Archive for the ‘personal evangelism’ Category
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Looking for practical evangelism tips? Here are a few. Links will take you to further explanations and articles on these items.
Evangelistic Prayer
1. Seek the Father’s Heart — (see Getting Emotionally Worked Up)
2. Offering yourself for God’s use in sharing your faith.
3. Regular Prayer for those who don’t know Christ.
See Also:
Position Yourself
4. Find a way to be a blessing to others
5. Live Authentically in public and in private.
6. Build genuine relationships
See:
Proclamation:
7. Choose a gospel script.
8. Practice the gospel script until you are comfortable with it.
9. Discover your story
10. Learn how to use questions in a conversation
See also:
For help with any of these through 1-1 coaching, see also Personal Evangelism Mentoring
Popularity: 4% [?]
Comments (1) Posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Personal Evangelism Book
Many of us know people who seem to have a simple time sharing their faith.
When we think of the successful evangelists we know, many seem like
- easy and out going extroverts,
- who have no problem talking to strangers,
- or causally talking about faith with everyone at the family reunion.
No fear in them at all.
However, many of us can be paralyzed by our Evangelism Fears. There are different Fears of Evangelism
Introvert Evangelism
But what about those who are more introverted? How do we share our faith?
This is the question that Evangelism for the Rest of Us: Sharing Christ within Your Personality Style, Mike Bechtle, seeks to address.
“God designed us with a specific purpose in mind.
The reason?
So we could do what He wants us to do, in the unique way that nobody else could do it.
Why should we try to do it differently? … When introverts spend time trying to function like extroverts, they’re doing more than just wasting time.
They’re actually robbing themselves of the very tools God gave them to do his work.”
However, most programs designed to teach evangelism assume that a person is outgoing and confident in situations like talking to complete strangers in a public setting.
“I’ve found that when I try to share my faith in unnatural ways, my fear gets larger and tends to stop me from sharing. That kind of fear almost always signals that I’m sharing out of guilt instead of compassion.
But when I share in ways that fit with God’s design for me, a creative tension compels me to look for new ways to move forward.
Compassion drives me to look for unique, appropriate ways to make a spiritual connection.”
Bechtle really seeks to develop a way that those of us are a little more on the introverted side can still feel pretty natural in sharing our faith.
The book doesn’t really go into the mechanics of sharing your faith (your Personal Testimony, God’s story, any gospel scripts illustrations).
Rather, he seeks to show introverts conversational settings where they can feel comfortable in talking about their faith.
He does seek to show biblical methods of evangelism, and conversational skills that are matched to your personality.
Over all a good read and one that is worthy of your dime.
Order your copy of Evangelism for the Rest of Us: Sharing Christ within Your Personality Style, Mike Bechtle from Amazon and EvangelismBookstore.com
Popularity: 5% [?]
Comments (0) Posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
A divine appointment is recognizing God’s prompting a moment that will impact someone’s life in their jourey to faith. These are kairos moments.
I want to give you examples of how this can play out in real life.
The point is to have developed an intimate relationship with the Lord so that you can be in the right place at the right time. Listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and see what happens.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Comments (1) Posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008
Update: Looking for Evangelism Training? Grab our Monthly Newsletter to stay informed of upcoming training events and webinars. Check out the other training we provide
Online Webinars
Distance Coaching
Church Consulting
Seminars / Workshops
Original Article Continues. . . .. .
During our summer road trip, we have been offered free use of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Richmond to provide a live version of our webinar on Fear Free Evangelism.
Details:
More details, registration information, and publicity helps are at the Live Evangelism Training Page.
You can Register online.
How can you help me get the word out?
Bookmark: Use the bookmarking features (SHARE THIS tab) below to post to myspace, facebook, etc. . . . I’d appreciate you sharing this page to your profile.
Email: Create an email to send to your friends that direct them to the following links.
Flyers, Bulletins: Post the flyer or print copies of the bulletin inserts (includes registration information)
Register online.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Comments (1) Posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Some time ago, I was asked in an email what I think are key training ideas in personal evangelism, or key steps to keeping the evangelistic temperature high in a congregation. These below focus on personal evangelism, not church growth.
Evangelism values for pastors:
- Share personal examples of conversations that you’ve had with non-church goers.
- Share personal examples of good conversations that help a person make another step towards Jesus.
- Share personal examples of conversations that failed and what you would have done differently.
- Of course, to give personal examples, you have to be ‘out there’ having conversations. Be intentional in getting out of the office.
- Model for people how to talk about your faith as a current experience, not ancient history.
- Find those who are passionate about evangelism and train them further.
Evangelism values for all:
- A deep and vibrant relationship with Christ.
- A deep prayer life .
- Out of the overflow of grace, there is a passion to share.
- Learn how to share recent stories of God’s activity in your life.
- Learn at least one script to explain the simple gospel when it’s time. See our Gospel Script Series
- Learn how to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to “Go stand next to that chariot” (from Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch)
- Launch an evangelism training group where you don’t study a book, but report your spiritual conversations.
See also:
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Comments (0) Posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Many churches (particularly in mainline contexts) ask me about evangelism training
- Are there good programs available?
- What program do you recommend?
- How do I as a pastor train my church to do evangelism?
- What resources are good for us?
The best form of personal evangelism training is simply to do it and have debriefing sessions afterwards to help one reflect on the spiritual conversations that have occurred.
It might feel clumsy at the beginning, and a little awkward, but with the progress of the training, conversations will get easier to have and become more comfortable.
One Example of Evangelism Training
One idea is to consider a small group that focuses on accountability to have a spiritual conversation each week. The conversation can be between friends, or with a stranger that God underlines for you.
The group could meet weekly with the sole purpose of
- Praying for each other to have the eyes to see whom God is underlining.
- Discuss your evangelistic conversations since the prior meeting.
- Debrief the conversations to discern what worked and what didn’t.
- Dismiss again till next time.
The group doesn’t study an evangelism book, think about welcoming visitors, or read academic treaties between incarnational evangelism vs. proclamational evangelism, missional vs. attractional church growth, or emergent postmodernism.
The group simply focuses on the spiritual practice of evangelism — having evangelistic conversations and holding each other accountable to it.
Debriefing the conversations
Some questions I like to ask are:
- “How did God point out that person to you?”
- “Where did you notice God was already at work?”
- “What was their spiritual thirst?”
- “What would you do differently?”
- “What did you share about Christ?”
Let me ask you this?
- Do you have a similar evangelism group?
- What does your church do for personal evangelism training?
Let me suggest:
Send me via email what your church does for evangelism training and I will send you a list of 99 questions to launch an evangeslistic conversation. Send email to
See also: Effective Evangelism Training Lab Time, Evangelism Training.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Comments (1) Posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008
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.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Comments (0) Posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008
