I admit I'm not the 'evangelism type.' In fact, I've always been a little suspicious of people who, for the sake of evangelism, 'Just stay near the door." I've always figured they stayed near the door because they really liked the outside better and they wanted an excuse to live on the fringe of Christian commitment. But, even a guy like me, who is more at home with the second half of the great commission than the first half, can notice the disappearance of evangelism from the evangelical church.

Billy Graham's massive Los Angeles evangelistic crusade is ancient history to most of my readers, but what followed a few decades later was the flourishing of personal evangelism. Some might remember Campus Crusade's 1970's 'Explo' in Dallas, or at least the fallout, as evangelical parrots learned to say, "Have you ever heard the four spiritual laws?" promising "God has a wonderful plan for your life." Denominations followed up with KEY '73, an interdenominational cooperative evangelistic effort.

And, I bet many of us still have somewhere in our library, that nicely padded green book "Evangelism Explosion" by D. James Kennedy. (Yes, young readers, back then he was better known for personal evangelism than politics and pipe organs.) If you can't recall these evangelism efforts, maybe you'll remember the 'Here's Life' campaign, Or after that, John Maxwell's GRADE program which deployed laity going out door to door, to be 'soul winners.'

I don't know why, but most personal evangelism movements seem to eventually lose steam. Though never intended to be mass evangelism, Bill Hybel's 'seeker movement' had that exact effect in many copycat churches. The emphasis switched from personal evangelism to attraction evangelism. Many of us tried to put on a service that would attract and hold 'seekers,' thus moving evangelism back to the platform and closer to Billy Graham's mass evangelism approach. We found that (if we could survive all the guff from traditionalists) we could put on a service that unbelievers would attend -- even attend regularly.

But, evangelism has a tendency to 'morph.' Over the last decade or so it morphed into... 'church growth.' Gradually our emphasis switched from winning souls to 'growing the church.'

The trouble is, some churches discovered it was a whale of a lot easier to get people to come to church, than to get them saved -- truly transformed. And they were willing to settle for attendance and participation. Evangelicals hardly noticed that much of our 'church growth' was merely crop rotation -- we recruited easily bored boomers from their less 'exciting' churches into our own 'more motivating' environments. With all of our preoccupation with 'church growth' the lost world has been hardly touched by the gospel.

A core problem, of course is theological. Something like despair has leaked into many churches. There is increasing doubt that God really can change lives. Doubt about the value of a "crisis conversion" in bringing real deliverance. Instead, we increasingly rely more on recovery models. Redemption has been traded for recovery. Can God deliver people from habits? In a moment? Can He repair a marriage in a moment? Can God deliver a homosexual? Free us from lust? Maybe, but we doubt it. Our faith is weak. America's evangelical church is a modern day Nazareth.

But a sweeping change is coming. Maybe even a shakeout. The doctrine of transforming grace is a watershed one. Worth thinking about, debating, restoring. I think we are on the verge of a great rediscovery of evangelism. Because what we call evangelism today, isn't.

I bet we're going to see a renewed emphasis on conversion... not only as a change in legal status before God, but also as a transformational change in the individual's life -- bringing a new and a changed life to the repentant.

And I'm betting we'll see a new emphasis on *instantaneous* conversion and deliverance. Since there's not much of that around now, it might even be considered a new idea. And it will probably be opposed by all of us who already know that God can't change people in less than twelve steps. But it's hard to put God in a box. Theology can't do it. Certainly psychology can't.

Also, I bet we'll see a renaissance of interest in conversion itself. In defining what really happens when a person is converted, how grace changes us, and how to know you really are converted. Who knows, some of our own members will get saved. Our soteriology is up for renewal.

All this brings me to the final point. I expect a new emphasis on *evangelism* to rush through the church in a couple of years -- real evangelism, where sinners experience God's transforming grace... where God changes people... where old things pass away, old habits, old attitudes, old sins drop off. And out of that we'll see a fresh wave of evangelistic fervor for a lost world.

But all this will have to start in the church. It probably won't be door to door, but pew to pew. Face it, most Christians need to become Christians. And it is so much more difficult to get Christians to become Christians than non-Christians.

Will we see a return to transformational conversion? What do you think?

So what do you think?

By Keith Drury, 1994. You are free to transmit, duplicate or distribute this article for non-profit use without permission.