But even as the churches are consolidating that huge piece of learning and change - the change in society is continuing and changing. The process of secularisation is advancing generation by generation.

Around most churches there is still a fringe of people who will be attracted to an Alpha course or Emmaus group, praise God. But there are many more who are out of reach of the process evangelism courses. Or even if they come to Alpha they will have enormous difficulty then making the transition to 10.30 on Sunday mornings in a draughty church singing what seem to be ancient hymns with a community of people twice their age.

The process evangelism needs to continue - as does the evangelistic preaching. Woe betide the church if we cease to remind ourselves of the wonder of the gospel in the preached Word of God. But as the change continues around us, so God calls us to new ventures and to a second key shift.

Before I try and explain what that is, come with me to the Book of Acts and to one of the most dramatic moments in the whole of the New Testament as Paul comes alone, according to Luke's account, to the great pagan city of Ephesus at the beginning of Acts 19.

Ephesus has a special place in Luke's story. It marks the high water mark of fruitfulness in Paul's evangelistic ministry. He knew before and after this period many times of failure and frustration but in Ephesus, by God's grace, a new church was born which was to be a resource to the entire region and throughout the world.

Paul enters the city alone. He looks first for where God is at work. He finds a tiny group of disciples who know only the baptism of John. He teaches them more adequately and they are filled with the Spirit. There is a new Pentecost at the beginning of this new season of mission. Paul moves next to the synagogue and employs a different evangelistic method for three whole months. He is now the Rabbi, arguing persuasively. In Ephesus we see him actually being all things to all people. There comes a point at which that method no longer is effective and cannot be pursued. So Paul leaves and goes to the Gentiles, arguing daily in the lecture Hall of Tyrannus. Alongside this intellectual battle for the minds of his hearers there is a quieter ministry of signs and wonders and healing. That in turns builds until an exorcism goes wrong. Even that incident is used by God to draw people to faith. The very economy of the region is changed and the old religions are threatened by the spread of the gospel not only in the city but throughout the entire region.

In the next chapter, at the beginning of his great speech to the Ephesian presbyters, Luke has Paul look back and describe this period of evangelistic ministry in these words:

"You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house".

Paul in Ephesus shows us a different and more rounded model of evangelistic ministry from that of the preacher in the pulpit or the Alpha course leader in the church lounge.

What are its characteristics?

It is a ministry characterised by going to where people are rather than by an invitation.

It is a ministry based on the pattern of incarnation: being with people and living among them and alongside them and sharing in their hardships and sorrows. Paul begins his speech with the words: "You know how I lived" - literally you know how I was. This is personal ministry and about the sharing of lives.

It is a ministry characterised by service and humility - not seeking to gain anything from those one in seeking to reach.

It is a ministry that is responsive to the context: its methods twist and change and move from one means to another. "I did not shrink from doing anything helpful".

It is a ministry that aims to build and form new communities within that place and culture. It is not seeking simply to enlarge one group of Christians or accommodate everyone within the same cultural framework. It's very clear from the divisions and debates within the New Testament that different congregations developed within the same cities.

It is a ministry that is responsive to the Spirit's leading in every possible way: Paul is seeking to discover what God is doing and join in - to keep in step with the Spirit who is moving ahead.

And it is a ministry characterised by suffering, by tears and by enormous perseverance: the hallmark quality of the pioneer evangelist.

It is a ministry, I believe, Paul describes by many titles but above all by the word diakonos - a word that is often obscured in our English translations because it can be translated servant or minister or ministry.

It is the ministry of the deacon-evangelist to go on behalf of the community; to draw alongside others and share their pains and sorrows; to serve; to respond to the context and the Holy Spirit; to form new communities beyond the existing church and to persevere through immense suffering and hardship until the job is done.

It is this shift to the ministry of deacon-evangelist that I observe is happening across the churches at the present time, which is still in its very early stages, which needs to be encouraged and nurtured and developed and which will be increasingly form the role and shape of the evangelists ministry in the 21 st Century.