During the last century there were very clear distinctions between the concept of evangelism and missions. In the simplest of terms evangelism was reaching people for the local church and missions was reaching people for the kingdom.
Within the context of missions there was a local, national and an international segmentation. This implied the potential for several different strategies to be effective in all of these areas. It was understood that to reach people in an international context that significant cultural barriers had to be addressed for the gospel to be effective.
Today the cultural distance between the people who are in the church in America and the people who are not is significant enough to require a cross cultural missiological approach to reach them. They hold an entirely different world view and they are simply not going to come to our buildings regardless of how cutting edge our marketing may be.
For churches to be effective today in reaching the unchurched in America we are going to have to become missionaries in our own local context. We will have to find ways to take the gospel to where the people live, work and play and do it in a culturally relevant way.
That is why we need to stop thinking in terms of the old models of segmentation. The world has literally moved to America and through the use of technology and the new global economy everything has changed.
The church must become glocal in its thinking, which means one missiological mindset that produces multiple strategies depending upon who we are trying to reach in our area.