Ancient Future Evangelism

Robert Webber, has been seeking to persuade evangelicals to look to the practices of historic Christianity for the past 25 years. Webber wrote his new book, Ancient-Future Evangelism in response to a driving question raised at the 1999 International Consultation on Discipleship in Eastbourne, England. The question was, "How can our evangelism produce not only converts but disciples who grow in faith and become active members of the church?"

Webber rightly points out that our twenty-first century context is similar to the ministry context that the early church faced for the first three centuries of the church. That is good news for us as we grope for ways to connect with people who are often hostile toward the Christian faith. We can learn much from the ways that the ancient church practiced evangelism and discipleship despite harsh opposition and disparate religious and social communities.

His new book Ancient Future Evangelism might be helpful to Catholics.

Our theological and spiritual resources are wider and deeper but they ask better questions in this area than we do. I find that the questions that evangelicals ask in this area are very challenging and often stimulate some great out-of-the-box and deep-in-the-Tradition thinking.

Because the questions you ask determine what you can see.