James Choung is divisional director of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's San Diego Division. His book True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (IVP) introduces an evangelistic tool called "The Big Story." The four-circle diagram explains the gospel in four phrases: designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better, and sent together to heal. Choung spoke with LeadingOutreach.com about his diagram and why he believes the church must share a broader gospel message.

Since your evangelism diagram, "The Big Story," has four circles, comparisons to the four spiritual laws are inevitable. How is it different?

The four spiritual laws was a great tool a generation ago. It was really an attempt to help nominal Christians. It was an invitation back into a relationship with God through Jesus, but it seemed to make everything about the individual. "The Big Story" instead tries to recapture a more communal, social focus. It also emphasizes transformation more than decision and the mission life more than just the afterlife. We hope that through these shifts "The Big Story" will capture a larger picture of what the Bible is saying, what Jesus is saying. We're trying to present the Biblical worldview, in as simple a way as possible.

With your diagram is there a danger of shortchanging the atonement?

I don't think so. The atonement doesn't just cover a person's individual salvation. I love the way Colossians 1 says how all things under heaven and on earth are reconciled back to God through Jesus' blood shed on the cross. I think that it actually expands the atonement. It makes it even better news, even broader in its scope. It means that everything that isn't right on the planet can actually be put right through Jesus' blood shed on the cross.

We evangelicals have a tendency to reduce evangelism to a heaven or hell question. Why is it important to convey that the gospel is more than just fire insurance?

Augustine urged "unity in the essentials, liberty in the non-essentials, and charity in it all." What we deem essential is what we consider the gospel. So if we make the gospel only about where an individual soul goes after death, then we consider everything else non-essential. Then everything we do will be geared toward helping people make decisions so that their eternal destiny is safe and secure (which is important), but all the other stuff that Jesus taught just gets thrown away. Dallas Willard calls these kinds of people "vampire Christians" because they don't care about Jesus' life or teachings. They just want Jesus for his blood.

At one point in your book, the fictional character Caleb wonders if he's been "duped" by the way his church has presented the gospel. Do you think that there are a lot of churches out there duping their members by not teaching important dimensions of the gospel?

Probably "duped" would be too strong a word. I don't think Christian leaders are deceiving on purpose. Yet I do think that we are teaching something that might not necessarily capture the entire scope of Scripture. We might be teaching a gospel that has been truncated to a very small slice of what the gospel is meant to be. We're not doing it intentionally, but I do think that if we allow ourselves to continue to teach something that is this narrow we're in danger of missing the bigger message that is there in the scriptures.

The kingdom of God is a huge topic and notoriously hard to define. How can you effectively communicate to someone what the kingdom of God is?

Yeah, there are tons of different definitions. Here's the one I like: the kingdom is when what God wants to happen, actually happens. As one scholar said, it is the effective range of God's will. And not his overall sovereign will, but where all his desires are actually happening. I think that's the kingdom of God. When we see people of different tribes reconciling, the kingdom of God is there. And if family members are reconciled, and in particular, when people reconcile back to God, the kingdom of God is there. It's basically where what God wants to happen actually happens. And if we look for that, if we seek that kingdom and really follow it, I think Christians could be a part of advancing that kingdom even more powerfully and forcefully than they are right now.

Are you comfortable with having people's different gifts give them different roles in evangelism? We can't all be Billy Graham, right?

Oh, absolutely. We can't have everyone do the same thing. But sometimes people use that as an excuse. They say, "Well, evangelism is not my gift so I'm not going to do it." Someone I read put it this way: Most of us who are able-bodied can run, but someone like Carl Lewis is really gifted. Those kinds of people should spend most of their time running because they're so gifted at it. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't run too. In the same way, we're supposed to exercise our gifts in some capacity; it's just not going to be the major contribution we have to the church and to the world.

So let the people with evangelistic gifts really major on it, but the rest should be ready, as it says in the Bible, to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have. If you don't lead 100 people to faith this year, don't kill yourself for that. But I think it is a shame that we don't get a chance to witness at all. There is nothing like evangelism to really push you outside of your comfort zone. Serving the poor is pretty cool in our culture. That's pretty accepted. Evangelism is probably the only thing we do that is just completely countercultural and could get you persecuted. And that's why I think we should keep it at the forefront.

How can church leaders motivate their members to reach out?

There really isn't any replacement for a pastor modeling it. I'm not saying that all pastors have to be gifted in evangelism. In fact, it's almost better if the pastor fails a lot because that makes him or her seem really human, just someone trying and taking risks, which is what you want the people in your congregation to do. Don't try to over-programize it. Just try and share. By the grace of the Lord one person may actually come to faith. Once that happens, share that story. Let the story make an impact. It's very hard to rouse people up for a sustained period of time about evangelism. You can do that in the short term with a great talk by a gifted speaker, but if you're not out there doing it, and sharing stories about doing it, that movement will die quickly.

Read more from 'Effective Evangelism'

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