This book was comprehensive in dealing with evangelism. It goes from a defence of evangelism to ways to talk to your friends about Jesus, dealing with plausibility structures, building relationships all the way to preparing a gospel-based sermon. It is filled with frameworks, charts, tables and details that is worth going back as a reference.
Some content in this book I had heard Sam before from speaking at Katoomba and Canberra Conventions. But it was really good to have in writing, especially his testimony training, which I have used (mine from 2014) and ripped off in the past.
A really useful thing Sam does is talk about different emphasis on the Gospel and how instead of always using the standard sin and justification model, there may be better approaches to explaining the Gospel to our culture. Some examples include captivity and redemption, enemy and peace, abandonment and adoption, shamefulness and restoration, impurity and purity, unfaithfulness and faithfulness or love, thirsty or starvation and living water or living bread, lostness with the Way, sin and death with victory etc... There were loads more. It is about knowing what issues resonate with your friends or audience and then showing them how the Gospel either completes, fulfilled or fixes their issues. This isn't just about felt needs, but showing how the Gospel is a better story - a better way to live right now, fulfilling and completing your identity (or life mission).
The main driving idea is about completing stories. Either showing how Jesus has made your story better - how Jesus fixes, restores or comforts you; or it is about learning from other's or from cultures its story and using different aspects of the Gospel to show how Jesus redeems, fixes, improves or better justifies that story. It is about listening, analysing and even restating concerns and objections to Christianity in a stronger form, so as to let them know they have been heard and understood.
There is a fun little bit where he looks at different cultural icons like Amerian Idol or the mason jar and connects that to the Gospel. There is a justification for talking talks and contextualising the Gospel in various ways. Hospitality and friendships are looked at giving a broader picture of just "the presentation" but rather about walking with someone along a journey, letting them see that Christianity works, rather than being told some things. Chan does use some big words and he can't help dipping into speech-act-theory (the topic of his previous book), but overall, as I said, this book is comprehensive and should be read and referred back to.
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