Evangelism Coach

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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
  

In some of our weekend Evangelism Training Seminars, we often can build in a practical exercise in personal evangelism, a “lab time,” where people can leave the retreat setting and venture out to do evangelism in the style that we teach.  It is modeled after Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. 

The basic premise is that we ask God to show us in whom he is working to draw unto Himself and then ask God how to participate in that work.  Phillip was sensitive to the Lord’s leading to “Go stand next to that Chariot.”  Likewise, we listen for those promptings.

The conversation that follows develops out of the context and the direction that the Lord gives.

“On the way to Gaza”

So we spend time in prayer and then give about 5 hours for people to find their “desert road on the way to Gaza” to see who they will encounter.

“Go stand next to that chariot”

When the people go out with a simple task of asking God to point out where he is working, I’m always personally amazed at the ease of conversation.  Sometimes we plant, we water, or we harvest. 

We always find people who are easily talkative about spiritual things, about their life, and in some cases, have pretty open questions.  Conversations that follow are not forced, but natural.

Lab time

Its a great exercise and over the years, the stories that have come back have been encouraging to see God at work.

So how can one provide effective practice sessions in a local evangelism training session?

1. Provide time for practical evangelism experience.
2. Build in time for feedback after each evangelism activity.
3. Include positive and constructive feedback for each encounter.
4. Help groups monitor their time (some feedback discussions chase theological rabbit trails)
5. Do it again.

When the people return from their outing, we have a debriefing time.  We allow people to share their stories and we ask questions to help evaluate each encounter. 

Some questions I like to ask are:

1. “How did God point out that person to you?”
2. “Where did you notice God was already at work?”
3. “What was their spiritual thirst?”
4. “What would you do differently?”
5. “What did you share about Christ?”

Let me ask you this?

Think about your last encounter where you engaged a person in a spiritual conversation.  Answer the questions above.  If you would like help discussing your encounters, we provide 1-1Evangelism Coaching

If you’d like to have Evangelism Training workshops or seminars locally, see our various options at our Live Evangelism Training page.  

How can you pray for the work of evangelism?

Praying for yourself:

Jimmy Kinnaird has developed a useful prayer acrostic called “BOLDNESS” to help you prayerfully prepare yourself. This is an awesome acronym and a helpful structure.

Here are some things I pray for:

• To live a consistent and holy attractive life.
• To be authentic and honest as I go through life’s ups and downs
• To sharpen my skills as an evangelist
• To have appropriate boldness and courage
• To have the eyes to see the opportunities and open doors for conversation
• To have frequent conversations with people.
• To taste the "Father’s Heart" for people who don’t know Him.

Praying for others:

For starters, I have a list of names of people that I pray for regularly.  Using names brings to mind faces of people that I know and love and are apart from the outrageous love of Christ. It moves beyond a nebulous "them" to my friends — its personal.

Jimmy Kinnaird has shared another useful acrostic called "HEART" to help you pray for your friends.

Here is what I pray for:

• To reveal Himself and draw my friends unto Himself.
• To open their eyes to see the emptiness of life without Him
• To open their eyes to see their need for forgiveness, to remove the confusion in their mind, to grasp the meaning of the cross.
• To help me see what He is doing in their life.
• To hear from God about how to engage them in conversation — sometimes God shares some information.

Let me ask you this?

Take a moment, write down the names of people you love who do not know Christ.  Spend time every day this week praying for them.

I was cleaning out a file cabinet this morning (what a way to spend a day) and came across my notes from a talk by Bill Hybels of Willow Creek given to an evangelism conference. I share them here as a pointed reminder about considering our life and witness.

Three ways to repel:
1. “In your face Christianity” — the pushy Christian forcing spiritual conversations at the wrong time. The conversations tend to be one sided, with the Christian not even listening, but marching through an agenda.

2. “Holier than thou” — holding to “my life is better than yours” “you are a sinner and i can’t hang out with you” “I’m better because i’m not like you” etc. This may manifest itself in all sorts of other ways.

3. “Cosmetic Christians” — skip deep, hypocritical, and unchanged deep down. This is the salt that stings, or the light that glares.

Three ways to attract a seeker:
1. Costly Christianity — you live your faith even when it costs. People see how important your faith is.

2. Compassionate Christianity — love demonstrated. Christianity is not all about right doctrine, but demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ as well.

3. Consistent Christianity — being real, authentic and consistent.

Let me ask you this?
As you spend time with the Lord today, ask Him to show you how your life reflects the gospel. Does your life help or hinder the advancement of the gospel?

Sin must exist for grace to mean something. Eli Dorman at Invite One raises a question about sin and grace in our cultural context.

One atheist encourages Christians to listen at the eBay Atheist.

Preachers Magazine gives a sermon about Peter and Cornelius, looking at all the conversion that occurs.

Glenn Hager has a good discussion happening about the church, doing vs. being. In fact, he’s written a series of articles called “Be the church.” Follow the related posts links.

Otto Ekk, in his first post on his new blog raises a question about the transforming work of the gospel. It’s just the beginning of a conversation, but he raises some good questions nonetheless.

Over at The Word on the Streets, the author is writing a series about Sin, God’s Love and the Gospel. Check out this entry on God’s love.

Have a great weekend!

Paul visits Athens

A question that I’m asked often when teaching is “what is postmodernism?” It’s a term I throw around loosely, since that’s just part of my worldview. I’ve used it several times in this blog already and will continue to do so.

But often, my audience has only heard the word, not ever having thought about just what it is. I offer a few characteristics of it, such as relativity, spirituality and community, cafeteria style assembly of your personal worldview. I’ve not tried to define it, because its much easier to describe than define.

The web is full of much explanations, attempts at definitions, neither of which I will even attempt here. I came across a great article in the Presbyterian Outlook that does a pretty good job of describing postmodernism. If you can follow the link without registering, I hope you can read it.

Here is the description proposed there:

Postmodernity is a paradoxical worldview that flows from a modernist worldview
and is characterized by a shift in culture that moves from being scientific,
analytical, institutional, and mechanical to one driven by the mystical,
experiential, relational, and organic.

Presbymergent offers further comment on the article. To quote:

I found Bruce’s article in The Outlook incredibly helpful. For one, he has crystallized the “Postmodern” church—as much as something postmodern can be fixed—succinctly . . . . I believe Bruce summed it up with the simple phrase, “Jesus loves us.” This understanding, of course, transcends cultural shifts.

Jesus loves me!
Getting lost in the love of Jesus, experiencing it in its richeness, exploring its depths as we read the Word and meditate on it, gets us lost in the wonder of worship. We can describe it, we can experience it.

My favorite Spanish worship song by Jesus Adrian Romero contains the line “Si no fuera por tu gracia y por tu amor” which translates, “if it wasn’t for your grace and your love.” None of our pursuits for God, none of our worship, none of our evangelism and good works would matter to a hill of termites if it wasn’t for God’s grace — shown in His love for us.

I’m firmly convinced that experiencing God’s love propels us towards evangelism. Guilt compels, grace propels.

I can’t fully describe postmodernism. I can only disclose that I am a post modern. I don’t have all the right vocabulary, all the right connections, but this I do know — post modernism is here to stay . . . at least for a while.