The Pedagogy of Evangelism: Moving from a Didactic to a Conversational Model of Evangelism

This paper argues that while evangelicalism has sought to maintain the importance of communicating a normative understanding of faith, it has done so primarily through a didactic understanding of evangelism. This has made it difficult to integrate informal and non-verbal expressions into an account of evangelism and, I argue, has contributed to evangelicalism’s problems of understanding the relationship between evangelism and social action. By turning to lived experience, and the ‘theology in four voices’ framework from theological action research, I suggest a conversational model of evangelism which enables a move away from a didactic model without losing a commitment to communicating a normative understanding of Christian faith. This model relates more clearly to the lived experience of participants in my research and enables a more integrated understanding of evangelism, which places greater value on the ordinary and everyday expression of faith.