and other marginal belief systems, an indication of the growth of this ‘spiritual’ focus in our country today.
Over the last few weeks I’ve met well over 1500 Christian leaders around the UK in a lecture series in Odeon Cinemas called ‘Where’s your church in a spiritual age?’ It’s been an exhausting but stimulating experience! As I’ve travelled from Edinburgh to Plymouth I’ve met people who are pioneering the most exciting projects in the field of mission and evangelism. It’s happening in all kinds of unexpected places and among all kinds of unusual people.
Around the country there is a small but growing movement of Christians who are moving beyond the walls of the church and engaging in forms of mission and evangelism which would have been unthinkable only ten years ago.
OFFERING CHRISTIAN HEALING:
One of the most exciting new developments is in the field of Christian healing. There was a time when the ‘healing ministry’ of the church was limited to alternate Wednesdays in Lent, “go to the back vestry door, knock three times and ask for Gladys!” Slowly but surely, however, Christians are re-discovering that Jesus’ commission to 72 disciples to heal the sick (Luke 10v9-10) is still relevant today.
As the complementary and alternative healing industry continues to boom, with more registered practitioners in the UK than GP’s, the church is gradually waking up to the fact that Christian healing is in fact mission and evangelism! I’ve met groups who are registered to work in local hospitals, people who operate from church-based coffee shops and who even set up ‘healing points’ in shopping malls and busy high streets.
In Newcastle the New Life Trust are offering complementary healing through homeopathy, aromatherapy, massage and counselling in a ministry overseen by reputable Christian leaders in the city. They are taking back the ground which the ‘new age’ therapists have gained, and showing that Christian prayer and compassion are the real keys to healing in a hurting world.
A go-ahead church in Cheam under the leadership of David Pailthorpe has taken a room usually used as a psychic healing centre. After they have worshipped and prayed in the space they open the doors to the public for services of Christian healing in a secular setting. They state explicitly that they are not healers, but that healing only happens in the Name of Jesus. They simply worship and then pray for those in need. Up to 200 people have attended these meetings and discovered that Christians know a Healer who is alive today!
