Community Evangelism

At the moment I'm reading 'Total Church' and 'Everyday Church', both by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.  There is lots in them that I like a lot.

In Total Church we are presented with a community rather than individualistic model of evangelism

Both these books talk about the importance of evangelism in community.  They propose that the model of church where people come to us is irrelevant in cultures like the UK and Australia because most people have no intention of ever visiting a church, so it doesn't matter how good the program is since people aren't coming anyway. 

Instead they propose a model of evangelism that takes place in community.  In order for this to take place these communities need to exist.  Tim Chester and Steve Timmis lead a  church called The Crowded House.  It's made up of what they call gospel communities.  These gospel communities are like large Bible study groups, but much more.  They're made up of groups of Christians committed to sharing their lives together.  These groups meet together several times a week for normal things as well as things like Bible study and prayer.  They share quite a lot of meals together as well.

When people in these gospel communities get to know non-Christians, then, when they invite them into their lives, they're inviting them into these gospel communities.  If I invited a non-Christian friend to my place for dinner, it would be done with other Christians there.  If we went to the park with our kids we would do it with other Christians. The idea is to evangelise in community.  

This means that people who are good at getting to know others but have no idea how to bring up the gospel in a conversation needn't worry too much about that, because others in the group can do it.  But those who are confident teaching and talking about the Bible but have no idea how to meet people needn't worry about it because others in the group can do it.  It also means that we can see others doing the things we are not good at and get ideas on how to do it better.

The evangelism primarily takes place when the gospel is clearly articulated to a listening audience.  But in this model it also takes place as lives are shared and unbelievers witness believers living in community in ways that seem impossible in our culture with our structures and priorities.  

I'm going to keep writing about this stuff and maybe share some things as we seek to make what is now our Bible Study group into a gospel community where we share our  lives with each other sand the gospel with unbelievers.

I'm interested to hear from others, though, what they've experienced in terms of meaningful community and sharing the gospel.