Manifest Presence Evangelism
Manifest presence evangelism is based on the idea that being in the presence of God is going to be life changing. This often involves inviting people to a worship meeting where you know that the presence of God is going to be felt in a very powerful way. It then doesn’t matter that the worship may seem strange to those from outside who come because God will move in their hearts.
It is very obviously a good thing for people to be in the presence of God and I would have no problem with this approach except for one simple thing. If people are not open to the presence of God then some kinds of worship can seem so strange and alien to them that it turns them off.
It’s been my privilege over the years to worship in many different places. I’ve been in very lively charismatic meetings right through to high anglican and Roman Catholic worship. My own feeling is that there is something to be gained from all these styles and yet occasionally I go to worship at a place which feels weird even for me. It’s very difficult to sense the presence of God when you are feeling very uncomfortable being in a certain environment.
I think perhaps this is similar to the way Pharaoh felt when Moses was going on about letting his people go and we read that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.
How does this translate to a web site?
This is a very difficult question to answer. People will have experiences of being in the presence of God whilst they are on the Internet but they won’t experience the presence of God in the same way they might in a crowd of worshipers. Any attempt to replicate worship online that might generate the feelings of the presence of God in worship might be accused of being manipulative.
However the experience of watching many people worshiping when you don’t have to participate as if you were there (and hence feeling uncomfortable) might work well.
This model of evangelism really does mean that people would need to be open to Christianity in the first place – especially on the Internet.
