Historian Priscilla Pope-Levison joins the show to talk about her book Models of Evangelism. The book is a fascinating survey of eight models of evangelism highlighting the diverse ways in which the gospel is proclaimed.

TRANSCRIPT 0:01 Welcome to Jessup tank. I'm your host Mark Moore,

0:04 and he co hosts Rex gurney. And Rex.

0:06 We're so excited to have Priscilla Pope Levison on the show. She's an associate dean of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, and the author of a recent book entitled models of evangelism.

0:18 And she's a second scholar we've had from Southern Methodist University. Yes. Looking forward to talking about evangelism to them.

0:25 Yeah, looking forward to kind of diving deeper into these different models, and not just having one way to look at evangelism. Right. So I think you're really going to enjoy the show and get it and get a better view, a more robust view of evangelism.

0:45 We are really excited to have you on the show to talk about it, but models of evangelism. And I love First off, I love the nod to Avery Dulles and models of Revelation. Sometimes, in my mind, I'll keep saying models of Revelation. So if I say it today, it's okay. Because Dallas has taken over my mind. But okay, would I I really did appreciate getting into the book, looking at evangelism through the lens of a wide spectrum of models. That is not just one and I think within the church, we often when we hear the word evangelism, we think of it one way. And perhaps we think of it in terms of, you know, going door to door knocking, or, you know, you always hear the pastor who saves everyone on the plane on their cross country flight. And, and so, as you were looking at this, I know from your book, here, it comes from your experience over 20 years of teaching intro to evangelism. Yeah. Was it during that time that you started to kind of isolate or identify these models?

1:53 Good question. And let me just say how delighted I am to be on this podcast, I've been looking forward to it as well. And I love your reference to the airplane story. So many evangelism books start with this success, you know, I was on the plane and, and I, all I wanted to do is read and hide myself. And then someone sat next to me, and they just happened to be, you know, I converted them to Jesus Christ. And it's, it's just a hard way to begin a book, if that's not been your experience, which it hasn't been mine, but it also sets up this high expectation for evangelism that it's going to be, you know, such a spectacular success the whenever you do it, so, no, I don't have a airplane story in a book. But, um, I found, well, you know, as a teacher, you try to help students take these ideas and concepts and practices, and route them in daily life. And so I started teaching evangelism when we were at Duke Divinity School, and most of 95% of the students were going to head off into local church ministry. And so you know, how do you help them take this concept, and really give arms and legs and you know, bodies to it and make it a reality. And so I started to incorporate models, and I had actually it was research project, I gave them a list of maybe, maybe 15 models. And they went off and, you know, did their research. And then they were came back and presented to the class. And I just found over the years that that was a time that students really seemed to engage even deeper, they could see the relevance for where they were going to be serving in North or South Carolina, or Virginia, or wherever. And, and so I started then to think about, after a number of years of this, think about a book that would be I could use in the classroom, that churches could use that would present these models, and I chose eight. You know, there's certainly more than that. But I tried to, to pick eight, that first of all, showed a breadth of approaches to evangelism. And also were grounded biblically, and theologically And historically, and really had lasted, in a sense, the two millennia plus of Christianity. And so that's how I came up with the eight. I actually haven't had too much pushback that I had one person that wanted me to do a particular model of evangelism that he had kind of made famous. And I thought about it, actually, but it it just, to me wasn't comprehensive enough. It hadn't stood the test of time, in a sense. So

4:55 Priscilla, you're also historian and so have you seen some of these models? wax and wane over the past couple of millennia.

5:03 Absolutely. From one historian to another. At Yes, I mean revivalism comes to mind right away. When I taught American Christianity, I would usually say at some point that revivalism was the quintessential expression of American Christianity. So I'm from the Wesleyan family and certainly how Methodists and Baptists, you know, traveled west was by revivals, whether that be in a camp meeting, you know, a brush arbor or a, you know, most places, they didn't have a building, you know, to hold these revivals in. But I would say, I know, revivals still happen. I start off the chapter with an example from Greg Laurie's filling the at&t Stadium in Dallas. They still happen, but they're not at all a part of kind of the I would say American DNA anymore. Or they're they're kind of harken back to a bygone era. I would say the same about visitation. It hit its high point. Kind of in the 20s 30s 40s. It came back with James Kennedy and evangelism explosion. I'm trying I've never done visitation evangelism, but I think it has some real merit to it. And so I've been kind of talking it up to people maybe with the hope that, you know, in might come, it might be a model that people turn to. But absolutely, and of course, then I end with media evangelism, which I define media as tools of communication. So that has been with us always. But now when we're looking at the Internet, and social media and all of that, that certainly is, gives that a contemporary cast.

6:53 So if I was like in the 1970s 1980s, and I bought a bunch of balloons and put Bible verses in them and tried to fly them over into Eastern Europe, would that go come under the rubric of media evangelism?

7:08 Yeah, well, it would be also entrepreneurial, I think evangelists are nothing if not entrepreneurial, because I don't know if you remember the story that I tell in there about Florence Crawford, and the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland, Oregon, where she bought a plane, she was really into transportation, and she bought a plane, and her son flew it over, like a jail yard of a county square. All and they would drop leaflets, little tracts of gospel of John or whatever. And so you can just imagine these these pieces of paper flying through the air. But yes, they are. They're just some wacky stories.

7:56 When when I was kind of reading through the eight models, I felt relieved, that there are so many models, and you don't have to just do one, you know, and I'm, I've been on staff at a church for over almost 20 years, teaching here for 12. And, and I think sometimes people look at a pastor and think, Well, they obviously have to do evangelism, or they're, you know, and we look at different gifts and and yeah, knocking on doors, strangers, doors has never been my gift mix. Not even like to ask for sugar or anything like that. Right? I would just not. And to see the different models to see. You include some of the newer ones understanding that media is a form of evangelism. And, and, and just seeing that I was really appreciative of that, that I think people approaching this book if they're a little bit leery of evangelism, or maybe even feeling like yeah, I don't have the gift of evangelism. To see the different models. I think people will be able to say, Oh, wow, yeah, but I actually do some type of personal evangelism, coworkers and right into their lives, maybe even small group. Evangelism may have been a part of getting a Bible study together. And and seeing that as evangelism thing is really helpful. I love talking about tent revivals, because I just yesterday, I was driving in Sacramento, and there was a Baptist church and they had a tent in the parking lot. So they have a building but they brought a tent in to have a tent revival. Okay. And I hear you're saying that it is kind of a harken back to I grew up in Indiana, and rural Indiana and so revivals of many tent revivals I went to as a child and and I thought it was just interesting that it is kind of a harken back to, to something that was part of that American DNA and mid 20s, early 20th century and kind of bringing that back in a sense of, hey, we have a building now, but let's still, I still put a tent in the parking lot to, to use this revival as a form of evangelism

10:11 sort of got institutionalized to I mean, I never thought anything of it when I was growing up, I grew up Southern Baptist. And, you know, we would actually have a revival week or two that was in the church calendar. And of course, it will be put into the church calendar, like a year ahead of time. And so, you know, it's like, this is when the Holy Spirit supposed to show up this week. And if nothing happens, then, you know, I, looking back at it now. That's interesting.

10:38 Okay, so you all have raised about five issues. Let me let me just respond to that real quickly. Right. And there's a whole debate as you and you know, as an historian, there's a whole debate about whether revival can be planned. And do we even use the word revival for something that is, is scheduled in the calendar, you know, a year ahead of time? So that's, that's a really interesting question. Um, I have seen, to your question mark, or comment about tent revival. There's a church in Dallas, that Aunt for Easter Sunday, sets up a big tent in a city park right across the street. And they do that for a couple of reasons. One is, of course, a lot of people come more than they can fit into the sanctuary. But they also do it kind of as a halfway place. So this is an area that where there are, it's a low income area, a fair number of homeless there, and probably many people who live in that area might not feel comfortable coming into the sanctuary. And so it's kind of a halfway, not a halfway house, but it's, it's a place for people to come from the neighborhood. There's breakfast served. And then it's it's not so much a revival, but it is I mean, it's a worship service. And then there is an evangelistic message preached on Easter Sunday morning. But they do that intentionally. So that people who wouldn't feel comfortable, they may not have the right kind of clothes, they may not be, you know, showered or whatever would would feel okay, walking into a service in a tent. And so that, to me is a is a way to kind of reframe that for, you know, we always talk about, I mean, churches now are in malls and all kinds of places, because we want to eliminate that big step from when my dad never showed up at church without unless he was in a, you know, two piece suit, sometimes three, and a tie, you know, and and that's not going to make it for a lot of people. But back to your first comment about you felt relief. That is one of the reasons that I wrote the book, because I know the angst that people feel about evangelism. One of someone who wrote on evangelism back in the 80s, talked about exercising the ghosts of evangelism. So, you know, as a teacher, or as if you're rolling out an evangelism idea at a church, you have to spend time, you know, hearing that, but the whole point of the book is to say there isn't one way and to be honest, I, if I were setting out an evangelism plan for a church, I would do a combination of models, I think there's some that really work well together. And that can complement each other. So it's actually more than eight, you could have ate on their own and then mix and match. So there's, there are actually, I think, not quite infinite. But there are certainly many ways to do evangelism.

13:49 Could you unpack a little bit on one of those ways of eight ways on because that is probably not particularly familiar to our listeners, and certainly I never heard in all my theological education, actually. liturgical and Angel ism in the same sentence, yeah.

14:06 Yeah, well, that's, that was from actually he was Robert Weber was a longtime professor of historical Theology at Wheaton College. And my spouse, who was was on your show a while ago, had Dr. Weber and it just he just blew Jack's mind about theology and history. But Bob was a grew up very conservative, I forget which church doesn't make any difference, and found his way into the Episcopal Church. And for him, the liturgy became the lifeblood of his faith. And so he has had these Evan Jellicle roots and this liturgical framework. And what he found is that at the at the outset of Christianity, that that the early church really brought these two Two Together evangelism and worship. And, you know, so you're setting evangelism catechesis worship along the lines of the Church year, you know, starting with advent going through Christmas into Lent and then to Easter. And, um, as you saw in that chapter, He bases his it's really a modern reframing of an ancient text apologises apostolic tradition. And, you know, Bob does more with it. But it's, it's really, and that is certainly also being done in the Roman Catholic Church with the rite of initiation for adults in and so there's a lot of it's very ecumenical. But having said that, I think there's so many ways that churches of all stripes could look at their service, because they all have a certain literally literature, right? I mean, even when you're nondenominational. It has the same flow Sunday after Sunday. Right. So how can that how can you integrate evangelism into the service in, you know, in the songs in the message in your adherence to the church here? And I know that many Nandan arms don't are not. But but most celebrate Christmas and Easter and sometimes, you know, so there are ways to think about reframing the worship service, so that it is is a is a place for evangelism. So it does, it's not happening outside of the worship service. But you've got, you know, you've got newcomers, old timers, youth, children, adults, I mean, you've got this intergenerational mix of people and to think of that as a time for evangelism, I think could really be interesting, no matter what, your denominational preference,

16:55 yes, reframing it, in the sense of evangelism, there's always this kind of tension within the church, right of going out and having people come into the church right now. But also understanding, hey, things that we do within the church can be evangelism way in the sense of inviting people in. And like you said, no matter what denomination you're from, or non denomination, we do have a church year that we follow, particularly with Christmas, and at least with Christmas and Easter. And, in my mind, I had never, you know, in Rex, I'd never connected that with evangelism. But after reading the chapter, I was like, Oh, that actually makes so much sense. And actually at our church we had been because we often say, hey, Christmas is a wonderful time to invite people to church, people are a little more open. Easter is a perfect time to invite people to church. So it's, it's maybe even helping, helping the people in the church realize, hey, this can be this church year is actually has evangelism wrapped up into it in the sense of telling the story, and framing that story in a way that gets the good news to people, whether you're in a highly liturgical church, and I appreciate Dr. Weber's story, because I grew up very evangelical. And in college, I started going to an Episcopal Church, and the liturgy, just I fell in love with the liturgy and the structure. And, and I think it's so important, and now I'm in a Wesleyan Church, so part of the Wesleyan family as well, and have been able to kind of bring, bring in that little bit of the liturgy, feel the church, and now thinking of it in terms of evangelism, I think can help, you know, we were just doing a membership class on Sunday. And I don't know why they have me teach the membership class, because I still I kind of philosophically question what membership is in the church, but they keep having me teach it, but had one guy kind of, you know, in the small group, you know, ask us, like, what are we doing about evangelism? What he meant was, what are we, I don't see anything of us going out and knocking on doors and, and telling people about Jesus, okay. And it was kind of helpful having this framework, to be able to say, that's one model, and we have all of these other models of evangelism that we are, you know, taking part of. And so it was just interesting for me within the church, there's still that tension of there's only one way to do evangelism. Yeah. But yet we can frame all of these different models. really help us understand that. We're actually maybe being more evangelistic than we think we think. Yeah.

19:53 I think the other thing about liturgical evangelism that I think is so important, particularly in our context, Today where we can't assume knowledge of Christianity, I mean, people call it post Christendom is the recognition that people will rarely make a decision for Christ in an instant, like they might have in the revival age. And so this recognizes that people take time, they have to kind of see it, weigh it, you know, look at it from different angles. Think about it, talk to people, and that can take place in the church community, rather than you know, this one moment that God is going to work in your heart, which certainly still does happen. But it's not the norm anymore. It's more of a process. And I think liturgical evangelism can hold that whole process in a way that a revival service or, you know, sort of a one time short, even, even an evangelistic Bible study or small group, they're only intended to go four to six weeks. Well, if they may need to extend, you know, if people still have questions. I, my former colleague and dear friend, Billy Abraham, talks about how people need to have enough knowledge of what they're saying yes to. And I think that's really important in today's world, where so much is accessible, there's so much information. And you know, they may want to just take a process and talk with someone and, and I think, liturgical evangelism recognizes that there is a process of teaching, and only in a sense, at the very end, will people be ready, really, wholly, to commit themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So I think that it fits where we are as a society better in a sense, then, revivalism

21:56 a Christian community, I've always believed when it's when it's done well is very winsome. And I know that a lot of folks are attracted to a good Christian community first, and their decision for Christ actually will come labors. And sometimes, a long time later, but it's sort of mediated through through the body. I actually see that more and more with folks.

22:20 That's exciting.

22:22 Yeah, it seems like Billy Sunday would not have the, you know, the same career if he started today than when he started that. And perhaps maybe I was thinking of this because you you kind of starter, you raised the question in the book, that oftentimes, many sincere Christians today are a little bit actually leery of evangelism, or if someone brings it up there. And and do you? Do you see a root for that? And is a root maybe in some of the kind of, you know, fire and brimstone revivalism that was happening?

22:59 It's interesting that you bring up Billy Sunday, because given our political climate, I wonder if he might have a following now? Because he was it? I don't know. It'd be interesting to think about Billy Sunday. In in this age, because he was all about patriotism in America first. Just yeah.

23:20 Right. We are the nation that he would give when you walk down the sawdust.

23:26 So we could talk a lot about that. Um, so in terms of your question was about Christians? hesitancy, right?

23:37 Yeah, kind of skepticism of evangelism, not wanting, you know, I hear from a lot of students today have definitely not wanting to force anything. And even as a pastor, I don't want to force anything on anyone. And certain for some reason, I think, within the church, we may have that view that evangelism is forcing someone to convert.

23:59 Or I think, yes, I think a lot of that has been fueled by tele evangelism. And also, as we've been talking about that revival mentality where you, you know, you make this decision tonight, because you may die and and, you know, where do you want to spend eternity? And I wonder, though, how much of that is how much people have really experienced of that? Or if that's kind of in the woodwork, especially people my age who were around in the 80s, in the 90s, and saw the televangelists kind of you know, come and go or we think a megachurch pastors kind of you know, make skyrocketing and then you know, falling away sort of thing. And I think that an invitational winsome dialogue conversation would be attractive to many Christians and for some reason, there's In this mindset, again, as we've been talking about evangelism has to be done one way it's generally done by by a male in a, you know, in an audience or you know, or as you said, coming to the door and there is a sense of, of forcefulness in that. So I'm trying with the book, again, to dial that back. And to suggest that not only are there many ways to do evangelism, but there are it's, it's a step by step kind of in the in the chat, the first chapter on personal evangelism I borrowed from someone else to raise your evangelistic temperature. You know, you can do that by increments. It's not going to change overnight. But where some of those went to talk about exercising the ghosts, where some of those ghosts came from, in this day and age, I'm not quite sure. It just seems to be in the woodwork. And it's hard to kind of get out. You know,

26:04 I don't know if this is taking this a different direction. But it's something that I'm really interested in and kind of working out Personally, myself. I mean, that's the whole issue of cross cultural evangelism. I just remember, I spent a few years in South America back in another lifetime. And, you know, I felt absolutely no issues of going into some of the barrios and borrowing to Columbia and knocking on doors and hearing the gospel as the great white hope or whatever, I didn't even think about it back in the day. And I would, I would feel very uncomfortable doing that in the neighborhood that I live in right now. And and I don't even know how to unpack that, actually.

26:48 Yeah, and if I understand Rex, as I said, I've never done visitation evangelism. But what, but I have since moving to Texas, Jack and I have gone door to door to lobby for a particular House of Representatives, that candidate that we were supporting. And you know, we did it, and it was a there was it, maybe you could say there was a particular season for that? I mean, we had some we had some rude responses. Most people didn't answer the door. But why is it that some of us will go out for a political candidate that we believe in, but somehow we won't do that for for Jesus? So and I struggle with that Rex? Because, you know, what, what was it that that I was hoping to accomplish? I was hoping to accomplish that. They would see someone who was hopefully halfway intelligent, who could, you know, suggest why this certain candidate was a good fit for office and whatever. So I think we will do it. And I don't know why I and so many, maybe you too, are so reluctant. And it bothers me. You know, I pray a lot. When I wake up in the morning for courage. You know, here I am writing a book on evangelism. And I still need courage, I still need the nudging of the Holy Spirit. You know, and so I'm not sure that ever goes away. And that most of us are not so gifted with evangelism, that it's just my mother in law was she sold Avon and brought people to Christ? You know, I just, she was hospitality incarnate. You know, she, she started in a bowling league and brought brought some of her, you know, team members to Christ. It's just, it's just who she was, that is not most Christians. And it doesn't mean that they're not faithful. They're not fervent. They're not, you know, growing in discipleship, but there is just a hesitancy. And I'm not sure it's even so new. I mean, I know. I know, as our culture becomes more diverse religiously, and just, you know, philosophically, but you know, as I as I read through history, it's always been hard for people to to make that step two, and maybe that's the first. Maybe that's the first way to begin if, if any of your listeners are saying, I just don't think I can do this. It's just to recognize that that's where we are, and to pray everyday for courage. You know, is there one person with whom you can ask a question, you know, what do you have you had a spiritual journey, or have you ever had an encounter with God? I mean, there's so many ways to begin this in a very natural conversational way. It doesn't have to be up on a stage or it doesn't have to include knocking on doors, or standing at a street corner. It can be very, very natural part of our everyday life.

30:04 I think that's one of the values of, you know, mentioning that there are a number of different models of evangelism because, you know, we all have different personality types. And unless you're introverts or extroverts, you know, some of us, those kinds of conversations just are easier simply because all conversations are easier. And you know, even introverts like myself, there are ways we can evangelize if we will broaden out the definition of what that is. Yeah. Yeah, there

30:33 you go. Right. So you could start like an introvert evangelism ministry,

30:38 I see a t shirt. That's right.

30:41 Well, I'm kind of wrapping up the conversation. And thank you again, so much for being being on the show, and and really am excited to promote this book and promote it to other professors here who are teaching on evangelism. And it's so helpful, I can see it being so helpful in the church that I'm currently at. One of the things that I really appreciated about your approach is the historical approach. And you kind of start with these little vignettes, these little stories. And I was just wondering, you know, is Was there a particular historical figure who modeled evangelism or something that just stood out to you that was like, Oh, I researched all these stories. And this one person just keeps coming to mind and the way they approached it, or how they went about it.

31:28 Thank you for asking that. Because there actually was, in fact, this person got me into my old all my research into the history of evangelist and particularly the history of women evangelists, of which there have been so many, but most of them have been forgotten, you know, from left out of history, but her name was either Durham Barnard at she was a Methodist Deaconess, who found it two evangelistic institutes, one in St. Louis, and then the male clergy. She was Methodist, male clergy in St. Louis ran out of town when she was on maternity leave, giving birth to her only son. And then she started again in Chicago, and she founded the Chicago evangelistic Institute and ran it for 30 plus years until she died. And what I appreciated about Barnard is she was highly intelligent. She was she, although she never finished college. She did complete a teacher training, and then she went on to Wellesley for a year. Wow. And then she had a full scholarship to Swarthmore to finish her education. And God got a hold of her and called her into evangelism. She always regretted that she hadn't finished her college degree, she received an honorary doctorate afterwards by Oh, I can't the school in Indiana is is escaping me. But anyway, um, she had a highly intelligent, theological, yet life based approach to evangelism. It was she wanted to integrate evangelism into everything that any full time religious worker was involved in, whether you were teaching or nursing or preaching or writing or whatever missionary whatever it was, she trained her deaconesses to, to be sold winners is what she called it, and then when she went to Chicago and founded that school, and the other thing I love about her is her husband. So she and she put off getting married to this man who was deeply in love with her for a long time, because she really believed that God was calling her to open the school. And he was an architect. He said, either I am willing to be your janitor in the institution that you found now. Okay, so this is like the early 1900s this is long before you know dual marriages or marriage equality, or you know, egalitarian marriages like Jack and I have, and I just so appreciated that he so recognized that God's call was on her life, and he actually did end up giving eventually giving up his career as an architect to support her in her work. Um, but I there's so much that I could say about her. When I when I first started teaching evangelism. I didn't see any women really except for Katherine Coleman. And he said, Well, my person Exactly. And so I just asked the question, were there any other women evangelists and I am still finding them 25 years later, but I have a Durham Bernard was the first one that I found. And it was her intriguing life story that just led me deeper and deeper into To into this other topic that I research, but I did want to say that the reason I began the book with those historical vignettes is to demonstrate that evangelists come in all shapes and sizes, colors, genders, everything, and have done since really since before America was founded as as a country. And I hope that also disarms people that, you know, some of these, some people did it from their home, some people, you know, traveled and it generated, there were just so many ways that people did evangelism. And that's what I wanted to start the book with to say, you can do this, you know, you can do this. It's very helpful.

35:44 Yeah, thank you so much for for being on the show. Thank you for putting all of your research into this book. I think it's gonna be so helpful, and the university and in the church, thank

35:55 you. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's been delightful.

35:59 Thank you for listening to Jessup. Think Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Jessup think we would love to hear your thoughts on the episode and engage with any questions you have. Our aim is to provide a framework for further reflection and deeper exploration of these important topics. You can also help the show by leaving a review on iTunes these reviews help the podcast reach new listeners. Until next time, I'm Mark Moore and this is Jessup think

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