Rescripting Evangelism: Attending to Anxiety in the Evangelism Classroom
Abstract
The same fears some Christians have when sharing their faith are also held by those who experience social anxiety, i.e. they will be judged by others and shamed. This suggests that in an evangelism classroom, the teacher must consider not just the students’ need for knowledge and skills, but the students’ social discomfort with sharing their faith. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) offers a helpful framework for evangelism teachers to address their students’ social discomfort while also boosting their students’ capacity to share their faith. One particularly helpful tool based on CBT is imagery rescripting which allows students to identify what caused their past negative experiences related to the practice of evangelism while envisioning how they might welcome opportunities to share their faith in the future.
Keywords: evangelism, anxiety, CBT, pedagogy, therapy, social anxiety
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