This book looks at evangelism from a more modern, disciple-making perspective, rather than an aggressive, more traditional evangelical approach. Since I don't come from that world, this book felt less relevant to me. Also I didn't get much from the repeated references to emails with a questioner intertwined through. But, with Brian McLaren, you cannot help but get something fun from what he writes. I loved the bible study on discipleship at the end and also this part of the text. I stumped a few people with this question in my lifetime as well, and liked the "answers" given here. I also liked the humility. No one has all the answers, and sometimes it is the people you don't expect that have the greatest insight.

“What about Jesus doesn’t make sense?” I asked.
[George] “It’s not his teachings. I find them powerful and beautiful and challenging. It’s the part about him having to die on the cross. I guess if there’s one question I’d have for you, it would be this: Why did Jesus have to die?”
...
What he was asking, I guessed (and then confirmed by asking him for clarification), was this: If God was going to forgive us, why didn’t he just forgive us? Why did Jesus have to die so that we could be forgiven? Having an innocent person die for guilty people did not seem to solve the ‘injustice’ of forgiveness—it only seemed to add to the injustice. So why did Jesus have to die?”
...
I continued to pray, think, reflect, and study over the next two weeks, trying to answer George’s question, but the deadline was looming and I really had nothing new to offer. A day or two before our appointment, I was relaxing in my parents’ swimming pool with my brother, Peter. Now Peter is a mechanical engineer. He is a bright, sincere, and committed Christian, but not an obvious candidate to help me with my theological mystery. I asked him how the engineering business was going, and he reciprocated: “How’s the ministry world going?”
“Okay,” I said, “except that a couple weeks ago I realized that I don’t know why Jesus had to die.”
Then Peter, without skipping a beat, without even a moment’s hesitation, said, “Well neither did Jesus.”
“What?” I said, making a kind of strange face.
Then Peter said, “Remember the story about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? He was praying that if there was any other way for him to accomplish his mission, he hoped God would spare him from dying. But then he said ‘Not my will, but your will be done.’ So it sounds to me like Jesus didn’t really understand why it had to be that way either. But the point wasn’t understanding it; the point was doing what needed to be done.”
...
[George’s later response to that story] “Hmmm. Hmmm. Wow. You know... for some reason...that doesn’t answer my question, but somehow, that’s better than an answer. It kind of makes the question not really matter so much.”

I assumed this book was going to be trash because it has such a pretentious title. I mean, “Evangelism as dance in the postmodern matrix???” Chill out, dude. HOWEVER, I actually really enjoyed some of the concepts. I definitely did not agree with everything McLaren proposed, but a lot of what he says makes sense. Would definitely recommend to anyone who questions what evangelism should be like in our postmodern generation! 3/5 stars

A great book to hand to a side-walk evangelist. Otherwise, I'd like to think it's pretty useless. The summary is that to evangelize, Christians have to be friends with non-Christians. I guess sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. If this is necessary, McLaren does a decent job.

A good book to hand to those guys yelling on street corners, or anyone else who has ever tried to get you to say "The Prayer".

This book looks at evangelism from a more modern, disciple-making perspective, rather than an aggressive, more traditional evangelical approach. Since I don't come from that world, this book felt less relevant to me. Also I didn't get much from the repeated references to emails with a questioner intertwined through. But, with Brian McLaren, you cannot help but get something fun from what he writes. I loved the bible study on discipleship at the end and also this part of the text. I stumped a few people with this question in my lifetime as well, and liked the "answers" given here. I also liked the humility. No one has all the answers, and sometimes it is the people you don't expect that have the greatest insight.

“What about Jesus doesn’t make sense?” I asked.
[George] “It’s not his teachings. I find them powerful and beautiful and challenging. It’s the part about him having to die on the cross. I guess if there’s one question I’d have for you, it would be this: Why did Jesus have to die?”
...
What he was asking, I guessed (and then confirmed by asking him for clarification), was this: If God was going to forgive us, why didn’t he just forgive us? Why did Jesus have to die so that we could be forgiven? Having an innocent person die for guilty people did not seem to solve the ‘injustice’ of forgiveness—it only seemed to add to the injustice. So why did Jesus have to die?”
...
I continued to pray, think, reflect, and study over the next two weeks, trying to answer George’s question, but the deadline was looming and I really had nothing new to offer. A day or two before our appointment, I was relaxing in my parents’ swimming pool with my brother, Peter. Now Peter is a mechanical engineer. He is a bright, sincere, and committed Christian, but not an obvious candidate to help me with my theological mystery. I asked him how the engineering business was going, and he reciprocated: “How’s the ministry world going?”
“Okay,” I said, “except that a couple weeks ago I realized that I don’t know why Jesus had to die.”
Then Peter, without skipping a beat, without even a moment’s hesitation, said, “Well neither did Jesus.”
“What?” I said, making a kind of strange face.
Then Peter said, “Remember the story about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? He was praying that if there was any other way for him to accomplish his mission, he hoped God would spare him from dying. But then he said ‘Not my will, but your will be done.’ So it sounds to me like Jesus didn’t really understand why it had to be that way either. But the point wasn’t understanding it; the point was doing what needed to be done.”
...
[George’s later response to that story] “Hmmm. Hmmm. Wow. You know... for some reason...that doesn’t answer my question, but somehow, that’s better than an answer. It kind of makes the question not really matter so much.”

Great and practical how to for people who are a little frightened by the prospect of evangelism.