CHARISMA NEWS SERVICE        Thu, Mar 14, 2002        Vol. 4 No. 10

  Churches Need to Redefine Evangelism, New Movement Says 'Christians
don't listen,' biggest complaint of unchurched With more Americans
dismissing the relevance of traditional Christianity to their lives,
a growing number of church leaders are saying that it is time
for a major change in the way believers try to share their faith.

  The Off the Map (OTM) movement tries to turn the accepted idea of
"evangelism" on its head by inverting the typical church meeting. At
OTM events, the pastors and lay members sit quietly in the audience while
nonbelievers take the microphone to explain their lack of faith.

  Host Jim Henderson says it is the listeners he is trying to convert
-- the way they view non-Christians, and how best to reach them with the
gospel.  "The big complaint [from non-Christians] is that Christians don't
listen," he says. "They talk. They want to give a speech, but they don't
want to listen.  The unchurched do want to talk to a Christian, but they
don't want to be talked at."

  A Seattle-based network formed to explore new forms of sharing faith
in a postmodern world, OTM holds events intended to make Christians
look at those outside the church in a new way.

  Henderson says too few Christians are actively involved in evangelism
because of what the church has made it. Instead, OTM promotes evangelism
as simply "Christians connecting with non-Christians," and documents
stories of what it calls Ordinary Attempts in which small acts of
friendship can lead to opportunities to talk about faith.

  Brian McLaren, a Spencerville, Md., pastor who helped found OTM, said
many churches are too quick to give answers without even finding out
what the questions are. "We turn people outside the church into enemies
with whom we are engaged in warfare, not lost sheep for whom the
Shepherd cares and to whom we have been sent."

  For Michael Howes, minister of adults at a Fort Worth, Texas, church,
attending an OTM forum was like "another conversion." Having grown up
in the church, it opened his eyes to how "outsiders" view the church.

  Chris Marshall, a church-planter in Ohio, changed the way he viewed
the unchurched after participating in OTM events. Now rather than being
"targets," non-Christians are "fellow brothers and sisters," he said.
"I no longer count conversions, rather I count conversations."

  While many people dismiss the relevance of church, they are not
hostile to Christianity, said church growth expert Thom Rainer. His
research revealed only a small percentage of unbelievers who could be
considered "highly resistant" to the gospel, but church just didn't
figure in their thinking. His finding was echoed by a series of
"Charisma" magazine interviews across the country with people who said
they were "spiritual."

  "[Church is] not something they notice," Henderson said. "If the mall
and the church disappeared tomorrow, which would people miss most? The
answer speaks to the irrelevancy of our institution in our culture."

  But there is hope. For Rainer also found that more than 90 percent of
people would go to church on two conditions -- if someone invited them
and walked in with them. Rainer also recommends churches take a leaf out
of the OTM book by paying a non-Christian to visit and critique their
facilities and services.