The final chapter of John Dickson’s book The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission: promoting the gospel with more than our lips takes the form of a fictional story. A story that brings together the themes within the book: flexible social relationships, financial support of the gospel, prayer, good works, the praise of God in church, answering for the faith and the work of evangelists.
It’s a well told story of a guy called James who is not hostile to Christianity, just indifferent, and how he is drawn to faith through a combination of all of the above factors. The story shows there ain’t a ‘silver bullet’ to mission & evangelism, more a bunch of shotgun pellets all hitting the target together [not a great analogy i know ! :)]
A couple of useful appendices follow on sharing the gospel.
Overall a readable, engaging and useful book. The thing that sets it apart is his combination an excellent unpacking of the whole biblical gospel (chapter eight) with plenty of practical and down to earth connections to everyday life.
A church could do worse than take it as a ‘test’ against which to measure how the gospel is being promoted in their community and as a catalyst for developing in their missionary effectiveness.
[…] Christian Mission. You can start here with a great discussion of Chapter 5, or at his final post and work your way […]