Churches Need to Redefine Evangelism, New Movement Says

CBN.com - With more Americans dismissing the relevance of traditional Christianity to their lives, a growing number of church leaders are saying that it is time for a major change in the way believers try to share their faith.

The Off the Map (OTM) movement tries to turn the accepted idea of "evangelism" on its head by inverting the typical church meeting. At OTM events, the pastors and lay members sit quietly in the audience while nonbelievers take the microphone to explain their lack of faith.

Host Jim Henderson says it is the listeners he is trying to convert -- the way they view non-Christians, and how best to reach them with the gospel. "The big complaint [from non-Christians] is tthat Christians don't listen," he says. "They talk. They want to give a speech, but they don't want to listen. The unchurched do want to talk to a Christian, but they don't want to be talked at."

A Seattle-based network formed to explore new forms of sharing faith in a postmodern world, OTM holds events intended to make Christians look at those outside the church in a new way.

Henderson says too few Christians are actively involved in evangelism because of what the church has made it. Instead, OTM promotes evangelism as simply "Christians connecting with non-Christians," and documents stories of what it calls Ordinary Attempts in which small acts of friendship can lead to opportunities to talk about faith.

Brian McLaren, a Spencerville, Md., pastor who helped found OTM, said many churches are too quick to give answers without even finding out what the questions are. "We turn people outside the church into enemies with whom we are engaged in warfare, not lost sheep for whom the Shepherd cares and to whom we have been sent."

For Michael Howes, minister of adults at a Fort Worth, Texas, church, attending an OTM forum was like "another conversion." Having grown up in the church, it opened his eyes to how "outsiders" view the church.

Chris Marshall, a church-planter in Ohio, changed the way he viewed the unchurched after participating in OTM events. Now rather than being "targets," non-Christians are "fellow brothers and sisters," he said. "I no longer count conversions, rather I count conversations."

While many people dismiss the relevance of church, they are not hostile to Christianity, said church growth expert Thom Rainer. His research revealed only a small percentage of unbelievers who could be considered "highly resistant" to the gospel, but church just didn't figure in their thinking. His finding was echoed by a series of "Charisma" magazine interviews across the country with people who said they were "spiritual."

"[Church is] not something they notice," Henderson said. "If the mall and the church disappeared tomorrow, which would people miss most? The answer speaks to the irrelevancy of our institution in our culture."

But there is hope. For Rainer also found that more than 90 percent of people would go to church on two conditions -- if someone invited them and walked in with them. Rainer also recommends churches take a leaf out of the OTM book by paying a non-Christian to visit and critique their facilities and services.