Archive for June, 2008
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I keep adding to the list. If you have found some tips helpful for pastors to keep their personal evangelism passion high, please send them to me via email, contact us form, or simply give me a call at 804-335-1445.
See these prior posts:
1. Obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit
God opens the doors to evangelistic conversations.
The Lord might point out someone to you, as he did in the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch. “Go and stand next to THAT chariot.”
As you go through the day, can you recognize the promptings of the Lord? We need to respond to those promptings and seize the moments that He gives us. He’ll use us to touch the hearts of others, and it is my experience that our own life will be changed as well.
Sitting on an airplane (what evangelist doesn’t have an airplane story?) I notice those that start a conversation with me.
On one of my last trips, my seat mate and I had a long spiritual discussion over why he is not a Christian. I had the chance to discuss my faith, help him to explore his own lack of faith, in the process explaining why following Jesus is the greatest thing on earth. For 150 minutes, we talked about faith, about life, and about Jesus.
I make it a habit of praying for those that I will sit next to, that God may use me in their journey to faith.
2. Review God’s work in your life
I have found that the more I explore my testimony, and the more I recall God’s current activity in my life, I find a wellspring of gratefulness bubbling out of my heart.
I see God’s active grace in my life. I see God’s care, I see His concern. The more I look over it, my motivation to share my faith rises. The more grateful I become, the more passionate I am to help others find this faith.
This is the inebriation of grace. The mystery of being part of God’s kingdom. I am overwhelmed with gratitude, perhaps melting in gratitude, and that inspires me to share with others.
Take the time to reflect on God’s activity in your life. What is God doing in your life now that makes the gospel good news?
3. Keep your evangelistic edge
How often do you
These kinds of things can help you keep your evangelistic passion high. Making the intentional effort to keep your passion high.
I find that when I attend a conference, I get excited once again about seeing lives changed.
I find that when I teach a conference I get excited when I see some newly trained evangelists jazzed up to change the world.
Right now, as I’m doing evangelism coaching for a few people, I get excited as they share with me their evangelistic conversations that have occurred between our conversations over the phone. They are excited that they can do this, and I am excited knowing that perhaps destinies are being changed.
Let me ask you this?
What tips have you found helpful in your own life to keep the evangelism passion high? Share them with us.
Comments (0) Posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008
Win Arn did a study sometime ago (the actual reference is in my notes somewhere)
- Approx 90% of pastors thought the main purpose of the church was evangelism.
- Approx 10% of lay people thought the main purpose of the church was evangelism.
Is it any wonder why there is a conflict of desire in a congregation about evangelism?
Expectations placed on pastors, particularly in smaller churches, often cause a pastor to set aside intentional evangelism. The focus is on member care, sermon preparation, worship leadership, and repairing the broken water line. Evangelism: who has time for that?
As I continued to think about tips for pastors who are overwhelmed with other responsibilities, I’ve encountered a few more to share with you.
These are certainly true for everyone, but certainly geared towards pastors
1. Confess your lack of concern
For some pastors, there may be a realization that with all the other responsibilities, your own passion for evangelism has slipped, melted away, or has been simply drained out of you. You don’t care any more. Your passion for evangelism no longer burns as brightly as it did.
Start with a confession before God. Let God put his finger on the cause and allow His Spirit to help you fan the flame back to a intensity that is appropriate. If you feel guilty, allow that guilt to move you towards repentance and a godly response. Do not allow it to beat you down.
2. Live a life worthy of your calling.
Is following Jesus truly the best way to live?
As you live your life day in and day out, does your life reflect this conviction?
To have a love for people who don’t know Christ, you yourself need to know that following Jesus is the best way to live. You see God’s activity in your life, and you can talk about what God is doing in your life today that makes the gospel “Good news?”
Spend time in God’s presence regularly. Developing a sensitivity to God’s voice so you can follow the promptings of His Spirit.
3. Spend time in Worship.
The fuel for missions is worship, according to John Piper. At first, I didn’t believe him. However, the more time I spend in the worship of God in my devotions, in my church, or even as I walk the streets of my city, I find that my heart connects with God’s heart for those outside the kingdom.
The more I worship, the more I want to share. The deeper I worship, the more propelled I am to share God’s love and grace.
Robert Coleman, author of The Master Plan of Evangelism, wrote “I believe that the real incentive for witnessing comes from the worship of God.
4. Stay in God’s word
There are many passages in Scripture that reflect God’s concern for those who don’t yet know him. What passages fire up your heart?
For me, it is the lost parables of Jesus in Luke 15, about the lost son, the lost sheep, and the lost coin. For others, it might be about
There is a correlation between spending time in God’s word and keeping your personal fire lit for evangelism. As you spend time in God’s word, you will connect with God’s passion for the lost.
Pastors, personal coaching can help you keep the evangelism flame burning bright. Contact us about personalized evangelism coaching.
See Also:
Comments (2) Posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Reese’s research in Unbinding the Gospel found that many pastors have no personal experience with evangelism (Reese, 9).
The footnote explains that 10 out of 60 denominational seminaries in mainline denominations require even half a course in evangelism for graduation. The other half of the course is often paired with stewardship (p. 22).
Chapter 8 of her book is full of ideas for pastors (Order your copy of Unbinding the Gospel).
As the pastor or church leader, your role in your church’s evangelism efforts is crucial. In fact, for your church to keep it’s evangelistic temperature high, you have the key role in fanning the flame.
Pastor, how is your evangelistic passion? Do you find that you are so drained with your other responsibilities that personal evangelism has fallen by the wayside?
Here are 5 personal evangelism Tips for pastors.
1. Talk about Christ with at least one person weekly
Many pastors are overloaded with other church responsibilities, that evangelism gets set aside. However, a true evangelist’s heart is bent toward lost souls.
Make it your personal goal each week to share a spiritual conversation with someone outside the church.
You might get to plant a seed, water a seed, or perhaps harvest a seed that has been prepared already like Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.
When I actively pastored a local congregation, these conversations fueled my preaching, my praying, and my passion.
2. Be visible.
As pastor, you are the primary leader of your outreach/evangelism program. You might not like that role, but you are in it. If you pastor a large (mega) church, you might have a designated staff person directing the program, but you are still the primary leader.
Keep up your personal involvement and visibility in the efforts of your church. The congregations needs to see their pastor winning others to Jesus Christ.
They need to see their pastor making visits to the unchurched, cultivating relationships with the unsaved, and establishing contacts with the lost. You need to be seen on the front lines of evangelism in your church.
The conversations that I had would often ooze out in a sermon, or small group discussions and other places.
3. Pray daily.
It’s likely that every pastor knows that we are to pray for the harvest. Many of us do in private. Prayer keeps our eyes on the harvest, our ears attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Pray regularly for those you know who do not know Christ.
As pastors, how often do our public prayers during worship services, leadership meetings, grace before the potluck supper, does your passion for the lost ooze out?
When people see you pray during services, leadership meetings, they will likely mimic that same passion for souls and increase their prayers.
I’ve been in enough prayer gatherings to know that parishioners will adopt the prayer “language” or phraseology of the pastor often with the same intensity that is modeled.
4. Expand your circle of influence.
Every pastor ought to keep a personal circle of influence with non-believers.
Dan Kimball moved some of his study time to a cafe, Perry Noble did the same. Easum’s research finds that pastors having conversations with people are a key part of their coming to faith (see How to Grow a Small Church).
Read: A pastor’s conversational encounter in a cafe. Get out of the office my friend and see who you run into.
Do you have a circle of friends you regularly interact with who haven’t yet found faith in Christ? If not, what are you going to do about it.
5. Respond to cries for help.
Be sensitive to benevolent needs that come your way. Be on guard the next time you conduct a funeral service and a distant family member of the deceased is in attendance at the funeral, having never heard gospel. Be aware of hospital visits where the opportunity to share with doctors, nurses, and attendants is abundant and often timely.
There are plenty of times when a pastor can notice these things and ask the Lord for guidance as to how and when to share the gospel. These are people that the Lord has brought to you, and you have a part to play in their coming to faith.
Got more?
Do you have more personal evangelism tips for pastors?
I invite you to contribute your tips in the comments.
Pastors, if you want some confidential coaching for your ministry, see our 1-1 mentoring program. We’ll be glad to provide some training.
Comments (1) Posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
I finished reading
Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church.
This book is sure to be on the top of the list for Visitor Assimilation texts.
Note: I read Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church, Gary McIntosh (see my review at Assimilating Church Visitors- Beyond the First Visit).
To make a comparison between the two books is like comparing a Ferrari to a Escort.
There are several key elements to Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church that have made their visitor retention rate so astronomical.
I write about one idea for Survey First Time Visitors.
The entire process is laid out simply in their book (along with lots of shameless plugs for Searcy’s other materials).
Visitors are gifts from God
His beginning point is to recognize that in God’s sovereignty, every visitor is a Gift to your church. They didn’t show up by chance. But rather, as a gift, and “first time gifts full of unparalleled potential.”
How can we turn them into developing members?
“By sending that guest to you, God is giving you the privilege of cooperating with Him to move someone forward in their journey toward Jesus.”
What visitor retention rate do I need to reach?
Searcy leads us on a practical exercise. If you are reading this, think about your church. To help you bench mark, statistics suggest that each year a church needs to keep
- 3 guests /100 attenders to maintain itself
- 5 guests / 100 attenders to steadily grow
- 7 guests or more / 100 attenders to rapidly grow
Considering your church, how many guests do you need to keep each year?
How well do you retain church visitors now?
What is your retention ratio? More specifically, here are 6 facts to dig up for your church
- Average attendance per month 2 years ago.
- Average attendance same month 1 year ago.
- What is your annual growth? Hopefully, the second number is higher than the 1st.
- How many first time guests did you have during the past year?
- Divide your growth / the total number of first timers.
How many visitor you keep?
Assimilation Process
The basic assimilation system that is presented in Fusion is a simple (in overview anyway).
- Turn a first time guest into a second time guest.
- Turn a second time guest into a regular attender.
- Turn a regular attender into a fully developing member.
The entire rest of the book explores this process and system as it has developed at The Journey church.
The temptation will be to simply buy the book and implement the process as if the process is the key that will solve all your visitor retention problems. That is systems thinking and treating this system as the next big thing. Searcy concedes “the church is not a business,” yet in the same sentence adds “[but] we would be smart to take some cues from the consumer-conscious service world.” This is a solid “nuts and bolts” resource for congregations and ministries alike.
You will need to tweak it for your local context. For example, their process is very dependent upon email and it is of utmost priority to capture email addresses from their visitors. Their system depends on it. Yet some of you may have churches in areas and with people who still don’t use email. How will you adjust the system to your context?
There are so many variables in visitor retention, including the system. Others include the friendliness of the congregation, presentation of the facilities, and more. This book is not the magic happy pill to solve your visitor retention problems, but rather provides a step by step system to at least help with the data gathering and processing to help you “process” visitors. Of the books I have read on visitor retention, this one presents the best system I have seen.
Order your copy of Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church direct from Amazon.
If you would like live training or consulting about evaluating your hospitality, check out our articles on hospitality and feel free to give us a call at 804-335-1445. Send an email to and I will send you a hospitality audit form.
Comments (2) Posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008
What question about evangelism burns in your mind?
What do you come to EvangelismCoach.org to find? One of my goals is to provide information that is of high relevance to you.
With that in mind, here is a new feature. It’ll start to appear in the “Connect” section so that it’s always easily accessible. You can simply contribute to the discussions here simply by submitting your questions. I will try to answer them in due time, and perhaps you’ll see an article or two on your question a little later.
Simply fill out the form below.
cforms contact form by delicious:days
Comments (6) Posted on Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Why do we hang out only with Christians?
Fellow TEDS student writes “If Jesus Spent Lots of Time with Unbelievers, Why Do Most of Us Hang Out Only with Christians?“ With that opening question, there is a great essay of one wresting with how far into the world, how far out of the world should Christians be.
Evangelism moment with a Gorilla
What can a gorilla photo teach us about evangelism?
Check out “Don’t Miss the Moment” by Mark Beeson.
In it, he talks about what I’d call a karios moment — that moment between Phillip and the eunuch, between Peter and Cornelius, when the Holy Spirit has so ordered circumstances that destines are changed.
Getting Visitors without Spending Money
Chris Forbes of www.MinistryMarketingCoach.com writes How to Get More Prospects for Your Church Without Spending a Dime on Advertising. He writes:
In a church of just ten people there are least 520 people connected to the membership. How many of those names can you get a hold of and make a personal contact with? How many of them know what faith in Christ is all about? Start working that list this week!
Comments (0) Posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008
Our family will be visiting five states over 30 days in the upcoming month.
I’d be happy to try and meet with some of my loyal readers if we happen to be in the area where you are.
- Atlanta GA: June 16-20
- Charleston SC: June 21-23
- Fayetteville NC: June 23-29
- Black Mountain NC: June 30 thru July 4/7
- Richmond VA: July 4/7 thru July 13
- Baltimore MD: July 13 thru July 22
Along the way, we have some teaching events, preaching events. We’d love to connect with you if we can. Simply contact us via form or email to see if we can meet up somewhere.
We’re available for events while we travel, even at the last minute.
Img source:bluedesignsolutions
Comments (1) Posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008
