Evangelistic programs, though helpful, must be subject to course correction (slight or significant) as the situation demands. Good evangelists must know and be able to articulate the basic tenets of the Gospel. Beyond that foundation, however, effective evangelists possess two important skills: they take a personal approach, and they are spatially aware.

The truths of the Gospel are stable across time; people, places, and situations, on the other hand, are fluid. This means that Christians need to be very, very cautious whenever we engage with an evangelistic “program”. All of us have an innate craving for programs according to which we can live life. Some people extend this desire farther than others, but we all need standardized habits, rituals, or programs that allow our brains to shift onto auto-pilot. As we run along these programmed pathways, we remain distantly conscious that, no matter how rote the task, programs can fail, situations can change, and we will need to adjust accordingly.

Take for example one of our simplest and most stable habits: tying your shoe. Most of us are not deeply absorbed in contemplation of our shoelaces as we do the tying. However, that doesn’t mean we can completely tune out, even in so simple a task. We may need to adjust or loosen laces, make one side longer, remove a pebble from the shoe, or we may be interrupted by a more pressing need. Task complexity demands flexibility and adaptation: the more complex, the more flexibility needed.

What then does this imply about evangelism, a task which combines two of the most complex and mysteriously powerful things in the world? Evangelism seeks to apply the mysterious power of the Gospel to transform lives to the mysterious power of a human being’s spiritual thoughts and actions—a bit more complex shoe-tying. This is why evangelistic programs, though helpful, must be subject to course correction (slight or significant) as the situation demands.

Good evangelists must know and be able to articulate the basic tenets of the Gospel. Beyond that foundation, however, effective evangelists possess two important skills: they take a personal approach, and they are spatially aware.

Personalized Evangelism

As many scholars have pointed out, Paul preached two vastly different sermons: when he addressed a primarily Jewish audience in Antioch (Acts 13), and when he spoke to the Greek pagan philosophers in Athens (Acts 17). These differ still from his personal evangelistic conversations with the Philippian jailer, and his sermon to the Roman civil authorities, Agrippa and Felix, and their retinue. These contexts are widely disparate. The audiences have different interests and background assumptions of truth, which lead Paul to start at different places and emphasize different aspects of the Gospel. Furthermore, we can be sure that his public addresses differed in tone and flow from his personal evangelistic conversations.

We could generally sum up this personalizing of evangelism as “contextualization.” But the point of contextualizing carries even more weight for those of us who do not have regular, large-audience speaking opportunities. In other words, if your “context” is a single person, you should seek to really know that one person. In many ways, you should be moreready to adapt a spiritual conversation when you narrow your audience down to one specific person. That person maygenuinely be helped by thinking about the question: “If you die tonight, where would you go?” or “Why should God let you into heaven?” But they may have a much more genuine and pressing spiritual need: to discuss the conflict in their mind between science and faith, or the problem of evil. These other questions are often not red herrings, or simply obstacles to be brushed aside so we can get back to the tractor beam of sin, justification, and faith. These other questions are the conversation, or at least where it should start, in order to move toward considering Jesus.

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