WILLOW Magazine, Issue 3, 2006 Ministry Connections: Evangelism by Garry Poole Living in 3-D People hate evangelism. Christians dread it. Non-Christians despise it. For Christians, the knee-jerk reaction to evangelism is peppered with words like: Fear. Discouragement. Failure. Guilt. And non-Christians feel pressured, preached at, cornered, judged, condemned, and reduced to spiritual projects. This is a problem. So it’s time for a radical paradigm shift in evangelism. The old strategy for turning irreligious people into followers of Jesus mandates an updated approach — a sharp turn to Living in 3-D. I’ve been with Willow now for 13 years — the first 11 were dedicated primarily to our centralized evangelism efforts. But two years ago, Bill Hybels and Greg Hawkins (Willow’s executive pastor) approached me with a unique new assignment to explore the possibilities for establishing and launching a new ministry initiative within the neighborhoods surrounding Willow. I jumped at the chance to take on this challenge. After facilitating numerous gatherings in homes filled with long-time Creekers living within the same subdivisions, some stark realities immediately surfaced: People don’t know their neighbors Willow members don’t know other Willow members living in the same neighborhoods Almost everyone dislikes evangelism — including Christians, and especially non-Christians Christians often reduce evangelism to merely inviting neighbors (whom they don’t know) to church services Needs among neighbors are unknown and remain unmet. This was not good news. Undeterred, I set out to formulate a plan to overcome these obstacles. Whatever we ended up doing within the neighborhoods, I knew we had to meet three critical objectives in a fresh and creative way: CONNECTION; OUTREACH; COMPASSION. Drawing on my past experience equipping Christians to launch seeker small groups, I identified three simple practices behind the process of effectively achieving each of these objectives: Develop Friendships (1 Thessalonians 2:8) Get intentional about building genuine, authentic, growing friendships with your neighbors. Rub shoulders with them. Do life deeply together. Show an interest in their interests. Invite them to dinner. To a ball game. Accept their invitations. By following some basic principles of relational intelligence, you’ll begin to view others as real people instead of spiritual projects. Before long, you’ll feel like they matter. And guess what? They do! Discover Stories (Philippians 2:4) Non-Christians are eager to tell their stories, once they find a Christian willing to stop talking long enough to listen to them. Ask your neighbors about their stories, and then listen, really listen. Ask follow-up questions. And then listen some more. Understand where they’re coming from first. Only then will we earn the right to share our stories … and God’s. Discern Next Steps (Colossians 4:5) Through prayer and the guidance from the Holy Spirit, figure out what’s needed next. Determine ways to compassionately serve your neighbors, meet their needs, and encourage them. It may be good to invite your neighbors to church — or maybe not. It might be better to invest more time in developing the friendship and discovering their stories — or offer to pray and supply a helpful resource. It’s really a matter of discernment what to do next based on the friendship you develop and the stories you discover. Living in 3-D is an open invitation to both Christians and non-Christians to know and be known, love and be loved, celebrate and be celebrated, serve and be served. Living in 3-D is a simple approach to loving our neighbors — and it’s one of the paradigm shifts we’ve been looking for in evangelism. Garry Poole is Willow Creek’s Neighborhood Ministries outreach director and the author of Seeker Small Groups Top