346. Evangelization: What does it Really Mean?

Evangelization also means speaking a language people of today can relate to.

Evangelization has as many interpretations as there are people who use it, and can be seen through those who have written and spoken about it. However, traditionally we can say evangelization means spreading the “good news” and converting people to Christ. That has been done since Jesus began his Ministry and was passed on through the Apostles and early Christians. Initially the message from the evangelizer was fresh, vigorous full of enthusiasm with the use of down to earth terminology that people could relate to. Nevertheless through the ages that message waned, it began to be wrapped up in pretentious words, so much so that the message, instead of drawing people to God, distanced them. 

The vibrant, clean and homely words and imagery evoked by Jesus’ way of speaking as in : “Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin…” was a thing of the past, replaced by “pious” and “holy” terminology that bored us to death in school,  in a sermon or lecture and which most of us dismissed as sanctimonious twaddle, hence the people drifted away, hence the churches emptied- and may I say, for obvious reasons, rightly so.

It is therefore necessary to get rid of all that “sanctimonious twaddle” and get back to the lilies of the field type of language which the people can relate to. Evangelization in the modern world has nothing to do with trying to “sell” nor in trying to persuade people to come over to our side, in fact it is the complete opposite. It is not the non-believer that has to come into our world, but we who must enter the world of the non-believer, otherwise we can never communicate or be meaningful to one another, and if they remain distant from us, they most likely will remain distant from God and keep on going along the same way they had done, missing out on that wonderful opportunity of finding out the meaning of their existence, which is not at all a small matter.

One of my favourite definitions of Evangelization is this taken from “Evangelization Dictionary Online”

One simple definition of evangelization, however, is simply this: “One blind beggar showing another blind beggar where the bread is and both of them being healed in the process.”

And again:

Having said all that, it remains the fact that the first proclamation of the Gospel to those who do not believe in Jesus Christ yet, is the typical and primary concept of Evangelization.

Basically therefore, it is going back to what the Apostles had begun two thousand years ago, but if you notice, their style of language is appropriate to the people with whom they were in contact, it was “normal” language, “lilies of the field” type of language, not sanctimonious twaddle that puts people off.

In other words we have to communicate in our normal everyday speech, not use a special one for the things of God, not say pretentious things about God, not put Him on a pedestal and make Him distant. We also have to be mindful that the means of communications in today’s world have changed drastically, people may not go to church but you’ll certainly encounter them on the web. I say this because being an evangelist in today’s world does not mean we have to become super salesmen and bombard the web with our “brilliant” insight in theology, but by being normal human beings, socializing, sharing with each other, without a means to an end.

Nevertheless some of us will no doubt continue to send smoke signals to communicate, but nowadays there are other ways of sending messages which many may prefer to use: but above all evangelization does not mean, studying the part.

Related Posts:

“EvangelizationDictionary Online”