The "Sinner’s Prayer," making converts, a personal Savior, the rapture, altar calls, witnessing, tracts, testimonies and impromptu prayers … sound like a typical Sunday at an evangelical church? According to Evangelical Outpost blogger Joe Carter, these nine fixtures of evangelicalism are only fads that mutated into imposter tenets of the faith. Now, he says, they must be eliminated.

His hit list appeared on the now-defunct Culture 11 site several months ago. Actually they were the "Ten Deadly Trappings of Evangelism," but I separated the list into nine and one. That’s because according to Carter’s numbering, one of them encompasses an entire movement rather than a fad.

Movement and change bump into tradition and orthodoxy all the time in Christianity. Sometimes religiosity rather than theological reasoning wins out.

Here’s what Carter thinks about asking people if they know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior: "This is one question that needs never be asked for it shows (a) you do not know the person well enough, (b) the answer is yes and the person is a lousy Christian, or (c) the answer is no, in which case you just activated their Fundie-alert system and caused them to switch their brains into ignore mode. Instead of asking about a ‘personal Savior’ you might want to simply try to get to know the person."

I agree with Carter on these nine evangelism issues. They are like awkward adolescents who have come of age, yet still wear the same clothes they did as children. Their high-water pants and appliquéd blouses just don’t fit—either them or the society in which they now live.

Short and sweet, here’s how Carter sees it:

Carter’s arguments against these rusty tools are strong. His solution, however, is weak and merely rhetorical.

"We don’t need fads and fixtures," he writes. "We don’t need anything more than the gospel. For that is one fixture of our faith that will never go out of style."

That sounds good for a minute. Then you realize it also sounds like a preschool kid raising his hand in Sunday school to answer "Jesus" to any question—knowing it will probably be an acceptable response.

The gospel is an idea. Ideas cannot exist unless they are expressed. Carter may object to various expressions because they have aged into awkwardness and ineffectiveness. I do, too. But the gospel cannot be, unless it is shared in some way—in preaching, videos, conversations, acts of service to the poor or in a way of life.

Any technique can fade

At one time, stained glass was a church fad for gospel presentation and Bible teachings. Circuit riding preachers aimed to spread the Good News. Monasticism, while not exactly trendy, remains an attempt to fully commit one’s life to following Christ. All of these techniques have flaws, and expiration dates as well.

So, stripped of the stereotypical tools of the trade, what’s a good evangelical to do? According to Carter, a lot more good. But I don’t think today’s Christians need to sally forth into the world without any ideas of how to share their faith except the "what not to do’s" Carter lists.

So I’m making my own alternate list of tools. Check in next week for a blog full of them.