Evangelism as Brand Loyalty

At one personal evangelism seminar I gave, an elder in the local presbyterian church was making small talk with me in the hallway prior to the start.

She said,

Chris, I’m so excited that you’re here today. I’m so excited to learn more about evangelism. Our Session (which is the Presbyterian Church’s governing body) has been studying evangelism for six months.

After such an exhaustive study, I wondered how they might define evangelism, so I asked , “What did you decide evangelism is?”

Her answer

Finding the Presbyterians in my neighborhood.

I can imagine their potential door to door campaign – “Are you presbyterian or something else?”

Evangelism is being the best of the brands

I asked another church their working definition of evangelism.

Their answer was,

“We want to be the best Presbyterian Church in the city, so that we can keep the Presbyterians church visitors who come to see us.”

In other words, they wanted to be the best Presbyterian to keep and retain the best Presbyterian visitors.

Since this was my first discussion with them, I wanted to get a feel for their experiences and their pre-conceptions about

What is evangelism?

The outgrowth will be future discussions into particular areas.

What is evangelism?

Leading a group discussion on evangelism can be a challenge because the field of evangelism is huge.

In fact I did an evangelism mind map to start thinking about all the different aspects for this group discussion.

If you are

• gathering a new evangelism team, or
• starting up a new evangelism work in the local church, or
• leading some other group discussion on evangelism

here are some discussion questions I used that you might find useful.

Discussion Questions – What is evangelism?

• How would you describe or define evangelism?
• How do you think evangelism should be done?
• How do you do evangelism in your life now?
• In your journey to faith in Christ, how did evangelism happen in your life?
• What is the role of the congregation in evangelism?
• What is the role of the pastor in evangelism?

The Group Discussion on Evangelism

The opening question generated lots of answers that felt like cliches or rote answers — quick bursts of answers from years of hearing it from the pulpit.

• Preaching the Word.
• Sharing the Good News.
• Sharing your testimony.
• Giving the reason for your faith.

It may seem like a no-brainer question, but this questions reveals assumptions that people bring to the discussion on evangelism.

As the group facilitator, I pushed back a little to help people think through the “fixed answers.”

For example,

• What’s good news?  What makes it good?
• Can laypeople do evangelism if it’s only preaching?
• What are the key elements to the gospel that you want to share?
• Personally, how do you share?

As we got into the group evangelism discussion, it became clear that on a surface level, these 8 people had great answers, but underneath that surface, I saw

• Different approaches to evangelism.
• Different experiences.
• Different theological understandings.

Avoid conversational drift.

Most opening discussions on the nature of evangelism, if unchecked at this point, tend to drift into colorful theological debates. For example,

• Do people respond to God’s grace, or do they make a decision to respond?
• What is the value or lack of value over the “sinners prayer?”
• Do people have to fully understand their sin first, or can they start following Jesus and learn about sin later?
• Can people follow first and understand later?
• Can people follow Jesus before even having a completely biblical world view?
• What do people have to understand before following Jesus?
• Can conversions be “false?”

Other times, it may drift into areas of practice and styles:

• Rush to present the gospel to as many people as possible.
• Take the time to build relationships of influence with people.
• Invite people to church
• Go to the mission field.

The purpose of this group discussion on evangelism was not theological debate, but to expose some of the presuppositions that these group members were bringing to the table.

By exposing the presupposition through careful questions that challenge simple rote assertions, it made for a very rich discussion, and then setup the potential for further discussion into particular areas.

Get a full copy

I’ll send you the full PDF discussion guide that I used.  I want to have it field tested with other users, not just me.  To get it, leave a comment below (or at the blog if you get this via feed).

At least tell me how and with whom you’d use this discussion guide.

I’ll send it to you and then follow up to see how the discussion went.

Church’s Role in Evangelism

G-3.0300a

The Church is called to tell the good news of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ as the only Savior and Lord, proclaiming in Word and Sacrament that

• (1) the new age has dawned.
• (2) God who creates life, frees those in bondage, forgives sin, reconciles brokenness, makes all things new, is still at work in the world.

G-3.0300b

The Church is called to present the claims of Jesus Christ,

• leading persons to repentance,
• acceptance of him as Savior and Lord,
• and new life as his disciples.

G-3.0300c

The Church is called to be Christ’s faithful evangelist

(1) going into the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all he has commanded;

(2) demonstrating by the love of its members for one another and by the quality of its common life the new reality in Christ; sharing in worship, fellowship, and nurture, practicing a deepened life of prayer and service under the guidance of the Holy Spirit;

(3) participating in God’s activity in the world through its life for others by

• (a) healing and reconciling and binding up wounds,
• (b) ministering to the needs of the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the powerless,
• (c) engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, fear, oppression, hunger, and injustice,
• (d) giving itself and its substance to the service of those who suffer,
• (e) sharing with Christ in the establishing of his just, peaceable, and loving rule in the world.

The Responsibility of a Church Member

G-5.0102

A faithful member accepts Christ’s call to be involved responsibly in the ministry of his Church. Such involvement includes

• a. proclaiming the good news
• b. taking part in the common life and worship of a particular church,
• c. praying and studying Scripture and the faith of the Christian Church, . . . . .

The Responsibility of the Session

G-10.0102a

The session is responsible for the mission and government of the particular church. It therefore has the responsibility and power

a. to provide opportunities for evangelism to be learned and practiced in and by the church, that members may be better equipped to articulate their faith, to witness in word and deed to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and to invite persons into a new life in Christ, in accordance with G-3.0300

I’ve published stories of being a first time church visitor and experiences of welcoming church visitors:

• No One Said Hello
• I can’t silence the pain.
• I want to feel Jesus
• First Time Church Visitor Experience
• 1st Time Church Visitor Story
• The Secret Dress Code (two more first time church visitor stories)

But I want to develop a little more depth on hospitality with regards to helping welcome church visitors who may be coming for the first time.

The Definition of Christian Hospitality

In this context then let me define Christian hospitality as

Taking the initiative to welcome others and

inviting others to share in our community life.

This extends beyond our group gatherings for worship but a welcome in:

• our small groups
• our families
• our home
• our lives

This definition is much broader than evangelism.

It speaks to

• Our small group life,
• Our corporate worship life
• How we treat other people in general
• How connected we feel to the local church body
• How we get along as members of the body of Christ,
• The potential depths of our relationship with one another.

However, for our purposes here at EvangelismCoach.org, we’ll focus specifically on the connection between Christian Hospitality and Evangelism.

Learn from the Hospitality Industry

All sorts of corporations that interact with the public have studied hospitality, implement training programs to improve their public interaction, and spend millions on hospitality consultants.

We see its effects in store personnel trying to greet us as we walk in the door, training customer service reps to speak gently on the phone and check out clerks that smile (in many stores anyway).

These corporations want you to remember the good experience that you’ve had in their presence and will likewise want to return.  They want to remove potential bad experiences so that you willingly spend money on their product, experience, or merchandise.  By creating a “good experience,”  you’ll want to return and spend more.

While the church is not to imitate a corporation, nor even mimic one, nor our our worship services a product to be sold or even consumed, a good question for the church is:

How can the local church lower the barriers to hearing the message that will be proclaimed?

Christian Hospitality is only one tool in the church’s ability to be evangelistic.  It is not the only tool and should not be confused with evangelism itself.

Rather hospitality can lower and remove the potential barriers that can harm the gospel message during the worship service.

Christian Hospitality is part of Pre-Evangelism

As I think of my experience visiting churches for the first time, and as I’ve listened to others who have made first time stranger visits, one thing has consistently risen to the surface.

Lots of anecdotal evidence suggests that the ability of a first time visitor to connect to the worship service was directly impacted by the warmth of the welcome experienced.

• When no one says hello, the perceived coldness hinders your ability to remember what the sermon was about.
• When people are staring at you for not dressing right, you want to hide, but feel trapped.  Can’t pay attention.

In both examples, the ability of the first time hearer to interact with the sermon (the central part of most worship experiences) is hindered.

However, when a guest is given a warm welcome, a greater openness and ability to engage and comprehend the sermon remains in place and a greater likelihood (from a human point of view) of greater connection to the local church during that stage of their spiritual journey.

A warm welcome is thus part of the pre-evangelism work necessary in a church’s mission to help people find faith in Christ.

Do You Welcome Church Visitors?

Take a personal moment and examine your heart on this matter.

How do you come across to others?

When people meet you for the first time, how do you think they perceive your personality, disposition or attitude?

When you extend a hand to shake when a guest walks through the church’s front door, are they interrupting your conversation with someone else, or do you offer them genuine interest along with a hand shake (a typical greeting in the US)?

How do you treat the unknown person who sits next to you during the worship service?

How do you welcome the visitor who sits behind you, or in front of you?

Do you

• Ignore them?
• Talk around them?
• Look at them and say nothing?
• Take the initiative to greet them?

Remember, we are Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5.20). Our actions and reactions communicate who we are and who we represent.

Let me ask you this:

• What can you do to develop a better willingness to welcome church visitors?
• What hinders Christian Hospitality from working in my life in general?

Here is a link summary for you:

• Definition of Evangelism – A Summary
• What is Evangelism — Part 1
• What is Evangelism — Part 2
• What is Evangelism? – Part 3
• What is Evangelism? — Part 4
• What is Evangelism? — Part 5
• What is the Gospel?
• Definition of Evangelism: What Evangelism Isn’t
• Hospitality is a piece of Evangelism
• More Evangelism Definitions
• More definitions of Evangelism

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.

I’ve edited it slightly for time references and removed some personal matters, but thought I’d share this here.  I invite your comments.

Letter to a friend:

This morning, I’m in Cincinnati to attend the funeral of a friend who died of cancer.  18 months ago, a cancerous tumor was found during pregnancy, and my friend had the choice – whose life to save.  She chose her daughter’s.  Her daughter was born 18 months ago, and Tuesday, the mom died.  35 years old.  No insurance, no money for treatment, they simply let the cancer run its course.  The funeral is in about 3 hours from now . . . .  

Last night, I also caught up with a friend from Middle School whom I’ve stayed in touch with.  She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and 6 year old daughter.  It’s because of her that I became a Christian.  Twenty years ago, she got sick with mono and I found faith in Christ because she wasn’t around to distract me.

She and her husband have recently returned to the kingdom of God about 1 year ago thru the Alpha course at the Cincinnati vineyard, where they have joined and are actively involved in servant evangelism.  We had dinner together with her family and had a few moments to thank God for bringing each of us faith in his son Jesus.  My friend has a storied history of [only] God knows what else, but she has found healing in Christ.  She has been made whole, and new.  Has a loving husband and a miracle baby who died during delivery but was resuscitated after the emergency C-Section.

Moving Towards Redemption

God has woven these individual stories together (my middle school friend, my dead friend).  Our stories have intersected over the years, but have all been moving in the direction of redemption. 

My friend’s husband will grow in his “fatherness” for his 3 daughters under the age of 5.  He’ll have to rely on the Lord and will become a great reflection of the Father’s love.  The community that surrounds him will demonstrate the power of Christian community – the way it’s supposed to be. – loving one another as a demonstration of God’s love.

My middle school friend is continuing to find joy in serving the kingdom.  Her marriage was threatened last year, but now with a bedrock of faith, they came thru it.  She told me last night, that had it not been for God and the community of faith, she would have been divorced by now, likely drunk, and drugged, and unemployed.  They have come thru it – husband stuck by her side — and will become a source of faith for their 6 year old daughter.  Husband and wife come from broken households, yet they will not pass that along for their daughter.  God is redeeming them and breaking the cycle for a new generation.

“Life is pain, your highness.  Anyone who tells you differently is selling something” – Princess Bride.

Hope in Suffering

I’m more convinced than ever that life apart from faith in God’s grace would be an unbearable way to endure suffering. 

Yet I am also convinced that God is not a spiritual placebo.  He’s not the tooth fairy or Peter Pan, or just an imaginary friend we create to endure.  I am convinced of this because I can point to my relationship with Him.  It’s 20 years of mystery (march of ‘85), but rock solid certainty.  My experiences develop my trust so that in the midst of suffering, I can still trust him.

This mysterious trust is as strong as the covenant of my marriage. 

There is no doubt that I will cling to him, and He to me.  God is real – there is no doubt in my mind.  I can’t explain it.  I feel it.  I can’t defend God’s existence other than “I just know.”  There is a witness in me that declares “Abba Father.”  This is the mystery of Christianity – the security of knowing that I belong to Him, even in my struggles, and today, my grief. 

My dead friend, lying in the casket this day, knew Him, and is indeed rejoicing in the presence of angels.

God is relevant

Defending or explaining Christianity in this culture is not a matter of bullet point proposition. 

It’s a matter of mystery, relevance, and personal story. 

While it’s true that we need propositions to explain our belief, the propositions describe reality that we discover and find the bible describes reality. 

Witness is more than just proclaiming four points out of a tract.  Our storytelling has to demonstrate our own personal discovery.

Evangelism today has to tell the current story – what is God doing today that makes the gospel good news. 

What is God doing in my life right now that helps me through my friend’s death, my friends new life in Christ, and when I walk thru the weight loosing anxiety of a bad real estate decision?  These are current stories – new stories of God at work in my life.  This makes the gospel good news.

Current stories hit at the issue of relevant.  Is God relevant today?  A band called Live once sang “I heard about this man Jesus, but what a man who lived 2000 years ago means to me today, I don’t know”  Not an exact quote, but close enough.

Is God Relevant?

What I see as I engage people in spiritual conversation is the buried question – Is God relevant.  The church has been so marginalized by our culture, that we truly live with an unchurched generation. 

“The church is not relevant, so God must not be.” 

Yet, upon further examination, people play with crystals and stare at the stars and listen to rivers and read tea leaves because they are so alone – alone in the cosmic sense – a speck of microscopic dust in the universe, as insignificant as a water molecule rushing through the Grand Canyon. 

There is still a longing for God deep in the heart.  The heart knows that God is relevant, the heart yearns to be in touch with God, the heart knows there is a brokenness between itself and God that needs to be reconciled. 

Yet God doesn’t have call-in radio show nor is he Dr. Phil.  But the message from the church has not been clear.  

The proclaimers of the message that have made it cloudy with confusion, cliché driven trendy spirituality, and the absurdity of the prosperity gospel on TV – get rich with God.  Most recently, pronouncements by people like Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson about evangelical power and influence have only smothered people’s spiritual quest as a reaction to not be like them. 

They don’t want to be Republican, just be in touch with God, yet God’s messengers create frothy cloudiness.

Is a four point Gospel script enough?

I wonder if we need to wrestle with the question: “What is evangelism?” 

The “modern” way is to lay out four points – to make a logical bullet point presentation and ask for a rational decision. 

The “post modern way” is to help people along in the next step of their spiritual journey, recognizing that belief is discovered. 

There are other twists to the question, but I think it’s one that is worth asking. 

There are times for four points and a prayer.  There are many times when its not. 

Is the goal of evangelism

• conversion (a rational agreement to a set of statements), or
• discipleship (following the way of Jesus – whether beginning, discovering, or continuing).

I probably even make these contrasts too cut and dry. 

The Way of the Master

Evangelism as has been taught over the years has been four points and a decision. 

Yet Jesus never seemed to lay out four points.  He didn’t give four points to the fisherman and his partners – just a radical command to come and follow.

As I look in the gospels, I seem Jesus telling stories that leave people thinking.  “What happened to the older son who was jealous about the younger son’s return” (Luke 15)?  The story begs self-examination, leaves the hearer with a tension – “Who am I like?”  The self-examination leads a person to spiritual discovery.

I see him asking questions of the heart as in the story of the Good Samaritan, or talking with the woman at the well.

I see him forgiving people. 

A prostitute who hears “come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” finds forgiveness and anoints the feet of Jesus with perfume and her tears.  She was forgiven much, she loves much.  So much that she breaks all sorts of social protocol and wrecks someone’s dinner. 

To a woman caught in adultery – Who condemns you, neither do I.  To a teenager broken over sex outside of marriage – there is hope in that story that she can be restored to God.

I see him seeking after people, Zacchaeus in a tree.  With a little sanctified imagination, I can imagine that Matthew was at that dinner as well, a life transformed as a witness to Zacchaeus.

The four points we typically outline are not recorded in any whole outline in the teachings of Jesus.  He invites people to come and see, come and follow. 

Peter struggled with his faith all thru the gospel of Mark and didn’t seem to fully comprehend it till Paul rebuked him (Galatians).  In Acts, he comprehends some of it, but even with his visit to Cornelius, he still had discovered all the implications of following Jesus.  

This seems to me to be the language of storytelling, discovery, self-examination, and following without fully understanding. 

I wonder how we as Christians can recapture that sense of invitation: “come and see this man” (Samaritan), “Come and see” (Nathaniel), “Come unto Me” (Jesus).  How as a church can we create that place where people can investigate, explore, and discover?

What is evangelism?

I come back to the central question – do we need to wrestle with “what is evangelism?” 

Some methodologies try to convince someone they are a sinner, convince someone they need forgiveness, and convince them thru proof-texts that Jesus can forgive them if they pray to him.  Sometimes it seems like we are a talking infomercial for God.  “All this, not for 19.95, but for free, but wait, there’s more . .. “

Is evangelism conversations or conversion? 

Do we count conversions, or count conversations – for those who need to count something?

What is evangelism, more particularly, in the power of the Holy Spirit – to re-anchor the question. 

What form does listening evangelism take in my life, in yours, in the people we will have the privilege of being with next month?

For me, it is clearly listening to the Holy Spirit, for the right question or the right story that will lead to self-examination.  As you heard me say before, it’s the question that creates spiritual dry mouth – and a self-propelled quest to answer that thirst.  It’s engaging people in spiritual conversation and listening to the Holy Spirit for the right question.  Some may consider this similar to counseling – asking questions. 

One man told me that I was acting like a pastor to prodigals by doing evangelism this way.  Perhaps.

Maybe this is why God has enabled me to engage in the culture so much.  I see the eternal questions being asked in music, in film.  Using such visual parables enables me to ask questions of the heart. 

Two different stories

Just this week, the dental assistant told me that it feels good to help people.  I asked her “Why?”  No immediate answer, but enough to have her reflect.  She’s unchurched, and so unchurched, she didn’t know why people had black spots on their heads last Wednesday [for Ash Wednesday]. 

The woman who cut my hair yesterday told me that she follows a principle that she discovered in a book, a true-crime novel about a deranged preacher who murdered his family (or something like that).  She think that “something good always comes back to you from the bizarrest of circumstances.  You’ll find the right way if you are true.”  I asked here where she got that belief and she told me it came from such a book.  She’s looking for guidance in her life and she’s seeking after a true-crime novel for guidance.

Evangelism is . . .

I bet that if we had 100 people, we’d have one hundred definitions of evangelism.  I recently heard one say to me

“Evangelism is finding the Presbyterians in my neighborhood.” 

Well meaning perhaps, but that’s only an egg hunt for the right colored egg. 

Evangelism is more than telling your testimony of faith. 

It’s more than proclaiming a set of propositions. 

But how do we say it’s more than proclaiming and persuading?

End of story

Let me ask you this

How do you describe evangelism? 

Is it more than proposition, is it more than persuading and or proclaiming?

• 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.”

The evangelism definition here 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 JesusCreed 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.

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.

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

• 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:

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).
• Church 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.

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. Article: Avoid First Time Visitor Nightmares — a downloadable article printed in Net Results, with study questions.
2. *** 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.
3. *** NEW ***   Down Load Evangelism Coach Brochure.  You are free to print and distribute this 4 color brochure as you see fit.