The Mid-Atlantic (USA) region of CCC has released an in-depth report into the state of evangelism in our movement. This is the first in-house report I have seen that goes into such depth into understanding where we and our culture are at in evangelism. The report was based on interviews with staff, non-Christians, new believers, and leaders from other ministries.

Some of the highlights include:

• Staff who agree they have permission to spend their time . . . Sowing 53% … Reaping 92%
  Staff who agree the next best step for the typical lost student on their campus is. . Sowing 78% … Reaping 38%
• We found in a world where savvy collegians filter most incoming information, our presentational approaches have become the unwanted “pop-up ads” on the computer screen of their lives.
• Of the believers we interviewed, 95% made a decision for Christ through the direct influence of a trusted friend. Natural mode evangelism was by far the single biggest contributing factor.
• “I stopped using the Bridge Illustration. I felt it was less effective in communicating the heart of the gospel to the heart of people. Our audience has taken three steps away from my starting point.This is a difficult culture to minister in… the majority of the culture is turned off.” –Ralph Ennis, Navigators
• Dr. Bright said,“The majority of non-believers throughout the world are ready to receive Christ when properly approached with a clear and simple presentation of the gospel by a Spirit- filled witness.” What if this is no longer true in our context?

This is a must-read for anyone in campus ministry, particularly on staff with CCC. It captures a lot of things that I have observed anecdotally, and expresses a lot of the concerns that I have had. In Hong Kong we have seen the percentage of students willing to hear the gospel drop dramatically over the last few years (from 50% to under 20%) and like the writers of this report I believe that something must change if we are going to effectively reach our campuses. Of interest to me was the practice in Penn State (a testing ground for a lot of CCC’s new ideas) of pointing students not only towards serving as Managers (ie organizing things) and Multipliers (ie leading Bible Studies) but also as Missionaries, whose role is to immerse themselves in a group on campus to influence them and bring them to a point of readiness to hear the gospel.

Also, there is a sample of a study guide on Tim Keller’s book The Reason for God. The authors of the study noted that the approach that Tim Keller uses to remove objections to the gospel (as outlined in Nick Pollard’s book Making Evangelism Slightly Less Difficult) is very effective in communicating to today’s students.

So, do you agree with the findings of the study, and what changes will you make to your ministry as a result of this study?

Thanks to Brian Barela for letting me know about this.