Understanding Evangelism

JD Payne, Understanding Evangelism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2025) xviii+324pp, £26.99

 
I don’t think its controversial to say that an area of weakness for Irish Methodism today is in our understanding of evangelism, so any new publication that claims to do just that should be of interest to us.  And here we have a comprehensive text that looks at the Biblical foundations, historical developments and the contemporary issues we need to grapple with.  The book breaks down into 5 main areas of introduction to evangelism, Biblical background, history, culture and contemporary issues and perhaps one neat little detail is the first book referenced in the bibliography is Billy Abraham’s The Logic of Evangelism – a real irony that the denomination that nurtured Professor Abraham today is so weak in his key area of expertise.

While this is in some ways quite a scholarly book, it is also very practical and a number of the chapters are focused on how we actually participate in evangelism today.  Perhaps the most pertinent chapter for Irish Methodism today is titled ‘Overcoming Personal Concerns’ and looking directly at areas such as ‘overcoming fears and excuses, past mistakes, and personal limitations’ (p247). And a close second is the chapter that looks at how we actually begin to share the good news.  It’s a very practical ‘how to’ chapter that avoids the salesperson approach but helps us to better understand when someone may well be looking for something in their life, and how to transition a conversation that enables this. Its far from manipulation, its all about giving us some of the tools to help us share the great gift that has been shared with us in the past. 

Would you use this book?  Like so many well written texts today there is comprehensive understanding shared, good range of literature and practice engaged with, it fits in well with our Wesleyan tradition and theology, and each chapter has plenty to follow up on and questions that allow this to be helpful for group study. 

Payne references numerous Methodists in developing the thinking and practice of evangelism.  I’ll repeat his use of Billy Abraham’s hugely influential The Logic of Evangelism where Abraham states ‘If evangelism refers to everything the church does, then it is extremely difficult to identify … If everything is evangelism, then nothing is evangelism, and we should be surprised if anyone in the church takes it very seriously’ (p21).

It’s the author’s prayer that this book helps our thinking but in particular motivates us to action.  ‘The faithfulness of women and men, crossing cultural gaps, across the ages, eventually resulted in us hearing and believing in the gospel.  May we be faithful stewards in our day, to grow in understanding evangelism and share with others what we have received’ (p280).

 Rev Dr Stephen Skuce
Superintendent for Growing Churches