Terminology is interesting. We have noticed a shift in the use of certain terms over the past, say, ten-fifteen years. Previously, connected to references about mission, we heard the terms "preaching the Gospel," "evangelization," "church planting." Today we don't often hear those terms. Rather, we hear about "reaching out." Lately we hear about "setting hearts ablaze."
What happened to "Bringing Christ to the Nations," or "We preach Christ crucified"?
Could this new terminology be the influence of what some have termed the "evangelicalization" of the mission?
As an antidote, we quote from Buls' Notes. Your observer suggests we go back to this way of talking about Christianity and it's mission.
Christianity is not a quest of man for God ("I found it") but of God for man ("He found me"). The most wonderful truths in Scripture are the universal atonement and objective justification in Christ Jesus. See Romans 5:12-21 and 2 Corinthians 5:18-19. The key words in the New Testament are "be propitious"; "to justify"; "to forgive"; "to love"; "to be merciful"; "to save"; "to reconcile"; "to sanctify"; "to bring to the goal." The latter two are found especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Think of 1 John 1:8-10. Faith does not start something. It merely receives what is already so. Repentance is preparatory to receiving what is already there. Impenitence and unbelief render the promises of God in Christ ineffective for the individual.
Scripture never glorifies the sin and sinfulness of people but it does glorify repentance, a gracious work of God in the person, for Jesus' sake, whereby one is justified by God through faith, the antithesis to works and merit.
Will "reaching" do the job? Did Jesus say: "Go into all the world and reach . . .