Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

P ART I: D EVELOPING U RBAN C ONGREGATIONS • 55

Michael Green summarizes the effective witness of these early Christians, saying, “When men have the will to speak of their Lord, they find no shortage of ways in which to do it. Indeed, it is the motivation of these men and women which impresses us more than their methods.” 87 Likewise, the motivation for evangelism is more important than the methods of the church-planting team, although culturally appropriate methods are needed. These methods reveal a Scriptural world view which sees evangelism as both proclamation and affirmation of the gospel. Proclamation is “an action through which the non-Christian receives a clear statement of the essential message” while affirmation is “a process of modeling and explaining the Christian message.” 88 World Impact combines these aspects of evangelism when we say evangelism includes “everything we do that reveals the love of Christ to our neighbors.” 89 This includes both our words and our actions. 90 Through the years, World Impact’s predominant method has been “incarnational evangelism.” World Impact staff move into the target communities. They live in the inner-city neighborhood and relate to neighbors as fellow-residents of the community. Children’s Bible clubs and teen clubs initiate access to neighborhood families. Adult home Bible studies provide an evangelistic forum for interested parents. This incarnational strategy of evangelism is especially appropriate to the inner-city culture because it accents person-to-person relationships. Face-to-face communication and friendship is extremely important for communicating the gospel in the urban context. Immigrant and ethnic populations in the inner cities show a strong preference for communication via the spoken word within a context of relationship. Evangelism strategies must take this seriously. World Impact’s evangelism has also been family-oriented, including outreach to children and teens as well as adults. In communities where two-thirds of the residents are under the age of sixteen, this is a culturally

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87 Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church , (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 178

88 Jim Peterson, Evangelism as a Lifestyle , (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1980), p. 22

89 World Impact Mission Strategy , (World Impact Staff Training Manual, 1980), p. 59

90 See Bruce Nicholls, In Word and Deed: Evangelism and Social Responsibility , (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985)