Back in October last year, Brett posted on a new evangelism tool Intervarsity is using called The Big Story (James Choung). Our readers criticized The Big Story for leaving out key components of the gospel.
Jim Wallace and the others at PleaseConvinceMe.com have created a similar tool, attempting to retain "the balance of Jesus' central central message of personal Salvation, without minimizing the fallen nature of humanity." It's called The Best Story. (Complete guide with video, Powerpoint, and manual included.) If you haven't poked around at Please Convince Me, you need to. The website has many great resources to help you share your faith and values more effectively.
One of the main values of these tools is to help Christians think more about which big ideas they need to communicate when they discuss the gospel. Even if you never draw a picture when you're discussing the gospel, the pictures can help solidify the ideas in your mind.
If you're a reader who has used either Choung's Big Story or Please Convince Me's Best Story, share your review in the comments section!
I think that this presentation presents a puny view of God. It does not discuss Hell or wrath and resorts to calling it "separation from God" and moving on quickly as to evade the subject because it sounds pretty harsh. If we refuse to preach specific laws of the Bible and attribute that to ourselves to understand how we are seen by God AND THEN discuss what Hell is like and why it is so bad, then how will people understand how wicked they are in the eyes of God, how depraved they are, and how desperate they are for the righteousness of Christ? They have the heart issue right, but I think it needs to be discussed more maturely than what is presented if this is supposed to be used by college students. I just got out of college not long ago and could not recommend this to anybody. I think this may be good as a primer for those in or below high school level, but we can do better theologically by preaching in a similar fashion like Way of the Master as one common example (even though it's the biblical way and uses a simple to remember presentation that is accurate). The way the Gospel is presented in the provided link makes me think that sinning isn't exceedingly sinful and is more so like doing things that God doesn't like us doing and has caused this Earth to be a bad place to live.
God hates sin and hates those who practice it and it seems like we want to appease those we evangelize to by glossing over His wrath quickly, or sullying the extreme wickedness of sin. If the site fixes that issue and is willing to discuss it more maturely, then I can agree with using it for younger age groups.
Posted by: David | July 02, 2008 at 12:49 PM
AMEN David! My thoughts exactly Brother... If a persons sin nature is not understood, the Gospel message will be 'foolishness' to them.
Posted by: Ron | July 03, 2008 at 07:52 AM