In his recent Christ and Culture blog post, James Emery White points out new generations may require different evangelistic strategies. He notes: “The more post-Christian a person is, the more evangelism must embrace not only event/proclamation, but process and event/proclamation. Earlier models were almost entirely event/proclamation-oriented, such as revivals, crusades or door-to-door visitation. As I’ve written about in other places, this is only effective in an Acts 2, God-fearing Jews of Jerusalem context.

“Process models are needed in Acts 17, Mars Hill, nones/skeptical contexts. Like the one we live in today.

“The presentation of Christ must remain central to our thinking, to be sure. That is the only reason we are talking about strategy; the goal is to present Christ and Him crucified. Is that where we start? On Mars Hill, the spiritual illiteracy was so deep that Paul had to begin with cultural touchstones, lead in to creation and work his way forward. It took him a while to get to Christ.

“And community? It matters, but the average person has tastes of that already. Maybe not functional, but [he or she doesn’t] seem as drawn to it as [he or she] used to be. Perhaps it is because of the lure and illusion of social media, or because [he or she has] given up on it, but it’s not the great search it once was.

“So there has been a great, seismic shift. Today, it is cause that arrests the attention of the world.” (Click here to read the rest of the article.)

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