Storyteller's World: The Trouble with Evangelism

I like the guy who is referenced here; he tells stories, he's into linux and he says sensible things as well as having one of the best 'about me' profiles I've seen [quote from Lark's Rise to Candleford' I think]. ANYWAY, he has commented on evangelism quite helpfully and I have commented back...
I'm with you on this Tony -and I'm from the evangelical end of the spectrum. Did you read 'Anyone for Alpha?' -good study of what Alpha was actually doing. While quite clearly it does help some to become Christians, it is much more an opportunity for those already Christian to explore things -perhaps it is the experience of meeting exploring Christians that helps people to come to faith?
Another area of Alpha's formula that I think deserves more attention is the meal aspect; I'm convinced that this is an important bonding and opening up occasion [let alone the sacramental resonances].
However, I am vexed even more about the whole thing of how we encourage evangelism. Mostly, for good reasons supported by heaps of evidence, we tend to be trying to use friendship connections. There are a couple of things about that that trouble me. First is the idea of 'using' friends isn't very ... well, friendly. Secondly it then leads to calls to befriend people, except that it isn't befriending because it's appearing to be friends while actually wanting to convert them; the entrprise of freindship is fatally undermined by the ulterior motive [and in any case aiming to make friends often doesn't work -frinedships are so often obliquitous: they happen on the way to something else, obliquely].
All of which may relate to the issue that the NT actually contains very little exhortation to evangelism as we know it ...
I think we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
Storyteller's World: The Trouble with Evangelism