Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

56 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

appropriate methodology. 91 While churches cannot be built on a foundation of child evangelism, it must be understood that children are a major area of concern in the lives of inner-city people. Many people harbor frustration and guilt over their inability to parent effectively in the face of difficult situations. Others struggle with anxiety over the temptations facing their children and are actively seeking resources to help them prepare their children to overcome them. To effectively evangelize, missionaries must understand people in their role as parents and seek to address their needs and concerns. If done well, the result will be the evangelization of both parent and child. World Impact’s model of evangelism is also holistic, seeking to address the practical needs of families as well as spiritual needs. This is of special importance in physically impoverished areas. Ervin Hastey comments, “In today’s cities it is being found that a holistic approach to witnessing to their inhabitants is giving good results. Hospitals, clinics, schools, food centers, halfway houses, and goodwill centers are more and more using their ministries not only to proclaim and teach the gospel but also to establish churches.” 92 Other evangelistic strategies have been used in the inner city: open air concerts and preaching, evangelistic films and door to door visitation. Many more strategies must be created as well as learned from other urban ministers. No matter which method is used to present the gospel, prayer must be central in both planning and implementation. Concluding a study of New Testament evangelism Harvie Conn says, “Biblical evangelizing is a twofold commission: to preach and to pray, to talk to people about God and to talk to God about people.” 93 Once contacts have been made, the gospel presented, and the first people converted through faith in Christ, they need encouragement to reach their networks of friends, family and co-workers. The first converts become “bridges” through which their relational network can be reached. Church planters can pray and expect that the gospel will spread along relational lines in the community. 94 These networks of

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91 This is not a call to restrict our evangelism to these age levels but to continue to take them seriously in light of urban realities.

92 Hastey, p. 161

93 Harvie Conn, Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace , (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982), p. 86

94 See Donald McGavran, The Bridges of God , (New York: Friendship Press, 1955), p. 31