Foundation For Evangelism - WikiWorship

Recently Colin Knapp made a presentation to the Foundation for Evangelism on WikiWorship. This was held at Duke Divinity School. Here is a transcript of what he spoke about. You can find this article by following this link.

"Generally speaking, my understanding of evangelism has deepened and expanded through my interactions with Professor Gunter and Warner. Meaning that I now am not limited to a specific “one-size-fits-all” evangelism. This has led to a creative freedom to dream, think and imagine what could be considered effective evangelism. Such freedom has directly translated into programs such as WikiWorship.

"WikiWorship is a very different way of looking at evangelism. What we have done is invited those with questions to gather within the Christian community to struggle together with the difficult questions that all of us have. In that struggle, we can see the authenticity of the gathered community –– while at the same time, allow everyone to be a part of the direction the discussion goes. We are allowing those from outside the Church to come in and have a real impact on the way the worship service goes. Our intention was not to go out into the community to tell sinners that they were in need of a savior, but rather we invited those from the community to come in and to participate in our faith community.

"The reason it’s called WikiWorship is based of off Wikipedia. And on Wikipedia anyone can edit the content of the website, and what WikiWorship does is that it gives space for anyone to edit the content of the worship service. Yes there will still be prayer, scripture reading, and singing, but what we did is let the questions guide the actual service. During the service we would start with a prayer, in a very informal worship gathering. We would sing a couple songs, and then we would address one or several of the questions that we had gathered. This answer would be concise and to the point, as to allow time for those who are gathered to chime in, we would pass around a microphone allowing anyone to add, subtract, delete, or change the direction of the discussion.

"My church, Warren’s Grove UMC, and I have been greatly impacted by the professors of evangelism at Duke Divinity School. It is my hope that they continue their great work for the Kingdom of God."