Customer Reviews

Becoming a Contagious Christian Participant's Guide

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book really contributed to the seeker friendly evangelism and worship craze that is still prevalent in many megachurches in America. Thousands of church leaders have attended leadership conferences at Willow Creek designed to equip churches to reach out to secular people relevantly. While there are several problems I have with the Hybels approach in this book, in the end, I think more good than bad has come from the methodology and mentality proposed here, and hence, I'm giving the book a cautious 4 star rating.

Someone looking for an academic theology of evangelism will probably not be satisfied with this book. The book is heavily weighted toward practical application and personal empowerment, and this is quite deliberate. The Hybels model stresses individual evangelism both in daily living, and even within the institutional church. The Hybels model, as I've seen it practiced, can turn the entire church top to bottom into an evangelistic enterprise, with lay leaders and volunteers in the church doing most of the heavy lifting. This model naturally tends to work best within the context of churches that shun an extensive ecclesiastical heirarchy, and instead have a pastoral staff that believes in and even welcomes change, adaptability, and flexibility. This intense emphasis on preaching and ministry that are ultimately evangelistic in nature has resulted in astounding church growth in more than a few churches, and in this respect, the Hybels model is to be applauded. But it also comes with dangers as I will discuss below.

This book is loaded with practical application that Christians can almost immediately put into practice. In addition, the book offers helpful tips on sharing your faith in succinct and compelling ways, and really hammers home the theme of 'authenticity' and evangelism as a process, rather than the gospel raid approach that presses immediately for a decision and commitment to Christ without doing much of what is needed to truly resemble authentic and caring evangelism. These contributions are welcome and are things that evangelicals of all theological stripes should pay attention to and generally adopt. Hybels calls for flexibility in evangelism that is person and even situation specific, and while this might rub some people the wrong way, I do think a good case can be made that effective evangelism cannot be reduced to a standardized approach that refuses to interact with the uniqueness of each person we encounter.

Now for the bad stuff. Tops on this list is Hybels egregious paraphrasing of Scripture throughout much of the book. Hybels is blatantly guilty in here of recasting and rewording the Bible to make it fit the points he wants to make. I have long said that the tendency of evangelical preachers to minimize the importance of the actual words in Scripture through reworded paraphrases that may or may not be Biblically faithful is a direct assault on the notion that the Bible was divinely inspired not just in the ideas presented, but in the words used to express those ideas. It is impossible for me to understand how Hybels could so thoroughly engage in this practice if he affirms verbal plenary level inspiration. Either he doesn't affirm this, which is a big problem, or he does and he doesn't take it seriously, which is also a big problem. Either way, the reader should be extremely discerning when Hybels makes his arguments from Scripture by rewording what the Bible says so radically, and also speculating on what the Bible does not say and then uses these speculations as an integral part of his argument. Bad theology, bad hermeneutics, bad teaching.

The other major problem is the fact that Hybels, more then once, seems to imply that evangelism is at root, an activity powered more by human effort than the power of the Holy Spirit. Any book on evangelism that talks in great length about human action while giving the power of the Holy Spirit a passing nod is one that employs a theology that severely flirts with work-based religion. This is particularly dubious in Hybels' case since in his gospel summary section, he states (very correctly) that religion is about what people do to try to gain God's favor, while Christianity is about what God has already done that we could not do. In my view, what Hybels gets right here, he gets wrong throughout most of the rest of the book.

So it is a mixed bag, but as I stated at the beginning, because the book deals heavily with application, and since many of his application points are valid and very good, the book is more good than bad. However, I would strongly urge the reader to employ a heavy dose of discernment when reading this.

On a suggestion from one of my Pastor's, I read this wonderful book! Within a short period of time I was teaching the course as an elective at my church. We just had a "Matthew Party" on June 19, 1999, and it was amazing to see God's hand at work! There were between 65-75 people that attended, and about 20% of them were unchurched or lost people that we had been building relationships with. The end result? The seed has been planted, confidence has been built, and the Lord is being glorified! Highly suggested reading for anyone who doubts that they are qualified to witness for the Lord Jesus!

After I read the first three chapters of this incredible book, I rang the Christian book store where I bought it here in England, and told them I would buy the other six copies they had in stock! I gave these to my wife, to a couple church leaders, and a couple of the "less motivated" church members. They also captured the easily picked up insights about relationship building as a worthy way to assist the Holy Spirit in opening hearts, ears and minds to the saving love of Jesus Christ. The methods are not difficult to understand or to apply. The principles in this book are what the churches in England, Wales, Scotland, and all of Ireland need to put into practice. Your life, whether you are a Christian (yet) or not, will be positively affected by this book. I cannot praise it highly enough!

In their book Becoming a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg state their goal as providing "practical steps toward becoming an effective carrier of God's life changing message". I believe that the book is a success as it is an action plan for impacting the spiritual lives of your family, family members, friends, co-workers and basically everyone you might meet. I particularly felt a confidence from the authors concerning the ability of average lay people to share their faith in meaningful ways. The authors use an interesting formula to emphasize what we must do and how to go about it: HP + CP + CC = MI. Their basic premise is that the combination of High Potency in the form of a contagious Christian, Close Proximity brought about by being intimate with those around us, and Clear Communication of the Gospel message are the formula for Maximum Impact and leading a seeker to have faith in Jesus Christ. In order to emphasize the need for evangelistic activity, the authors begin by discussing what it means to be "salt" and "light". This requires a close examination of our own commitment toward being compassion to all of God's children. According to the authors, love must motivate us to share our faith and compassion creates compassion. The authors also challenge the reader to have an authentic witness which is representative of one's own life and to be sacrificial in our approach toward others. I was particularly impressed by the authors' discussion concerning sharing biblical truths in everyday situations. Central to the authors' message is the need to be clear in communicating the Gospel as grounded in God, Christ, Us, and our individual need for salvation. No one approach can work in all situations and I felt that Hybels and Mittelberg did a good job of outlining several different approaches that can be used. I did find the book somewhat over optimistic on dealing with rejection or difficult situations, leaving the reader with very little guidance on how to approach those circumstances. However, the authors acknowledge that any one person may only play a small part in the evangelistic activity in another's life. I found helpful the various stories which Hybels and Mittelberg use to illustrate different points of their evangelistic plan. I particularly enjoyed the story concerning Bill's friend Tom that was woven throughout the entire book. The authors also effectively used Scriptural references to bring home various points. The reader is encouraged to discover their own natural style of communicating their faith, using their own experiences as a basis for sharing. Hybels and Mittelberg have documented excellent ways to direct conversations to spiritual matters, overcoming the most difficult part of starting an evangelistic conversation. Hybels and Mittelberg have suggested that evangelism is an achievable goal for all Christians. Their challenge is to share the Gospel in and through our everyday lives. As the authors state, "There's no adventure like it, and no other activity that even comes close to offering the same level of reward".

Ignore the nay-sayers, this is a wonderful book. It's not perfect, and you might not agree with everything in there, but I'm 100% sure you'll find something of some help in this book. It's short, cheap and easy to read. Want some tips on sharing the gospel? Find that the "direct approach" doesn't seem to work for you? Try this book on for size.

Did you grow up thinking the only way to win people to Christ was to go door-to-door and shove a bible in their face? Chances are if you did, you weren't very successful. Bill Hybels book Contagous Christian gets to the meat of the matter of how to win people to Christ, and guess what? It's fun, it's easy and it comes so naturally! The greatest point in the book is the chapter about "Barbecuing First", which talks about how we should concentrate our lives on making deep real relationships with people and enjoy being with them instead of approaching complete strangers and quoting scripture to them. It is only natural for people to enjoy each other, and as hard as we may try we cannot win souls to Christ without Christ first working in their hearts to prepare them. Aside from the great points on how to make these relationships, Hybels gives great illustrations on how to describe salvation to people who are not familiar with biblical terms like "Washed in the Blood", etc. I found that even as a seasoned Christian, there were things I learned about my own salvation that were shown in the simplicity of his explanation. This is also a great book to lead a youth group in studying. It clearly illustrates how we must live to maintain a genuine witness and uses the scriptures to underline each illustration. Great book.

Hybles down to earth plain talk and "relateable life stories" hit at the heart of Biblical evangelism. I read Just Walk Across the Room... (without question the most balanced and motivating book on evangelism I have ever read!)... Becoming a Contagious Christian should have been read first but both books are foundational instructional guidance to the freshly 'born again' as well as the "veteran" who needs a shot of encouragement. I'll be using this material in our church for a long time to come! Pastor Larry Kuhl

Bill Hybels does it again with yet another of his easy to read, easy to understand and apply to your life books with "Becoming a Contagious Christian." If you've ever felt that you weren't articulate enough to share the Gospel with unbelievers, this book is a great, great resource. Pastor Hybels outlines several different ways to evangelize to family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and anyone else you may encounter. His writing style is very friendly and easy to follow and makes you feel that you can share God's word too. According to Pastor Hybels, it doesn't have to be intimidating (which it can seem to be at times) and we, as Christians, aren't always going to be the person that actually leads someone to Christ, but we may be the one who introduces the concept of salvation, or the one who prays for that person's salvation. He also outlines the different types of evangelism styles, which I felt was very helpful to me. I very much enjoyed this book and would also recommend his Participant's Guide to go along with this. This book is a great topic for a small group discussion or Sunday School class as well. Very enjoyable book. I highly recommend it!

I am a Candidate for Ordination as a Deacon in the Episcopal Church and read this book as a requirement for "Deacon Formation School". Overall, I thought it was good. Very practical. Many books talk about the importance of Evangelism but this book spells out how you can evangelize.

Bill Hybels is a great communicator, and his way of presenting information is refreshing. We are using this book with a small Home Fellowship group, and the discussions are lively. The real life examples are very real and never seem contrived. Enjoy this book and you will be sharing your faith more readily.