Evangelism Coach

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I’ve got too many evangelism books in my library.  See my Books page to get a feel for why I have too many evangelism books.  That’s not all that I have.  Try about 6 shelves full.

I need to give some of these away.  So, I’ll have a little raffle this month.

To enter, simply signup for our monthly Newsletter.  You can unsubscribe at any time.  Entries limited to those who sign up in February. 

I’ll contact the winner (drawn at random by my son) by email and will mail your book by the 10th of March.

February’s book:

• Nick Pollard’s Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult: How to Interest People who Aren’t Already Interested.

You can read my review of this book at

• Evangelism Book Review: Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult
• Evangelism Book review: Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult Part 2

Signup for our monthly Newsletter during February to get your chance at getting this book for free.  You can unsubscribe at any time.  New sign-ups only.

Popularity: 24% [?]

As mentioned in Saturday’s post I just finished reading Nick Pollard’s Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult: How to Interest People who Aren’t Already Interested (order your copy direct from Amazon). 

The goal of his book is to help you get uninterested people interested in Jesus, to reach people “who are simply not interested in hearing about Jesus because they are quite happy with their own views” (p. 31). 

The subtitle makes it clear:

How to Interest People who aren’t Already Interested.

In other words, this book is offering to help you reach a specific category of people: those who doing fine in life without Jesus, and therefore don’t see the need.

To reach them, “we must help them become uncomfortable with their current worldview and then perhaps they will be” (p. 42).

Our job, as the evangelist then, is to conversationally help a person get uncomfortable with their current world view.  This is done in a dialogue about worldview (which all of Ch 2 is about). 

Side Note: The best book on world view that I have read is Discipling the Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures, by Darrow Miller.  Follow the link to get your copy from Amazon.

Conversational Evangelism

Pollard’s approach is what he calls “Positive deconstruction”, (all of chapter 3) which means that through the use of questions, you can help a person analyze their world view, take it apart, and examine it. 

The goal of such conversations is to expose the internal contradictions in the world view. Seems negative, but the goal is to search for truth.

The destination of the conversation is meant to wind up at the place where a person says “I’m not so sure that what I believe is right after all.  I want to find out more about Jesus” (p.44)

“We’ve got a major job to do if we are to help people want to find out about Jesus.”

Is this less difficult?

The rest of Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult goes on to examine worldviews, and help you think about potential conversations.  There is no script offered, but a general analysis of conversational points.

To engage in this style of evangelism conversation, you

• have to be able to think philosophically,
• have to be able to examine all sorts of worldviews, and
• have to be able to reasonably dialogue about them.

I took entire courses in seminary on world views, read several books on world views.  (A good example of an evangelist who understands world view is Ravi Zacharias of www.rzim.org.). 

Does worldview research and philosophical analysis come easy to you? Or, does it overwhelm and confuse you?  This is where one needs to find a evangelism style to fit your personality.

Preparing for Conversational Evangelism

The starting point is to find out what a person believes. 

Conversationally, this can be done through the use of questions and sincere inquiries that are genuine.

Then, after finding out what a person believes, make efforts at understanding their worldview (such as read books about it). 

With these two things, you are then prepared to know what kinds of questions to raise — to help the other person examine their worldview.

Chapters 4 looks at principles involved in researching worldviews, preparing your self for worldview conversations, and then creating questions to examine a world view.  See a chapter excerpt at “Where do I start?”

1. Identify the world view.
2. Analyze the world view — Is it true?
   a.  Does it cohere?
   b.  Does it correspond to reality?
   c.  Does it work?
3. Affirm the truth in that worldview
4. Discover the error.

Pollard gives a worksheet to help you analyze a world view (p.57)

	Affirm the Truth	Discover the Error
1. Cohere?
2. Correspond?
3. Does it work?

You can see an except of Chapter 5, where he walks through a case study of the principles.  “It’s Not for Me” from bethinking.org

Let me ask you this?

What approach would you use to engage this particular subset of people: those who are not interested?

Popularity: 41% [?]

I just finished reading Nick Pollard’s Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult: How to Interest People who Aren’t Already Interested (order your copy direct from Amazon).  Nick is a full time evangelist and speaker who lives in Great Britain.

With cover endorsements from Josh McDowell, George Verwer, and Lesslie Newbigin, I figured it would be a pretty good read.

Can  Evangelism be made less difficult?

I found the first chapter to be the best: “It doesn’t have to be quite so hard.”

It’s a look a Colossians 4:2-6

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.  And pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.  Prayer that I may proclaim it clearly as I should.  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer every one.

Three verses on prayer . . . 

Evangelism begins in prayer.  (See articles on prayer to learn about praying for evangelism). 

Pollard elaborates on these three verses on prayer

That God may open the opportunity

This doesn’t mean that we have to make the opportunity, or seize the opportunity, or force it, or hint at it, or steer it, or otherwise manipulate the conversation in our favor.  We don’t have a script that we have to force.

so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ.

Prayer can help us know the mystery, and help us share the mystery of our relationship with Christ.  Prayer helps us meditate on Christ, discover his love and work in our life, and we might be able to talk about what God is doing in our life.

clearly, as I should.

This is a big one.  We need to learn how to proclaim the message clearly, and not as muddy as a swollen river.  Pray so that you don’t “botch it up.”

Two Verses on Evangelism

Evangelism is expressed on our words and actions. 

In our words: “let your conversation be seasoned with salt”

In our actions: “be wise in the way you act towards outsiders.”

Together

Prayer and Evangelism go hand in hand.  They must go together. 

Some people spend all their time in prayer — never talk to people about Jesus.  Other’s talk about Jesus all day long, but without prayer, there is no advance prepartion of the soil or of the evangelist.

Make the most of every opportunity

Then Pollard goes into a section entitled — How to lose friends and Irritate people, exploring evangelism methodologies that manipulate conversations. 

We are told to make the most of every opportunity, not make the opportunity.  This I think is the best point of the whole chapter.

I’ve had many attempts where I felt like I was steering the ship.  I had to get my conversation partner to come around to spiritual thinks.  The feeling of anxiety as I tried to think “How does this connect to Jesus?”  “How can I turn the conversation to Jesus.

Let me ask you this.

Start with which one you find easier — prayer or evangelism.

If prayer is easy for you, start praying specific people and opportunities.  You’ll find that you’ll want to start talking

If talking about Jesus is easy for you, you’ll find that you’ll want to start praying.

The point is: start.

Evangelism Resource:

Nick Pollard’s Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult: How to Interest People who Aren’t Already Interested (order your copy direct from Amazon).

Popularity: 51% [?]