Dangers of Relational Evangelism: A Rejoinder

This entry was originally published at Imperishable Inheritance

Recently, Doug Pollock stopped by to comment on a post a did a while back on some of the dangers in over-emphasizing the relational aspect of evangelism in lieu of actually sharing the Gospel.  In that post, I use an example from a book entitled Irresistible Evangelism to which Doug is one of the authors.  He commented that I had misused his golf course analogy.  Here are my original comments.

I once flipped through a book that caught my eye entitled Irresistible Evangelism by the former pastor of the Cincinnati Vineyard. I was flipping through and found a horrific graphic that summarized their philosophy of evangelism.1 Basically, the analogy is between golf hole and evangelism. When you golf you don't just shoot it straight into the hole (unless you're insanely good), but instead you take one shot into the fairway, then up to the green, then finally in the hole. And each of these steps correlates to the relational process you move through in their method of evangelism. You don't start off with the Gospel, because you need to first "get it up to the green." This methodology clearly shows their Arminian/decisional regeneration theology.

This analogy, I think, most clearly shows what relational evangelism can go to taken to an extreme. We must first ask: Did anyone in the whole Bible present the truth of God only after the tee and fairway shots? Jesus calls his disciples from the very beginning to repentance, and Peter and Paul both giving stirring Gospel presentations to the masses. I would imagine that if there was a model to clone it would be these gentlemen, but each of these men also contextualized the Gospel to their audience.

I of course don't want to misuse something, and if I have done so I want to be corrected; so I asked Doug to write a short rejoinder.

I would share your concerns about too much friendship and not enough evangelism as well. The bigger idea of the golf course analogy was simply to help Christians see that God's word clearly presents the idea of evangelism from a holistic perspective. Way to many Christ followers find a club (a method) that they feel comfortable with and then take it to their golf course everyday. Effective evangelism starts where people are in relationship to God not where we would like them to be. My admonition to Christ followers is to go to their golf course everyday with a full bag of clubs. You will never see Jesus do the exact same thing with the different people He encounters along the way. Sometimes He did a good deed, sometimes He raised questions, sometimes He shared Good news. Apparently He understood that different folks need different strokes. The golf course analogy is just a metaphor intended to encourage people to bring the whole gospel to the whole person. Some days that means we will sow, some days water, and some days we will harvest. If you would like to better understand my take on the whole thing go to my website at GodsGPS.com. There is one article I wrote for Outreach Magazine that might best articulate what in particular the way we should be intentional in our efforts to move the ball ahead on the golf course.

I am curious as to the thoughts my readers have.  Did I take it out of context?  Does Doug's explanation ease your mind on this?

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