Rating: 
Summary: A great resource for ANYONE wishing to share the Gospel!
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Willow Creek does it again...Three Cheers!
Review: Personal evangelism will never be the same. "Contagious" sets a new standard for excellence in relational evangelism. Whether you teach this course in your church or read it for yourself, you will find it quickening, refreshing and powerful. The video, participant guide, leader's guide and related readings combine to provide a power-packed 8 session (or less) series which is as easy to teach as it is effective. We are all called to share our faith. "Contagious" makes doing so more natural and compelling. As we near the end of days, this teaching becomes more urgent and more relevant. Three cheers to Hybels, Mittenburg, and Strobel for an important addition to Christian evangelism.
Rating: 
Summary: Becoming a Naked Emperor Watcher
Review: Question: What does the message of Bill Hybels have to do with
kneeling before the cross of Jesus Christ? Answer: Absolutely nothing.
Rating: 
Summary: "Being Used by God to Change Others' Lives For ALL Eternity"
Review: This book is about making an impact in the lives of the spiritually lost for ALL eternity. It's about being compassionate to them and sharing with them the good news of Jesus Christ. To share our faith with others, we should have an authentic genuine faith ourselves first. Then we must get out of our comfort zones, have compassion for the lost, rub shoulders with "irreligious" people, build opportunities for relationships, making sacrifices, and communicating our Message (the gospel) to them. This book gives us some practical advices just how to do these. It offers us some tips on how to start spiritual conversations and how to make our Message clear. There's a chapter devoted to the different approaches of evangelism: Confrontational, apologetics (answering questions that're barriers to faith), testimonial (sharing how God works in our life), interpersonal (friendship), invitational (to church), and service. A style may suit you better than another. Each individual is different. We have different personalities, different temperaments, and different traits. God made each of us unique for a purpose and He can use each of us to reach a particular person out there. We are one the instruments that God uses to point others to Christ. People are saved because of the grace of God. What an awesome privilege to be used by God in changing others' life for ALL eternity!
Rating:
Summary: More Good Than Bad
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: More Good Than Bad
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring,encouraging and helpful.
Review: This book will be an inspiration to those who want to share the love of Christ but didn't know how.Hybels recognizes that we don't all have the same talents and can't all evangelize using the same methods. He also includes some tips for becoming a contagious pastor and church.
Rating:
Summary: 2nd Annual Matthew Party!
Review: This is my second review, but I felt led to share how the Lord is using this book and it's methods for His glory! We are having our second Matthew Party on June 24th, 2000, and so far we have 90+ people that have committed to coming! The list is growing daily, and of this number, we have 38 unchurched/unsaved people so far that are attending, to include a Mormon, two Hindu's and two Evolutionists! The world is so much bigger outside the four walls of our churches, and this book is helping to put into creative action, what THE Book commands us to do! Read it and pass it on!
| 
