Article Critique on "Structures to Enhance Evangelistic Ministries"

Article Critique 10 pages (4446 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

However, less than a decade later, the attendance to Churches fell below what had existed before the liberalization. The Church had failed as never before.

That is a cause of introspection and deliberation for the core of Christianity across the many congregations. A revisit to the Biblical practice is ordained. The scriptures do not allow for the kind of evangelism as exists today in the east European regions: they are the four Spiritual calls, those of opening one's heart to accept Jesus, the call of the altar, the invitation to the decision of Jesus and the repentance. The practices in these Western communities have developed over time and adhere to the cultural ethos existent during the intervening period. Any evangelism practice has to be in consonance with the cultural roots that the locals follow. Without such consideration all activities pertaining to religion are deemed to fail. The evangelists will have to study the cultural roots of the society where they wish to make their presence felt. The word will have to respond to those basic beliefs that people of local regions believe in and practice.

The most important observation to be borne in mind by evangelists is that only verse makes a reference to the "knocking on the door" act- that too, on the door of Church and not on the door of non-believers or others' hearts. The Church should realize the essence of the Gospel. The success of evangelism of the era prior to the twentieth century is misleading in the contemporary times on two counts- one, that the crusaders approached areas where Christianity already prevailed and second group who were yet to be converted. It is forgotten conveniently that the second group was not atheist. Thus, mislead, the evangelists apply the percept and conviction of repentance equally to all they approach, and inevitably fail. Thus, their mission has turned into a technology and the spiritual content is missing.

The study of the Russian region (Actually Ukrainian) gave up the following salient points on their view about Christianity in general and the Concept of God.

The Ukrainians believe in a supernatural force that is not necessarily the same as Jesus of the Bible or Christianity. Their culture believes in miracles and supernatural powers. They do not believe that the Institution of Church has any relevance to truth or that it has any semblance of effect on the daily lives of people. The Christians, who are only believers and not necessarily Churchgoers, do not see any divinity in a human being. They do not conform to the ideas of abortion or suicide in the same way as the Orthodoxy does. At the most 50% believe that there may be afterlife and hardly 20% are believers of reincarnation or resurrection. Ukrainian believers (read Christians) are prone to blind faith and accept beliefs that cannot be substantiated.

Having thus understood the Post Communism context, the 'process' rather than a quick-fix therapy is the proper way forward for evangelism to succeed in the East European region. No instant change of mind-set should be expected or sought. The acceptance will follow a process of forgiveness through justification, cleansing, and then repentance.

The main causes of failure understood from the regional and cultural viewpoint is that the Leadership program failed in Ukraine, the post-communism area of thrust for evangelists owing to the difference in perception of the coining of the term "leader," which has very different meanings for the local population and those who follow the Bible. The second important point of contention for acceptance was that the Ukrainian people chose to seek secularism, as they knew no other system as a society for many centuries. The local converts used commercial methods of spreading the Gospel, as they were not inclined to spirituality or were asked to forsake feelings of spiritualism forcefully through decades of communist rule.

Thus in the context of Ukrainian people the evangelists have to take into account the worldview persuasion. The campaigns carried out evangelists are looking for instant results, which requires of them to compromise on many of the basics of Christianity like Communion without Confession, baptism without church discipline, preaching forgiveness without repentance, and grace without the cross. Such measures cannot be long lasting and have been proven to fail.

Analysis of Thomas, and Dave's, "Results of a Collaborative Research Project in Gathering Evangelism Stories."

In Results of a Collaborative Research Project in Gathering Evangelism Stories, Thomas, and Dave reveal that during the spring 2002, the authority of the 'National Network of Youth Ministries' approached and indicated their willingness to know which factors of evangelism are most customarily prevailing among the modern adolescent's conversion stories. The chosen members had deliberated on how the professors as well as students would reach this integrated national youth evangelism research. Recommendations from the 2003 AYME conference led to a methodological pilot study being conducted. Eventually, methodological alterations for the interviews were made. Following the submission of the results of methodological pilot study at the 2004 AYME conference, as many as fourteen professors from twelve different colleges/seminaries demonstrated their willingness to take part in a research study.

Study on transition to cults has denoted that the physical as well as psychological detachment from the normal situations and relationships along with the deeper interactions with group members is playing a key role in the transitions. Cults noticed that camps and retreats are vital in their recruitment attempts as the social stigma adhered to the membership and the probable opposition from peers and family members of the possible converts.

Instructions on sampling included five unique steps being given to the professors for ensuring a dependable process. First step was to select and map the public high school district(s) in the locality of the researching college/seminary. The results of this step -- a mode of convenience sampling -- must have led to a map with discrete boundaries having drawn on it. The next step in the sampling directed the involved researchers to recognize and catalog all the church as well as other ministry organizations located within the boundaries of selected high school districts. Cautious and extensive attachment to the instructions was thought to be a kind of saturation sampling for this research study. Third step in the sampling process was devised as a sort of referral sampling. In this particular step, church and the ministry authority were to be approached to see whether they are aware if any 16 to 20-year-olds who had started to pursue Jesus Christ during the recent years, say 2003.

Researchers were provided with guidance and directions for helping them protect the names from the ministry leaders so that the young individuals could be approached for having talks on realization about their newfound belief. Fourth step of the sampling process requested sponsoring professors to find out whether there were sufficient possible interviews secured for the magnitude as well as the resources of the student group that has been deployed. Final step in the process was to discuss with every interested and qualified research referral, in-line with the script that had open-minded questions being followed by a couple of forced-choice questions.

A fixed percentage of religious young people turned to be the teenage converts who were viewing all or most of their earlier ages as a non-Christian. Few of these converts were brought up in families with great levels of religious connection. Other teenagers pray to get Christ at some point prior to the age of ten. Here, two cases are apparent: Teenage transitions of the people with more of religious childhood days are less congregated around certain contributing factors when compared with teenage transitions of the people with non-religious kinds of childhood. Christian young communities that generate teenage transitions might tend to impact few of these transitions to de-value religious experiences of their childhoods and to consider themselves as not real Christian before their adolescent transition experiences.

Study on religious transitions can be dated back to 100s of years and has created a huge literature. Leaders in this field noted that the teenage appeared to be a prime time for transitions. However, since 1960s, relatively less research only has been conducted on teenage Christian transitions. Rather, most of the research has concentrated towards producing and evaluating prototypes of transition by making use of data collected from small samples of recruits to the religious cults. More frequently, Christian transitions suffer one or more of the following constraints: Utility of older adolescents/young adults for generalizing of all adolescents, convenience sampling method, failing to test the important relationships among factors, information collected years after the conversion time, or an explicit concentration towards personality than the environmental characteristics.

Analysis of Ideas for Evangelism, by David Cloud

In an analysis of Ideas for Evangelism, David Cloud begins and states that an efficient and successful evangelistic church outshine starts with holy priests who lift the challenge of teaching, encouraging, and directing the gathering to accomplish this crucial role before God. Therefore, the main key to evangelism… READ MORE

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