A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original review appears below. Jim Walton is Coordinator of Youth and Lay Ministries, St. Giles Presbyterian Church, Prince George, B.C.
Evangelism For Our Generation: The Practical Way to Make Evangelism Your Lifestyle. by Jim Petersen. Colorado Springs, Colorado: Navpress, 1985.
Jim Petersen, the Deputy International Ministries Director of the Navigators, an interdenominational, evangelical organization, has served as a missionary to Latin America for about twenty-one years. The wealth of experience gained from his struggles in making the gospel relevant to the peoples of that culture spawned the ideas shared not only in this book but also those of an earlier effort entitled Evangelism As A Lifestyle. Both books are directed toward lay people who wish to be effective in their witness to the secularized person they encounter in life’s day-to-day circumstances. In his first book, Petersen argues how essential it is for Christians to learn how to go into the world of the unreached and to bring them into theirs, rather than simply verbalizing the gospel message with the expectation that people will be interested in coming to the church for answers. In this book, as the title suggests, Petersen focuses on how this task might be carried out.
The first few chapters of the book highlight several principles foundational for evangelism. First, the author emphasizes how important it is that Christians understand the spiritual climate of the society in which they live. The believer must make it their priority to make this climate work in favour of the growth of the gospel rather than allowing it to isolate themselves from the people they are attempting to reach. Petersen then encourages the Christian to understand the spiritual condition of the people of their culture. Here the believer needs to empathize with the lost by projecting himself into their situation. This will enable them to discover how they may best give reason for the hope they have within (2 Peter 3:15). Finally Petersen stresses the importance of making it an objective to communicate the person of Jesus Christ to others. This means that the Christian must first have a clear understanding of Christ in his or her own mind. This also means that the Christian must be careful that the essential message is not altered and thus clouded and rendered ineffective (Petersen suggests several ways how this may happen).
The remainder of the book gives principles for the Christian to use in making evangelism a lifestyle. Throughout this section Petersen tactfully deals with the tension and pitfalls Christians encounter in their attempt to “be in but not of the world.” The author begins by identifying how effective evangelism will ideally utilize the resources of a team of people, not just the individual. He then suggests how to make the transition from being a spectator to being involved. Here Petersen deals with the problem of Christians who tend to isolate themselves from the culture they are attempting to evangelize by their peculiar “associations, expectations, expressions and actions” (pp. 86-91). He concludes with instruction as to how the Christian can be the catalyst in thoughtfully taking an individual through the process involved in coming to faith in Christ. This process begins with a friendship that arouses interest in Christ and breaks through the various manifestations of indifference and culminates by exposing them to the person of Christ by taking them through an informal study of the gospels. The appendix includes a step-by-step inductive study of the gospel of John, developed by Petersen and used effectively in his own evangelism.
The many illustrations of both good and bad experiences of the author help make Evangelism For Our Generation easy to read and personable. Petersen, at the same time, avoids offering formulas for evangelism by focusing on principles. He blends personal experience with these principles in such a manner that the reader is stimulated to think how he or she might share his or her faith. This makes the book practical because the author’s thoughts are adaptable, provided that the reader puts the effort into translating this information into his or her own potential witnessing circumstances.
Petersen also firmly and tastefully deals with the way in which Christians can unnecessarily isolate themselves from the world by adopting certain mannerisms, jargon etc. which have little to do with godliness. He devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 5, “A Time to Sow, A Time to Reap”) to address the “they must be saved now” mentality mistakenly held by a good number of Christians of our day. Although these comments may be difficult for some, they are essential to breaking down the prejudices that build barriers between the Christian and the non-Christian. If accepted as they were intended, they could free many Christians for more effective sharing in their own sphere of influence.
Although Petersen encourages acts of service and acts of mercy as a part of lifestyle evangelism and although he admits that the scope of the evangelism he speaks of is intended for “the average Christian among his peers” (p. 163), one questions how holistic his perspective of the gospel actually is. His statement, “that the gospel is Jesus Christ, who died, was buried and then rose again and ascended . . .” (p. 55) is simplistic in light of his earlier comment that to make an issue (poverty and women’s rights are issues he mentions) an essential part of the gospel means that “we create a partisan gospel” whereby “we use Jesus to support our own private issue” (p. 53). Did not Christ deal with issues like these when He went about the countryside preaching the gospel of the coming kingdom? Undoubtedly Petersen has encountered many people who have preached an issue-oriented gospel void of Christ. However to say that issues are not an essential part of the gospel will only continue to alienate Christians from the world they have been called to minister to.
Evangelism For Our Generation is to be recommended not only for lay people who struggle with sharing Christ with their peers but also for leaders who wish to help mobilize and equip others for evangelism.