Redemptive Analogies in Outreach

Redemptive Analogies - A Key To The Heart

Don Richardson originally defined the concept of redemptive analogy in his books 'Peace Child' and 'Eternity in their hearts'. He explained how, embedded in a culture, there is frequently some practice or understanding which can be used to demonstrate the Gospel.

Of course, Jesus used the technique all the time in his story-telling: "The kingdom of God is like......." Many of the prophets used it too!

Increasingly, in a postmodern postChristian culture, we need to employ the same methods in evangelism.

HOLLYWOOD JESUS http://www.hollywoodjesus.com is employing this technique to extract meaning from current films. You don't need to dig very deep into Tom Hanks' latest film THE GREEN MILE - it's a strong allegory already! May God use it to turn many people to Him.

Here are some interesting links relating to redemptive analogy, story-telling, and related themes:

Behold The Ox Of God

Evangelical Missions Quarterly article by Joy Anderson. An explanation of bridges to the Gospel in the Dinka culture of Sudan: http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/EMIS/emqarticles/oxofgod.htm

Mystery - The Movie

An explanation of bridges to the Gospel provided by the Chinese pictorial script - apparently a very effective way of presenting the good news in the Chinese culture: http://www.mysterythemovie.com/message.html

The Methods Of Paul

Paul sought to find redemptive analogies when speaking to Gentiles: http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Principles.htm

What Will A Ministry Designed For Busters Look Like?

Explanation of why the buster generation is different from all those which went before: "Busters are less likely to accept Christ as their Savior than prior generations. They are the first generation raised without the assumption that Christ is the starting place for religious expectations." http://www.faithlovehope.com/ministry_design.htm

Story Telling

Feature article from the excellent Mission Frontiers magazine: http://www.missionfrontiers.org/ma974.htm

Use Of Drama

Another Mission Frontiers item: http://www.missionfrontiers.org/ma973.htm

Dramashare

Christian resource for drama scripts and much more: http://www.dramashare.org

The Methods Of Jesus

http://www.virtual-solutions.net/ajokeaday7/archives/0391.html

Paul And The Contextualization Of The Gospel

Study by Michael Depew: http://pages.preferred.com/~mdepew/mis1.html

The Human Universals Of Culture: Implications For Contextualization

Scholarly article from International Journal for Frontier Missions: http://www.wheaton.edu/Missions/Moreau/Articles/Reflections.htm

Contextualization - Building Bridges To The Muslim Community

http://www.crossrds.org/OnlineJournal/issue1/contextu.htm

Global Mapping International

Top missions resource supply among other things a CD of 27,000 African proverbs, with ways to bridge them across to a Christian application! African Proverbs mailing list is also a source of proverbs: http://www.afriprov.org http://www.gmi.org

Cultural Insights

Christian cultural research ministry whose entire focus is helping other Christian workers identify redemptive analogies for groups they work with: http://www.culturalinsights.org

I wonder, did first-century Christians use as an analogy the mythological story of the Gorgon, the ultimate bad hair-day lady? I'd like to think maybe they did, rather in the way that C S Lewis did in the person of the White Witch. (For those of you who don't know the beautiful Narnia children's stories, the White Witch could turn people to stone (as would looking at the face of the Gorgon). It needed Aslan the Lion to breath on them to give them new life.

In India, the 'Titanic' story is being successfully used as an analogy:

"Indians love movies, especially love stories about men giving their lives for women. In the film Titanic, the hero gives up his life to save the woman he loves. This movie is very popular in India. Campus Crusade for Christ is using this film to get them to talk about life and death, and the man Jesus, who gave his life for the salvation of all peoples.

"Their evangelistic package links the Titanic story to a clear gospel presentation. Pray that this effort will help Hindus to understand the incredible redemptive love of Christ." [Source: FrontierScan, U.S. Center for World Mission, http://www.uscwm.org May be used freely for educational and promotional purposes. The FrontierScan is a monthly summary of the Global Prayer Digest, both published monthly by USCWM]

All these links are also online at http://www.web-evangelism.com/redemptive.html If you can suggest other appropriate links for this page, please send them.