There is a conference in a few weeks I am part of "Conversational Evangelism" in Minneapolis on May 16-17. The web site is here. It has Todd Hunter, Jim Henderson, Becky Pippert, Mark Mittleberg, Gary Poole and Rick Richardson.
There are so many incredible conferences that are happening each year and as I determine which ones to participate in, a major, major factor is if the conference has evangelism and focusing on that as part of it. If you know me, you would redundantly hear how I am quite concerned about how we can get in groups and talk theology and be dissatisfied with forms of church and even talk about what we wish church was like - but we remain rather small ingrown churches made up of already Christians who left former churches. This may be fine for a while if healing is needed for individuals, but in the longer run - are these communities being used by God to see new people coming to saving faith in Jesus?
We can also have art, and creatively designed worship gatherings or see younger churches growing by the dozens, hundred or even thousands - but are we seeing a culture of evangelism and new Christians who grew up outside the church being "saved" (so to speak) as part of them?
I was in discussion with someone on staff at a very large and growing young church - but they shared that it is mainly those coming from other churches because they like the preaching and music and it was the happening church in this city. I heard that they at first felt and were even saying to everyone how exciting it was and "Look at what God is doing!". But as they probed who was coming, it was discovered it was all Christians coming from other churches. Again, that might not be bad if the strategy was to see them developed into missionaries as a result of the new church culture. Our church as a church plant definitely has been comprised of already Christians to be launching it and in the first few years gathering those who have a missional heart. But the question is whether we then are always striving and training those in our churches see themselves as local missionaries. In this case, the other church didn't do that and are now way behind trying to figure out how to turn several thousand people into local missionaries whom are there mainly to be consumers. So... whether more of a smaller let's talk about theology and how bad older forms of churches are - or megachurches with wonderful music and preaching - or whatever type of church we may be in - we all need to be thinking about evangelism.
The Conversational Evangelism Conference is about what forms of evangelism seeing in our culture as what the Spirit is using. It has a wide variety of people from Willow Creek, to Off The Map, to Becky Pippert and Out of the Saltshaker. I love being around those who have a heart for evangelism and are actually engaged in it. So it is such a pro-active, positive event with a lot of very ehthusiastic discussion happening. If you are in the Minneapolis area and want to meet up, let me know too. I will be there both days and hanging out around the event facilities and love meeting and hanging out with those there.
