Liberal Evangelism

I've just come back from a very enjoyable conversation organised by our Diocesan Mission Adviser on the subject of Liberal Evangelism. There were thirteen of us in the room from the four corners of the Diocese. I am hugely grateful to work in a diocese that welcomes and enables this kind of conversation.

We all enjoyed being able to contribute freely and therefore to some extent confidentially. Not all of us who have liberal tendencies in evangelical churches are 'out' yet.

But to give you a flavour of the discussion, we grappled with things such as:

Young people have more of a sense of shame than a sense of sin. Can you do evangelism without making sin the start of the story?

Jesus taking bread, breaking it and saying 'This is me' is the ultimate deconstruction. How much do we think Jesus wanted a neatly packaged ideology to be his legacy?

If we want to grow in numbers we have to use language that is useful to people. Everyone should be welcome to come in and then to tell us what life is like in their experience.

I felt very much at home with this bunch of explorers.