Perhaps somewhat ironically, just about the same time this article went up, Dr. Carlos G. Martin commented on the efficacy of Southern's Evangelism Resource Center (in "This Evangelism Corrupts Adventism"). It's a noteworthy comment that may have slipped by without much notice, coming as it did while most people were busy at work and not reading Spectrum...right?

Dr. Martin notes that

eighty-seven preachers led 4,561 people to baptism this summer 2008. This is a baptismal report for the [group] sent this summer to the homeland and the three teams sent abroad by the Evangelistic Resource Center (ERC) at Southern Adventist University. Keep in mind that they were unexperienced preachers!

In 2001 Southern Adventist University started requiring all Theology majors to conduct a full evangelistic campaign before graduation. In 2005 we experimented with non-Religion majors. Today, most of our preachers are not Religion majors.

Seeing things in different terms, Ryan Bell opines with some force that

“evangelism” must be recovered. This implies that evangelism is almost completely lost to the church as something good, ethical, authentic, or credible. Nearly all the associations both inside the church and in the wider culture are negative associations. Can anyone really deny that the word “evangelism” and all that it implies, is in rough shape?

Ryan goes on to share research from the Barna Research Group published in unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity--

When you’re talking dollars, there is no price too high
for a soul. But the problem isn’t just cost. In our research with some of the leading “mass evangelism” efforts, we found that often these measures create three to ten times as much negative response as positive. In other words, imagine your
3 church is considering mailing Bibles or videos or other Christian materials to homes in your community. Our research shows that the “collateral damage” of doing so—those whose impressions of your church and of Christianity would be more negative as a result—is significantly greater than the positive impact on those who will respond favorably to these efforts.

Jared...

I caught the juxtaposition of two contrasting views. Yes, ironic that a report on baptismal numbers would be posted in the midst of such recent discussions on the nature of our evangelistic paradigms going on here.

Thanks...

Frank

I suspect there was some intentionality to the comment as well...as if to say, "See, it does work!"

And we have to be honest and admit that if church growth is the goal of evangelism, then the big meeting method that Adventists have used traditionally does indeed work (at least in developing nations).

Ryan's talk was absolutely right on. I've got it printed out to share. I'd love to know the response he's gotten so far.

Daneen,

I read it and passed it on to my pastor and some of my local elders. They also thought that it was spot on...what we are aspiring to be in our community as well.

Thanks...

Frank

For a long, long, long time we have equated evangelism with baptism, and the gospel with institutional membership. At the end of the D&R seminars or the old tent meetings they still have in some other divisions, there's the inevitable story about the guy who was almost persuaded about "the gospel" but didn't get baptized, and then was run over or had a car crash or a heart attack or something permanent on the way home... Poor thing; we'll see him in the second resurrection.

I sometimes have difficulty sensing that such beliefs or practices will change in my lifetime.

I suppose it depends on how you quantify change. Ryan's presentation marked a significant change not only in theory and rhetoric, but also in practice!

The change you never imagined you would see may be coming and has now come.

My goal in this paper was to not to simply criticize but to offer a more reasoned critique (beyond the tired debate about what works, which is hopelessly captive to a social imagination of late modernity and market capitalism) and more importantly, as Jared keeps pointing out, my main goal was to offer a constructive proposal.

My fear is that people who are sensing that the captive forms of "evangelism" need to die are branded anti-evangelism because they can't answer the question,"Well, if you don't like what I'm doing, show me what you're doing." This is where the "logic of witness" is so powerful. It is a total conversation changer.

I've gotten positive feedback to this, so far. I'm happy for that. I'm sure others will feel differently, as they always do we someone dares to question cherished traditions. Anyway, I'm basically compiling together the impressive thoughts of others, so none of this is original with me. What makes this important, IMHO, is that I've never been a part of a church, until now, that is attempting to live this out, however failingly.

Pressing on!

By the way, the mp3 is now available here: http://diasporamovie.blogspot.com/2008/08/recovering-evangelism.html
Huge thanks to my friend and fellow Hollywood member, Melody George, who video taped this presentation and edited this audio together. At the end she captures most of the Q & A. Enjoy.

I certainly wish Ryan well, Jared -- but the whole Church isn't Hollywood! And Hollywood responds to things just a little differently than Podunk City, Anystate, or even the divisions outside of the NAD. It is challenging for me to go elsewhere and hear stories like the one I just told, and then watch people who question the method get frozen out for heathenry.

Experience for experience: that's what goes on elsewhere... the kind of evangelism that is in bad shape in this culture is apparently in great shape in others. So the "it's not working" argument may not fly too far off this continent. The model in say the IAD is not so much economic as it is military; I mean, they still happily talk about "crusades" because there are few political objections to the metaphor in the wider society.

But it's all tied up together from my perspective: what you think the gospel is, what you think salvation is, what you think the church is, what you think your domain/world is, what you think your role in gospel, salvation, church, and domain/world is, and what methods you think are appropriate practice as a result. Even casting church as an outbound, open-gated transformative communion will be a huge, political, and baldly threatening paradigm shift in areas where the church is conceived of as a sanctified enclave with standards to uphold and a reputation to maintain.

There is value in a local shift in Hollywood -- of course there is. But what about the rest of the country and the planet? Will we have to wait for Ryan's generation to become international church administrators for this seed to germinate and grow? Will the believers throughout the church allow for evolution even if AmazingFacts et al. don't buy in? Can it all be done without fragmenting the communion, and if so, what will it take? All of these things are on my global mind.

KM, you are right. We are just one local congregation stumbling into what we don't understand in the hope of finding that the gospel will take shape in our context. Hopefully people like yourself can sow seeds of a new world where you are.

I'll be going to Moscow in a month or so and hope to spread to sow the seeds of the kingdom there as well. That's part of the story isn't it? Small, insignificant contributions is all we can make - like mustard seeds or yeast. The rest is in God's hands.

I'm doing my best, Ryan -- having a hard time of it, but doing my best.
God bless you. :)

Great insight, well stated--but with what impact up the line?

Take away the trapping and most series are so shallow as to be embarassing. There is no career future in evangelism it is just the rite of passage to administration. Therefore, initial numbers are the only criteria that "counts". Salvation is a side issue in which the "mark" is on his or her own.

The modus operandi is just like the "Right to Life" advocates--get them born and then let them shift for themselves.

I can't recount the times I have "brought" professional colleagues to an "effort" only to be embarrassed by the triteness and self centeredness of the presentation. Seldom was there any there there. If so it was usually stated in the negative--at least to any "outsider". Ryan you have a cause worth your effort. May the Lord be with you. Tom

Ryan,
I wish you every success and blessing of God. I am glad you are proactive about approaching evangelism with a different paradigm.
Your being able to answer the question ,"What are you doing?" is a positive perspective and one which will allow you to find many supporters.
There are many people who have varying levels of comfort or confidence in many of the current methods but feel they have little or no evangelistically viable alternatives.
Also, I wouldnt worry as much as KM does about the speed of whatever is found to be successful passing on to other areas.
Success has many fathers while failure is an orphan right?

Michael, my concern isn't speed, but reception without harm. I do think it's important to recognize when we're speaking in different dimensions, otherwise we'll keep talking across each other. We do it so well. :)

And I enjoy it. Sorry for my missunderstanding!

'If you’re trying to recruit people for church membership I have no doubt that in some places, performed with professionalism, the mass evangelistic campaign “works.” But if what we’re trying to do is be faithful witnesses to the reign of God taking shape in communities, we have to ask whether the “success” of some practices is part of the problem....'

Where the Forum was held - the Glendale City Church - happens to be one of the sites where "Soup and Salvation" training seminars have recently been conducted by the It is Written staff in connection with the upcoming evangelistic thrust of the conference known also as cLAim. From what I heard (since I live within earshot - 2 miles - of GCC) there were only a few area churches that were represented. Just wondering if the Hollywood church, in your own area, was in anyway involved with the program or not. Speaking the truth in love, why or why not?

Our church in Hollywood was not involved in the the Glendale City Church's Soup & Salvation program. However, all the churches of the Southern California Conference are required to participate in cLAim so yes, the Hollywood Adventist Church is participating in cLAim in some form. We are a part of the southern quadrant.

Ryan's talk summed up so well the problems I have with traditional evangelism, but have not been able to articulate as well as he did. I especially appreciated the way he highlighted the underlying capitalist logic of traditional efforts. This is why talk of 'friendship evangelism' has always made me livid - it suggests that friendship is just another way of selling the religion 'product', much as other types of salespeople might sell cars or insurance. This is disturbing on a number of levels.

I have in the last few months had a couple experiences with Adventist evangelism that I think may further illustrate some of the problems:

1) An elderly relative recently told me that his church will soon be conducting an evangelistic series (I believe he said it would be 5 nights a week for a month). Immediately following this they would be having a vegetarian cooking school, because some of the new members would need 'training'.

2) I do not attend the local (traditional, small, midwestern) Adventist church for a variety of reasons, but I have attended a few of the activities hosted by the Adventist student group on the university campus where I am a PhD student. I initially went to one meeting of an evangelistic series they held on campus just to see what they were up to, and after that went to a few of the mid-week, on-campus Bible studies on Daniel (attended by, amazingly enough, only Adventists). I later saw in the conference and union publications an article on the evangelistic series by the student leader of the group, and a reference to the fact that some Adventists who had not been attending church were now coming to Bible studies. I have a hunch that was a reference to me.

I also attended one of their meetings in which a visiting speaker talked about how his church has managed to grow exponentially through community activities that serve to funnel people into small groups, which serve to funnel people into the church. Any activity that does not draw people into the church, he said, should be abandoned in favor of ones that are more 'effective'.

It is a very interesting thing to be on the receiving end of Adventist evangelism, particularly as a 'backslider'. In my situation, I am pretty sure that the friendship I am offered is primarily a means to draw me back into the church. And while I view myself as a progressive (forward-climber? =p), my departure from traditional orthodoxy puts me, in their eyes, in the role of someone who needs to receive guidance rather than someone who can contribute to a constructive conversation.

Anyway, please pardon my rant! It was just a long-winded way of saying that Ryan's observations are very insightful, and I hope that more people will stop preaching and start witnessing.

From what I've seen, especially among Anglo Adventist clergy, cLAim's reception has been lukewarm at best. I'm not surprised at the passive stance of pastors. For how many of them have not yet become inured to much of the same conference-wide harvest evangelism? By and large, pastors have left it up to members who have attended the Soup and Salvation training sessions to implement what in their own mind they may have found useful.

'The believing and practicing congregation is the only hermeneutic of the gospel. Notice that it’s not even believing and practicing individuals. It is the community of faith that is the hermeneutic—interpretive key—for the gospel to become credible and believable to a rightly skeptical public.'