Evangelical churches hold evangelism as a hallmark of their movement, but evangelism and conversion rates are in decline. Might this decline be the result of absent or inadequate evangelistic equipping on the part of the church? This project presents a phenomenographic analysis and critique on how congregations are being equipped for evangelism. It employs both surveys of congregational members as well as pastoral leaders. Follow-up interviews with pastoral leaders have also been used to clarify findings from the initial surveys. These interviews have been analyzed to discover the qualitatively different understandings that are evident in the data regarding the phenomenon of evangelistic equipping. These understandings are categorized, and a description of each category type is provided. The results of these findings provide a more expansive understanding of the equipping task and offer specific ways in which the task of evangelistic equipping can be expanded to serve the Evangelical church better.

The purpose of this study is to reach a deeper understanding of what constitutes the critical approach, this by exploring the variations of teachers’ perceptions of the critical approach, specifically teachers of Social Studies at Swedish Upper Secondary School. The critical approach is expressed in Curriculum for the Upper Secondary School (2011) under the section Aim of the subject for Social Studies. The importance of a critical approach is seen in the light of the development of digitalization and the extent of the flow of information. Teachers have a vital role in how the curriculum is interpreted; interpretations which in turn are significant for how it is put into practice in their teaching. Accordingly, I argue that this requires surveys were teachers’ perceptions of the curriculum are distinguished. The research questions in this study are: I) how do teachers in Social Studies at Swedish Upper Secondary School perceive the critical approach? II) What didactic methods are used in teaching to develop students’ critical approach? This study applies a phenomenographic method and theory, which is based on examining different perceptions of phenomena, in this case the critical approach. To distinguish the different perceptions of the phenomena in question, four teachers in Social Studies have been interviewed. The aim of a phenomenographic study is to establish description categories that capture the inherent core of different perceptions of phenomena and the variations between them. The study results in three description categories: I) a critical approach as a result of scientific assessment and credibility examination, II) a critical approach as a recurring process of reflection regarding individual and context and III) a critical approach as expressed through active participation and meaningful social life. The result reveals that there are different ways of perceiving a critical approach in Social Studies at Swedish Upper Secondary Schools, which affects how it is taught in the classroom.