When evangelism means nothing more than conversion...

For so long evangelism has been shackled to conversion only evangelism which brings to mind that verse about its converts being hell times 2.
Those of us for whom justice burns grew to despise conversion
evangelism, because of its lip service to mercy and justice and loving
one's enemies. I mean how many times can you hear the phrase 'God
changing the world one life at a time' and not despair for the
incapacity of millions of converts effecting any meaningful social
change? In fact, just the opposite has been happening. While the
number of converts increase, so too the number of children who die
daily from malnutrition world wide. How can it be that we who have
been told 'to feed his sheep' could make the world such a starving
place for so many?
And yet for those of us for whom justice burns, we can't escape the
charge that justice only evangelism can also make for followers who
are hell times 2. We can alienate those who won't subscribe to our
agenda even faster than any conversion evangelist, even without
resorting to threats as dire as 'burning in hell for eternity'.
Green evangelists aren't much better and those discipleship
evangelists can make spiritual discipline as invigorating as eating
dust.
Cultural evangelists make Sunday morning services like Entertainment
Tonight with Jesus break neck dancing down the aisle. Why talk about
the cross when it's a better North American fit for our Lord to be a
therapist?
Brian rightly states that the challenge is for us to be all five:
Conversion evangelists - those ever born anew,
Justice evangelists - those pursuing a just world which God makes
right
Green evangelists - those caring for it is God who cares for the
sparrow
Discipleship evangelists - expeditiously living both Jeremiah's lament
(see Lamentations 3:19-27) and the song of Isaiah (see Isaiah 26).
Cultural evangelists - story-tellers who can see God's story in the
world and tell it in ways the world can hear.
Needless to say, we can do only this in community.
Otherwise we as hell times 2.