The idea of the embedded journalist began in the Iraq war as a complicated effort to give the public unprecedented access to the war. The basic idea was that the journalist was doing to eat, live and breath the life of the soldier. I wonder if there is validity to understanding evangelism in this way.

Is the concept of embedded evangelism (a phrase I first heard in my Gospel and Culture class) a good metaphor for our changing culture?

I am convinced that our tradition idea of evangelism in North American needs to radically change; we have moved from the time people would come to church in order to hear the Good News of Jesus. This is just not effective anymore and a new model is radically needed.

In this regard, I propose several things:

1) We need to stop thinking about relationships with people who are not followers of Jesus as relationships for the purpose of sharing the Gospel with them. This understanding assumes our motive is the same as a sales person and that our relationship is contingent on their potential to “purchase.” This was never the intention of Jesus. Instead, we are simply called to love…period. Of course, loving our neighbor is inevitably going to mean that I share Christ with them, but our relationship should never be conditional or contingent on that.

2) I also think we need to de-compartmentalize our lives. We can’t think of our Christian lives as something separate from our work life, family, recreation, relationships, etc. but we need to see it as an inseparable whole…embedded if you will, into everything we do.

3) Because people want to belong before they believe (in the past the reverse was true), we need to give people space and freedom to, as Psalm 34 says: “taste and see that the Lord is God.” This will mean increasing our openness and giving freedom for people to enter the church and experience God and the community of faith.

4) I also think our church evangelism “strategies” need to change in order to challenge people and empower them to enter their communities and get to know, love and share life with their neighbors. This may mean intentionally less church activities, giving “block party packs” to people in church and clearing the church calendar for a block party day where people are encouraged, empowered and equipped to have a block party with their neighbors with the expressed purpose of simply building relationships and getting to know their neighbors.

5) I also think the church needs to stop its assumptions. As pastors and leaders, we need to realize we often talk in phrases and words that less and less people understand. We need to define as we talk, therefore allowing more and more people to participate and understand.

6) Integrated in all the above and implied throughout, is the idea that the church is a positive, caring and impacting force within its community. In other words, it is meeting needs, caring and reaching into the community; not as a way of “selling something” but because it is called to be a city on a hill that can’t be hidden. I am convinced that too many churches are becoming hidden and ignored and the answer is not talking louder but doing, caring and loving more. The church, on average, is seen in the public eye to be judging, ignorant, arrogant and disengaged from regular life (some of which may be true), which is sad given the fact that we have the most positive message in the world and that those words were never used to describe Jesus.

All these are samples of what I think are some of the changes that churches and Christians need to grapple with when it comes to evangelism in our “postmodern” world.