New and Ancient Evangelism: Rediscovering the Ways God Calls and Sends

Christianity Today 2025 Award of Merit (Apologetics / Evangelism)

2025 Annual Word Awards Finalist (Academic)

"An engaging narrative packed with the kind of wisdom that, if heeded, could truly turn the world upside down."--Christianity Today

Evangelism has a bad reputation. It's been loaded with sales tactics, market analysis, and high-pressure psychology, an approach that often flattens other cultures and dishonors those we want to reach. Evangelizers are encouraged to believe that everything depends on their understanding of the gospel and their powers of persuasion. No wonder so few people want to get involved in sharing the faith.

This book recovers the ancient tradition of the church's evangelism, rooted in the conversion stories of the Bible, to offer a truly biblical understanding of evangelism. Drawing on twenty-five years of experience teaching evangelism to laypeople and ministry students, Judith Paulsen shows that God uses ordinary people of faith within their everyday spheres of influence to draw people to himself. She helps readers share the good news in a way that is authentic, respectful, and ideally suited to the cultural dynamics of today's world. Above all, she places the real work of evangelism where it belongs: with the God who is still at work calling people to himself.

This book will be a valuable resource for professors and students in evangelism, discipleship, and missional theology courses as well as pastors and church leaders. Discussion questions are included.