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.

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?

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).

As mentioned in one of the prior define evangelism articles, we shared a brief description of the Gospel from Scot McKnight’s book Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us (order from Amazon).

I have finished reading McKnight’s book and want to share some of my thoughts on it.  Prof. McKnight was one of my professors when I was in seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he is a prolific blogger at www.Jesuscreed.org

The takeaway point is that the gospel is not only about individual conversion, but the fruit of the gospel in the life of an individual should work itself out in the transformational development of a community in advancing the evidence of God’s kingdom.

What is the gospel?

He defines the gospel as “embracing grace.”  Yet behind that definition is a book of over 170 pages to tease it out via stories, examples from lives of others, and personal testimony, and lots of Bible quotes to keep the development of his definition anchored in the Bible.

What I found refreshing was the fact that the gospel is not just about individual decisions to follow Christ.  McKnight carefully lay’s out how the gospel affects more than just the individual’s relationship with God.  It spills over into community — working towards changing the world, which eventually spills into the ultimate redemption of creation.

The fact that McKnight doesn’t keep the gospel confined to an individual conversion speaks towards the trend in evangelism to integrate a person’s conversion with the outward working of that faith.  That’s missional faith.  To embrace grace personally should lead to grace performed in the local community.  Several chapters show the connection in real live examples of how “proclamation and performance of an authentic gospel combine into credibility.”

McKnight introduces us to the term “Eikon,” referring to the image of God after which humans are created.  We are cracked icons, our community is full of cracked eikons.  Embracing grace allows cracked Eikons to be released into serving their community and sharing that same grace with others.

Order Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us from Amazon.

Let me ask you this?

What do you think is the relationship between the gospel and transformation of a community?  I invite you to share it here in the comments.

On a message board that I frequent, a user asked for a review of Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels and Mittleberg.  Below is what I shared.

I used the materials when they were popular in the 90s. They may have been updated since then, so my review will be based on the original.

I also, only used the book. I did not observe the video. I don’t attend Willow Creek, nor go to a Willowback type church.

The primary topic of course is relational evangelism, and the idea of forming "strategic friendships with non believer’s" with the goal of helping them become fully devoted followers of Christ.

I found the book very helpful in stressing

• a holy lifestyle
• relational connections to non-Christians, and
• training in being able to clearly communicate a gospel script.

I read evangelism books for a living, and many focus on just one of those three.

The course can serve as a foundation for an evangelism group — where group members meet to discuss and debrief their spiritual conversations, and hold each other accountable to making connections outside the church.

Is there value in this course? I think there is value in anything that will help fan the fires of evangelism in a local church.

If you are a fan of the urgent confrontational style of evangelism a la Way of the Master, then this material will bother you because of its emphasis on building relationships and earning the right to be heard.

If your church doesn’t believe in engaging the culture and having relationships with non-churched people, then this book will be so against the grain of your church’s DNA that it won’t work period [there are some very separatist type churches out there].

My suggestion is to read Becoming a Contagious Christian yourself (it’s a read that can be done in a few hours, particularly if you have read many other evangelism books) and see if it fits the style of your congregation.

If 10 people started bringing 2 unchurched people to your church as part of that relationship building, how would your church react to 20 new people?

Order your copy of Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels and Mittleberg from Amazon today.

Let me ask you this:

What books on Personal Evangelism have you read?  I invite you to post your comments on this book, or any other here.

Our definition of evangelism (from the PCUSA) has both:

• A message to share (”joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God)
• A destination (”calling people to . . . . . “)

The good news is the gospel.  This is what gospel means in its most basic form: “good news.”

However, we have developed a rich theological heritage around that word that gives it a more fuller meaning.  As such, we should ask “What is the gospel?”

What is the Gospel?

The PC USA definition of evangelism elaborates one aspect: “the good news of the sovereign love of God.”  It doesn’t contain a mention of sin (though indirectly in the call to action part in “to repentance”).

This week, I’m reading Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us, Scott McKnight.  It is subtitled “A Gospel for all of us.”  Scott is a prolific writer at www.JesusCreed.org and has a large following on his blog.  I had him as a exegesis professor during my studies at Seminary in the 1990s.  I’ve commented on him before (see category Scott McKnight).

In his introduction he writes that to get a conversation started among his students, he’ll ask the question “What is the gospel?”

He typically receives answers that fall into three categories:

• Jesus came to earth to die for my sins so I can be forgiven and go to heaven to be with God for eternity.
• Jesus came to liberate us from oppression, systemic evil, slavery, so there would be justice and peace.
• Being part of the church.

How does Scott’s answer the question?  It takes him the book to develop this:

“The work of God to restore humans to union with God and communion with others, in the context of a community, for the good of others and the world” (Introduction to Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us, xiii).

Scott’s answer goes beyond focus on the love of God and into restoration of covenant community. 

In fact, God’s destiny in history is a redeemed community (I’ll have more to say in a few weeks about this).

Let me ask you this?

How would you define gospel? (I can’t believe I’ve not asked this question here before).  I invite your comments.

See our prior posts

• Definition of Evangelism: What Evangelism Isn’t
• Part 1: What is Evangelism
• Part 2: Joyfully Sharing the Good News
• Part 3: The sovereign Love of God
• Part 4: Calling People to
• Part 5:
• More definitions of Evangelism 1
• More definitions of Evangelism 2
  

As the new year begins, I want to revisit a working definition of evangelism.   For some background as to what we have used as a definition of evangelism, read our evangelism definition from April of 07.

To recall, I use the PC (USA)’s definition of evangelism

Joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God, and calling people to repentance, to personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to active membership in the church, and to obedient service in the world. (Definition adopted by the 202nd General Assembly of the PCUSA, 1990).

Mark Dever has an interesting piece in Christianity Today called “What Evangelism Isn’t.”  It is adapted from his book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism.

What Evangelism Is Not:

• Imposition
• Personal Testimony
• Social Action and Public Involvement (”They commend the gospel, but they share it with no one.”)
• Apologetics
• The Results of Evangelism

To his list I would add

• Church Marketing (advertisements, web page, direct mail, etc).
• Visitor Hospitality.

All of these items (maybe with the exception of Imposition) all support the work of evangelism, but individually, they fall short of the destination — calling people to repentance, to personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to active membership in the church and obedient service in the world.

This is the point Dever makes repeatedly in the article: “We need to stop mistaking other Christian activities for the spreading of the gospel.”

I would take issue perhaps with one of Dever’s assertions: Imposition.

It’s important to understand that the message you are sharing is not merely an opinion but a fact. That’s why sharing the gospel can’t be called an imposition, any more than a pilot can impose his belief on all his passengers that the runway is here and not there.

This would be true if a conversation only involved one side: the speaker.  But a conversation involves both a speaker and a hearer.  The hearer sets the boundary.  Either they want to hear what you have to share, or they don’t.  If they don’t, and you continue to speak, it’s an imposition.

Sure, I may be presenting a Christian gospel, but if its unwanted by my hearer, I am imposing.

Let me ask you this?

• If you have read the article, do you agree or disagree with Dever?
• What would you add to his list?

I invite you to comment.