Evangelism Coach

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God sovereignly brings visitors to your church.

They can fall in a variety of categories:

• Reached/Churched
• Reached/Unchurched
• Unreached /Churched
• Unreached / Unchurched

Source: Breaking the Missional Code, Ed Stetzer, David Putman

But once people are first welcomed into your church, and the service is over, then what? 

The need to build bridges - a conversion to the church.

I see a big difference between Latin Culture, African American Culture, and typical North American Suburban Culture.  In the latter, we see the death of sense of relational community. 

Growing up, my community had a pool and a dock (as it was waterfront).  My last subdivision — we only knew one neighbor.

When we were first married and moved to Chicago, we started attending an Assembly of God and went to a Sunday school class for married couples, and socializing after the class, we had lots of things in common with 3 other couples: newlywed transplants from another state.

Then the phone calls began to happen.

• “Hey, Tom had surgery, come over and play cards.”
• “Hey, let’s go to dinner.”
• “Hey, let’s have a cookout.”
• “Hey, what are you doing. Let’s watch a movie tonight.”

Pretty soon, three things began to happen as we spent time together.

(1) We felt connected to the local church.

(2) We developed deep and intimate friendships that are now 15 years old.

This got started because someone took the initiative to get us together and we met over a meal and played cards. An act of hospitality.

How to help visitors connect:

• If you have small groups, have leaders intentionally invite visitors to their small group
• Invite visitors to your home for lunch or dinner (don’t worry about dessert or a spotless house — I heard a story this week about a woman who made her sister use a restroom at a gas station because her house wasn’t ready to receive her sister — sure, it needs to be clean, but not perfect)
• Invite visitors out for a snack / lunch / dinner or something with a group from the church.
• If you prayed with the visitor after service, make a phone call during the week.

Let me ask you this?

What methods do you use to help visitors connect with your church?

Popularity: 51% [?]

I’ll join the bandwagon of many of the blogs I read and reveal to you the Ten most popular posts based on pageviews during 2007.

1. Conversion Stories in the NT: Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch  (Part of the Conversion in the NT Series)
2. Evangelism Oozing from our Pores (on motivations)
3. Define Evangelism Series
4. Take the Risk, Offer to pray (most commented)
5. Hospitality Series
6. How to welcome Visitors during Christmas
7. I’d rather invite someone to a manure shoveling party.
8. 10 Reasons to Use a Local Coffeeshop
9. Beginning to share your faith.
10. Evangelism Bookshelf: Unbinding the Gospel

From looking at my counters, it seems the two most popular search terms to find Evangelism Coach was “motivation for evangelism” and “define evangelism.”  But this data may be skewered since I didn’t know how to start search term counts in until much later.  Search terms do offer wonderful clues to what people are looking for at this site and provide suggestions for articles to write.

Free Evangelism Coach Resources:

1. Evangelism Encounter Discussion Group — a coaching group on individual encounters
2. Article: Avoid First Time Visitor Nightmares — a downloadable article printed in Net Results, with study questions.
3. *** NEW ***  Monthly Newsletter.  It will be a monthly review of popular posts and include information on Evangelism Coach seminars and where our  ministry will take us.  Sign up for your copy and receive the First Time Visitor article.  If you have already gotten the article, you are on that list.
4. *** NEW ***   Down Load Evangelism Coach Brochure.  You are free to print and distribute this 4 color brochure as you see fit.

Next year, I plan on adding more free resources, a bookshop, and information on hosting an Evangelism Coach training session for your church or denominational governing body.

Popularity: 53% [?]

Every now and then, we lift up an article on welcoming visitors.  It’s not evangelism as we define evangelism here, but it is part of the responsibility of the church to welcome those that God draws to your church so that the gospel can be heard, seen, or felt.  (See Avoiding First Time Visitor Nightmares, our hospitality to visitors series, Church Hospitality Assessment, or see the category of visitors)

A few years ago attended a seminar dinner on How to Minister to Visitors at the local church and we learned some great ideas that are worth sharing here.

Perhaps these can help you minister to the people God brings to your church through your invitation or through His own sovereign means.

Miracles disguised as needs.

When unchurched visitors come to church, it is highly likely that they are looking for God to do something in their life.

Our speaker challenged us to look at our visitors as “miracles disguised as needs.”

A different meet and greet.   Take the Risk and Pray.

After introducing ourselves with a simple “I’ve not met you yet, my name is . . . . .” and finding out a little about them, we can simply ask “Is there something we can pray for before you go?”

Or, they may have already shared some of their needs and you can say “Let’s pray about some of those needs right now,” and then plunge right in and pray with them, leaving it up to God to work sovereignly.

Your prayer doesn’t have to be elaborate or drawn out, but a simple lifting of the person’s needs to the Lord.

This communicates a few things: care and compassion for the visitor, demonstrates our reliance upon God, and possibly reflects the “culture” of your church.

If our visitor sees an answer to prayer in the course of time, God might use that to draw that person or family closer to him. This is really a process of listening evangelism, and trusting in the power of God for daily living.  You’re not really “selling our church” or actively recruiting people.

We’re simply partnering with them and taking them before the Lord.

After a time of prayer, if its appropriate, spend some time introducing the visitor to other people, and then if they return in the following week or two, welcome them again and continue to communicate care and concern. See how God worked in response to prayer and see what happens.

Simply put, this idea is really simple to implement.

What does it take for you to participate?

• It takes a vision for seeing guests for who they are - people who might be in need.
• It takes a willingness to go beyond our natural awkwardness and introduce ourselves to strangers.
• It takes patience to listen to their story and to listen for their needs, and a risk to lift them before the Lord in prayer.

This is a form of outreach that uses hospitality and prayer to bless those who come to your for their first time.

Sounds simple, but I think you’ll find it an adventure.

Popularity: 50% [?]

You may have received our December Evangelism Coach.org Newsletter by email if you are on our email list. 

If not, join our email list to get future newsletters:

As a bonus, you’ll receive a copy of Avoiding First Time Visitor Nightmares.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I reached a milestone this morning.

A visitor from Albania had the privilege of loading the 10,000th page view.  My own views are blocked by the counter, so mine are not included.

I’ve seen many blogs start strong and then stop after a few months, so to reach this milestone was a personal goal for me.

May the Lord prosper this blog during this coming year and may I reach 20,000 in less time.

Have a great new year.

Popularity: 11% [?]

WEB EVANGELISM CONFERENCE VIDEOS NOW ONLINE  (From: Internet Evangelism Coalition)

Seven of the web evangelism seminars from September’s Web Ministry conference are now available to watch online:
http://www.webevangelism.com/index.php?id=100

Maybe the holiday period is a good chance to take time to view some? They were recorded with an innovative system which also displays the PowerPoint or screen content, so you see exactly what the session participants saw. Nearly as good as being there!

These highly recommended sessions cover:

* Reaching Your Community Through A Church Website - how to make a church site reach outsiders
* Evangelism in Second Life - the new virtual world
* The Power of Personal Testimony - important principles
* The Edges of Cyberspace - the potential of the Web to reach the ’second billion’ - mainly non-western internet users who will come online in the next few years
* Evangelism and Mentoring - lessons learned by TruthMedia.com
* Rethinking Internet Evangelism And Online Ministry - looking back and forward
* Hollywood Jesus - outreach based on redemptive parallels in film

There are also audio recordings of some other conference sessions:
http://www.internetministryconference.org/blog/

To set these in context, here are details of speakers and sessions:
http://www.internetministryconference.org/archives/2007/speakers/
http://www.internetministryconference.org/archives/2007/schedule/

Popularity: 16% [?]

I’ve written up a mission summary of our work in Nicaragua in December. 

Thanks for praying for us while we were away.

As 2007 draws to a close, allow me to share with you some of what I’m thrilled about:

• Nearly 10,000 page views since Evangelism Coach started in January of 2007.
• Nearly 5,600 unique visitors.
• Teaching evangelism seminars in
  • Panama
  • Nicaragua
  • United States
    • Missouri
    • Connecticut
    • Michigan
    • Pennsylvania
• Published in Net Results: Avoiding First Time Visitor Nightmares

I’m looking forward to growing Evangelism Coach next year with a new bookstore, free downloadable materials, downloadable materials for sale, and the development of a email newsletter.  You can join the newsletter list right now and get your copy of avoid first time visitor nightmares by simply giving us your email address.

I am accepting booking dates for conferences during the year of 2008. It’s first come and first serve. Hosts are expected to cover travel expenses and a reasonable honorarium via love offering or fixed fee. Beginning in Feb 2008 we are available. Typically, the most cost effective form is for several churches to band together and charge a small registration cost to the participants for a one to four day event. Simply contact me at


to start that conversation.

Popularity: 13% [?]