Taking the Plunge

The early twenty-first century is the time for the churches to take seriously a holistic form of evangelism, an approach of accompanying and helping searchers become engrafted into the Christian community. This task is urgent since no longer is western culture supportive of faith forming. Furthermore, evangelism that just explains Christianity is clearly not enough. An interactive process is needed that involves inquirers and congregation members proceeding with participants' questions and concerns in a supportive group context. Accessing gospel stories in an intuitive method the process entails rich spiritual encounters and leads to participating in the Easter event and Baptism (dying and rising) as the heart of belief and commitment. This practice of initiation into faith is often called the Easter Journey. Parallels with the fourth century are sketched since the Church at that time was also on the cusp of being the established religion of society and was keen to hold a distinctive witness in the empire. Likewise, in our times, evolving Christian social witness needs to be a focus of any evangelistic/formational process. The experience of the author in the Australian context provides the background of this book. His conviction is that as congregations accompany inquirers they become strongly oriented in discipleship. Welcoming people into the community of faith in this edge-centre dynamic, gives rise to fresh directions of Christian life. Six such directions are explored.