Evangelistic Metrics

As Hiebert describes the Colonial period of mission service, one descriptor stands out:

"They measured communication by what they said, not by what people heard."

Wow! What if we changed the metric? What if our "evangelism" (here the word is used largely in the sense of communicating with words) was measured not by the content of what is presented (though this is important) but by what is heard? What if we decided to see what people were "hearing" from Christians? This appears to be what Kinnaman seeks to reveal in his book, Unchristian.

So, here is a question for us as we seek to share the good news: What are people around the world, in various places and during various times, what are they hearing from us? What are the affective as well as cognitive "hearings" they detect?

Until next time...