Here’s the course I am giving at Regent College Summer’s School. Come if you can. Happy to have a conversation about the course online if you’d like to.
Part 1: Introduction, definitions and context
Lecture 1: Globalised liquid modernity meets post-Christendom as a context for evangelism
Lecture 2: Mission, Evangelism and Apologetics in biblical perspective
Part 2: The Gospel and General Revelation
Lecture 3: The Faith of the Unbeliever – biblical perspectives on non-Christian people
Lecture 4: Unapologetic Apologetics – four views on apologetics, reason and revelation
Lecture 5: Christian Encounter with other Religions – salvation, revelation and dialogue
Lecture 6: Christ and Cultures – a brief theology of cultural engagement
Part 3: The Gospel and Special Revelation
Lecture 7; The McGospel and its Discontents – technical rationality and evangelism
Lecture 8: A Four Dimensional Gospel – exploring alternative gospel presentations
Lecture 9: The Gospels and the Gospel – the rediscovery of biblical narrative
Lecture 10: The Gospel and our Cultures – biblical models of contextual evangelism
Part 3: The Gospel and the Congregation
Lecture 11: The Church as Missional Movement – evangelism and new forms of church
Lecture 12: The Church as United Body – evangelism and multicultural church
Lecture 13: The Church as Eschatological foretaste – evangelism and a community of hope
Lecture 14: The Church as Hermeneutic of the Gospel – evangelism beyond the personal
Part 4: The practice of Evangelism
Lecture 15: Reading the Bible with the damned – evangelism and biblical hermeneutics
Lecture 16: Watching Movies with the damned – evangelism and cultural dialogue
Lecture 17: Worked Example 1: Jesus and the Shawshank redemption
Lecture 18: Worked Example 2: Jesus and the Dark Knight
Part 5: Conclusion:
Lecture 19: Believing in the Future – Next Generation Evangelism
Lecture 20: Twenty-Four – Evangelism and everyday life
Select bibliography
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There are 7 comments. Add yours
Will you be streaming any of the sessions over the intermet, or will it be exclusively for people who are there?
Hi Muriel
sadly it won't be streamed but the recordings will be available to buy from the regent bookstore
blessings
krish
Looks a very interesting course. But... I'm going to ask the elephant-in-the-room question: is it theory or does it actually work? Who is using this stuff and what impact has it had? And... how many people have you led to Christ this year?
I know that last question is a kicker, and it's not about numbers but if we're doing a course on effective evangelism we need to measure effectiveness somehow. My answer to the aforementioned question is zero, but there again I'm not leading a course on effective evangelism & apologetics...
I'm not trying to be difficult. But this stuff is better caught than taught perhaps....
Thanks for your comment - one of the challenges is that number crunching leads to pure pragmatics and academic reflection often leads to theory that isn't based on praxis. This course is trying to do both - as a practicing (in every sense of that word! ) evangelist I am keen to combine both theory and praxis. Too often we evangelists rarely take time to consider if the gospel we are preaching has any real biblical foundation.
How we "count" the fruit is very interesting question. The parable of the sower has a lot to say into the question of counting. In Mark's gospel it is told in response to the masses of opposition Jesus' ministry was facing rather than in the context of thousands of conversions... it seems more people were rejecting Jesus' message than accepting it in Mark 4 - should we count Jesus as "bad" evangelist therefore?
Thanks for the comments Krish. I'm probably just reacting to my own personal frustration where I've recently read and learned lots of good stuff on being mission-focused and so on, but am yet to see those green shoots come up out of the soil.
I'm intrigued by what you say about opposition to Jesus's ministry in Mark 4. I can't see that in the passage at first glance. Jesus is speaking to a large crowd. Of course, many of those were probably casual listeners and his references to seed amongst weeds, rocks etc. might apply to them.
Jesus did say that the way was narrow. And we are more about disciples than 'converts'. So I agree we can't go off numbers. I suppose I am just hungry for some life-on-life demonstration of what effective Biblical mission should look like in practice, which is obviously something beyond the scope of a course like this.
Hi Krish,
I loved the way this course broadened my thinking about what I and others consider/perceive to be'the gospel'. I also was encouraged by the class discussions which explored lots of ways of engaging the people and culture around us in creative dialog. It was to nice to see a couple new additions to the bibliography to keep it fresh (and some older familiar friends like Newbigin).
My only thought by way of improving upon this was to have the class engage in evangelism on the campus in some way or at least be a part of a group outreach. Given the short time frame-- one possibility might be to promote and screen a film with free popcorn and soda pop as a way of experiencing lecture 16. But again, the time frame to promote such an event may be too short.
I think that I will likely be back in NS when you are here in BC-- too bad as it would have been nice to see you. Blessings on your preparations for this course.
~Mike
Good to hear from you michael, sorry not to be seeing you this trip. Calvin is trying to work out some evangelistic experience on ubc campus.
Blessings
Kk