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July 10th, 2007

Evangelistic blogs

christian and normal websites

Today I have been thinking about the concept of ‘evangelistic blogs’. I have not been thinking about this all day obviously – I did one and a half loads of washing as well.

Yesterday the people from the Christian Blogging Awards said that my blog might fit into the ‘evangelistic blog’ category. This surprised me somewhat, as I do not really set out to write and draw in an evangelistic manner. By evangelism I am meaning telling or otherwise communicating with other people about ones faith.

The thing about evangelism is this: People can spot it a mile off and they run a mile (so they generally end up two miles from it, depending upon the relative speeds of the evangelism and their running). I have found that evangelism is probably the least effective form of evangelism. If you want to communicate your faith to someone else the best way to do it is not to try.

This means that it is quite hard to spot an evangelistic blog. The fact that someone does not evangelise on their blog could mean that they are not really interested in evangelising, or it could mean that they are evangelising using a non-evangelising method.

One thing that I have noticed is that many Christians write blogs that are, by their subject matter, only going to be of interest to other Christians. There is a place for this in some cases, but it seems to me that if Christians are only ever expecting other Christians to read their writings then something is a bit wrong. I have to say that even some of the trendy ‘emerging church’ type blogs can be particularly bad at this. This is sort of what the cartoon above is about – the fact that there is a ‘Christian internet’ that is only of interest to other Christian types.

It is my aim on this web blog to be of interest to people of whatever faith and none, though I’m sure I fail regularly especially when I start to go on about Anglican goings-on for about ten days on the trot, as happens sometimes. Recently I have not been going on about Anglican goings-on that much, as I find them baffling. Instead I have been advancing the Tour de France as a very good thing that everyone should watch (This I suppose is evangelism in its own way). It is my aim that even when pontificating on religious news stories I do so in such a way that anyone could make some sense of it, but I fear that often I end up baffling people who do not have a keen interest in such matters.

If you have been converted to Christianity by this post please say so in the comments.

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This is a single post on the Cartoon Blog by Dave posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 11:54 pm. Click here to read all of the latest posts. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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16 Responses to “Evangelistic blogs”


  1. Anne says:

    The thing about the evangelistic category that bothered me was that it is ‘most successful’ evangelistic blog – I think you’re right – you need to make sure that everyone converted by a particular post identifies themselves – how else are you going to keep an accurate tally? ;-)

    (And what if someone reads your blog and another blog and it’s the combination that leads them to take that decisive step – will that count as half a scalp soul each?)

  2. David Keen says:

    I read your post and was converted, but not baptised in the Holy Spirit. Do I need broadband for that?

  3. Karin says:

    We were talking about evangelism in our house group the other night and some of us felt our task is more to making God’s love known than to convince people of any particular theological stance. Not sure how you can do that over the internet very effectively, though.

  4. jody says:

    I think that, by definition, evangelism is not going to be done over the internet. not really. people might look for answers and might have chats with people, it might help along the way. but who brought those people there? they must have seen real life people who were Christians and who had something to say. I don’t believe someone, never having seen a Christian before thinks, ‘I shall go forth and look up Christian blog sites’.

    I assume that the people reading my blog are in some way linked with Christian type things, not necessarily any particular ‘type’ of Christian, it is for discussion and friendship in a way, in this weirdy world of God-lovers.

    I think it might be unrealistic to think otherwise. is it a bad thing? I don’t go to gaming sites, or surfing sites or things that I’m not really interested in sites……

  5. Jaded for Jesus says:

    My Oxford English Dictionary tells me that evangelize can mean “win over (person) to Christianity”. The degree of subtlety involved isn’t specified. Certain low-key Christian blogs aren’t Evangelistic (with a capital E), but are still Christian (with a capital C) by example, which is far more powerful, in my view.
    Your work is in the latter category, Dave, showing Christians as rounded, doubting, not-necessarily-Churchy, witty, creative, perplexed, cat-owning, Tour-de-France fanatical, normally complex-yet-straightforward, mildly neurotic, thoughtful, unstuffy, decent people. May you keep evangelizing for a long time yet – your blog’s the best thing to hit Christianity since Monty Python’s Life of Brian. [That's meant to be a compliment, by the way, cos I don't think they intended to be evangelizing either...]
    Perhaps, to keep you happy, there should be a Best Unintentionally Evangelistic Yet Still Evangelistic Blog Award?

  6. Nicola says:

    I have taken to emailing your daily blogs to friends who aren’t believers, because I think it shows that Christians can be (a) normal (b) sarcastic (c) funny. As a result, three of them have converted to Islam, one is a Scientologist and I have suddenly found myself to be a Methodist. Be careful where you point that blog.

  7. Daniel says:

    I really enjoyed your Tour de France posts, I might actually have been converted away from Christianity to worship cycling instead. If this would have a negative effect on your chances of becoming most successful evangelistic blog, my conversion was just around the bend or the next mountain anyway.

  8. Mary says:

    I read your post aloud – and meant it in my heart. Does that mean I’m a Christian yet?

  9. Joe Snow says:

    Well, I am all in favor of a flavor of Christianity that allows toe clips and clipless pedals, in the same building, without thinking ill of each other. I find your blog perfect, even for the Episcopal types in the United States.

  10. Anna says:

    As far as I’m concerned as a quasi-probably-not-good-enough-for-a-lot-of-people Christian, your blog reminds me that there are Christians working in Christian media who can manage to use a blog and not evangelise (in an obvious way) – your writing and drawing about the goings on in the Church reminds me that all Christians are not perfect, and that I shouldn’t feel inadequate and intimidated when faced with those who are much holier than I could ever aspire to be. Or at least act like it.

    Does this make you a stealth evangelist? Now I have a vision of you sitting at your computer in camo gear and face paint, with branches sticking out of your hat. They’ll never see you coming…

  11. Speaker of Truth » The least effective form of evangelism says:

    [...] Quote from Dave Walker’s The Cartoon Blog: I have found that evangelism is probably the least effective form of evangelism. [...]

  12. Dave says:

    Thanks for the kind comments here.

    Daniel, I am indeed concerned that your being converted from Christianity to cycling might not help my case when it comes to the awards. I’d prefer it if there were not too many similarly deeply-moving testimonies.

  13. Jenny Secretan says:

    I am a lapsed woman priest and enjoy your cartoon blog which I stumbled onto a few months ago – can’t remember how. I like it because of the cartoons and your querky sense of humour. I read it instead of The Church Times which I stopped getting about 8 years ago. I find it more informative on the current state of Anglicanism as well as entertaining me about cats, the Tour de France and whatever next. I think it is a great form of evangelism because you seem just to share what it is to be human. That’s probably more like what Jesus did than a lot of more worthy attempts by earnest evangelists (and eveangelicals). Keep doing it – I particularly enjoy the days when you can’t be bothered!

  14. Philip of samaria says:

    Like David Keen I was converted through your blog and as I have broadband I believe I also have the Holy spirit. However, I cannot speak in other languages yet at all – can you send me that download free please?

    …on the way to work today ‘God are we having a conversation or am i talking to myself again?’

  15. Mei says:

    I do recommend your site to others and I think that a blog that can evangelise is one that just brings christianity closer to people, rather than to sound preachy and scare people away. So, I think your site does qualify as it’s non-threatening and relevant and you do say that you’re a christian. :)

  16. Hennelll says:

    Having got here from searching “Christian cartoons” 20 mins ago, I can’t say that this blog has converted me to Christianity. I can however say its converted me into a subscriber; does that count in any way?