Mission-shaped Evangelism - back to the future

News Release: 05 March 2010

A new book from Church Army's Steve Hollinghurst argues that the future for evangelism depends upon Christians taking the Gospel to places "beyond our church culture."

'Mission-shaped Evangelism' emphasises that Christians must recognise that "lifestyle is far more important than dogma" in the 21st Century. The early Christian church spread the Gospel across the known world by involving itself in other cultures, and Steve argues that a similar approach is required today.

In his words, "It is no accident that the early evangelisation of Europe led to the Christianisation of existing religious festivals and holy places." For example, we now celebrate Jesus Christ's birth in December purely because there was already a pagan festival in that month, which Christians were able to gradually turn into a holy occasion.

Steve highlights the various surveys that show we now live in a country "that is no longer predominately Christian", therefore we cannot base anything we do on the idea that a large percentage of the population were raised or educated within a Christian framework.

However, "belief" and "spirituality" still abound, but within a "pick and mix" culture that encompasses horoscopes, lucky charms and superstition. For Christianity to become relevant in most people's lives, Steve says "Our message needs to address the questions being asked, not the ones we think should be asked."

'Mission-shaped Evangelism' is published by Canterbury Press.

See a short film of Steve now at this link.