EVANGELISM CONFERENCE REPORT

Twenty full-time youth workers gathered from around South Africa for a five day conference on evangelising young people. The event included an emphasis on theoretical training in evangelism, practical exposure through evangelistic opportunities and a devotional emphasis.

1. Theoretical
The mornings were devoted to input sessions on the following aspects of evangelism: (1) Commitment Level Evangelism - this first session of each day was devoted to developing evangelism within a youth group context. We explored how to evangelise youth outside the youth group, those youth within the groups sphere of influence, but who will not attend the group; youth who attend youth group events; and youth who are churched but not Christian. It also focussed on completing the circle by motivating, training and mobilising Christian youth to evangelism, social action and discipleship. (2) Youth and Evangelism - each day one category was focussed on: children, teenagers, young adults, Generation Xers and Millennials. The key characteristics of each age group or generation were explored and guidelines for evangelising them were developed. (3) Methods of Evangelism - the following methods were explored: lifestyle, friendship, survey, question and answer (seeker events and Socratic evangelism), community service, power and narrative evangelism. (4) Strategies for Evangelism - representatives for various programmes for evangelism were invited to promote their approach, including: Sowers (a sketch board street evangelism strategy); Youth EE3; Youth Alpha; Wings (a children’s school assemble programme) and Seeker Services (a pastor running seeker-orientated services presented this session). (5) Contexts for Evangelism - the following contexts in which young people can be contacted were explored to discover guidelines for evangelistic efforts: street, mall, sport, music and school.

2. Practical
Each day of the week, Monday to Thursday, included an afternoon or evening of practical exposure to evangelism.

On Monday we went onto the streets of Randburg with someone trained in Sowers and did a sketch board gospel presentation. Many people responded and were counselled right there in the street to receive Jesus. I was so amazed at how they were willing to walk out of the crowd in broad daylight to receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Obviously it was a highlight for the conference delegates to be involved in evangelism right away. There was an interesting point made here - the aggressive sketch board evangelism of Sowers is effective with people from the Two-Thirds world (Third World) but much less effective with people from the First-World. A youth pastor who works in a predominantly 'White' suburb said that they have stopped trying to evangelise 'White' youth with Sowers, but are finding it very effective in reaching 'Black' youth on the streets and in parks. It seems that 'White' kids just won't stop and give you the time of day if you preach in the open-air. You have to use more of an incarnational approach with them. It may be that 'Black' youth are so much more polite and community-orientated that they will stay long enough to actually hear the gospel presentation, thus having more of a chance to respond to the gospel.

On Tuesday night we went into a mall and did surveys of young people. Again we discovered that young people are more than willing to talk to an adult stranger about what they think and believe. While our goal was not evangelism per-se' we did find that many seeds were planted. I am sure if there was an aggressive evangelist doing the survey then conversions could have taken place. We emphasised the need to plant seeds within the minds of the youth we surveyed - seeds that would bring forth growth at a later stage.

On Wednesday we spent the afternoon at a roller skating park to show the youth leaders that if they are willing to go onto the turf of young people, they will find it easy to make contact and enter into relationship with youth. We watched how one of my students was ministering among the youth who were skating and realised that with extended time on their turf, effective ministry would result. By the end of the afternoon we knew the names of all the kids in the park and if we were to return, could easily pick up on the relationships that had been developed. We passed the name of the woman who runs the place over to the local church to follow up as she expressed a need for someone to speak to further.

On Thursday night we went to a rave and again saw how it is possible to go to where people are and over a period of time get to impact them for Christ. It was harder in the club context to build relationships with people, than at the skate park. We did however make contact with one of the workers in a club who wanted to give us complimentary tickets to become regular members. We shared who we were and why we were there and for about fifteen minutes he opened up his whole life to us. He spoke about his travels around the world, his dissatisfaction with hairdressing as a career, and how that he only lives for the next rave event. We were convinced by the end of the evening that if someone had to develop a relationship with him, then he would find what he is actually searching for...a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.

3. Devotional
Our time of Devotions each day was also a highlight as we reflected on God’s love for people as a motivation to evangelism; prayed for the conversion of youth in our groups; prayed that God would give us a passion for the lost; and prayed for boldness in taking the opportunity to share the gospel with people that we meet.

The following is a list of key emphases that God impressed on us during the week (they are in the order in which they arose during the week, and not in a priority of importance):

1. The importance of preparation - especially prayer - we cannot reply on our methods and techniques, we must rely on the power of God through his Word.
2. Knowing the language of your audience - this determines what method will be used. We must discover as much as possible about different sub-culture groups and then 'speak their language' as we tell the gospel story. We must understand our beliefs and theology if we are to contextualise it.
3. Overcome the barriers to evangelism: John 4 suggests the following barriers: pre-occupation (v8); prejudice (v9); procrastination (v31); presumption (v35-38).
4. Evangelism is a process - even if we are using a more 'in your face' type of presentation method there is still the need to (a) make meaningful contact with people, (b) start to build a relationship with them, (c) share the gospel and then (d) follow the person up.
5. The love of God - his mission to draw people back to himself is our main motivation for evangelising the lost. We must also understand the lost condition that people find themselves in and realise that God wants to use us to bring them salvation.
6. We must be aware of where people are at and we must be willing to engage them on their turf.
7. We must not treat people are projects, but develop true friendships with them.
8. Evangelism does not have to be intimidating - there are ways to contact and relate to people that are natural and enjoyable.
9. We must look for divine opportunities that God has created in which people are open to hearing the gospel.
10. Many youth will still come to a church, if they are invited by a friend, so we should develop a regular evangelistic programming ministry in which newcomers are made to feel welcome, are evangelised and followed-up.
11. Understanding generations (such as Generation X and Millennials) and strategising to reach them accordingly. Certain methods of evangelism will be suitable with different generations: Xers are most open to narrative or Socratic methods, while Millennials are most open to evangelistic mass rally's and service project's in which they discover Christ.
12. The importance of story in evangelism - we must hear their story, share our story and the story of salvation through Jesus Christ.
13. The importance of evangelising children before they become teenagers.
14. We must not be too conclusive about determining how God will reach people - He will invariable surprise us and confound our neat theories about evangelism.
15. We must complete the ministry cycle by motivating, training and mobilising Christian youth to evangelism, social action and discipleship.
16. As a youth group in a local church we must do evangelism, social action and discipleship in both a local (within our geographic sphere of influence) and a missions context (beyond our immediate context and in the world).
17. The streets, schools, malls, sports and clubs are valuable contexts for evangelism among youth.
18. Youth can be placed on a continuum (pre-non Christian; non-Christian; seekers; converts). Different evangelistic programmes are better suited to different categories of youth. For example, Sowers is most effective with pre-non Christian and unchurched youth; EE3 is better suited to non-Christian youth who have had some exposure to Christianity and who has significant understanding of a Christian world view; and Youth Alpha is best suited to youth who are seekers - otherwise they won't come to have their questions answered. It is also important to see our role as moving people along the continuum closer towards a conversion experience. We should rejoice at the movement anyone takes, even if it is a small step, as long as they are moving towards conversion.