Evangelism Coach

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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).

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.  

I attended a conference nearly 10 years ago by Mark Miller that gave away these secrets to Evangelism Training.

1. Challenge the conventional wisdom — Evangelism is a process not an event (see: Evangelism: Process or Event?), so one size doesn’t fit every context.
2. Make Evangelism Personal — Who do you know that does not know Jesus Christ?  They are people with names, stories, and hopes, and fears.  Pray, Engage.
3. Focus on Fundamentals — How to Build Relationships, How to Present the Gospel, and How to Invite People to Faith.
4. Practice, Practice, and Practice — To build both skills and confidence. (How to Practice a Gospel Presentation)
5. Create Multiple Training Opportunities — People will never learn from training they do not attend.  A church could offer day long workshops, 4-6 week courses, self study, weekend retreats.  One time is not sufficient.  Offer multiple training events during the year.
6. Pray — Don’t Forget that any evangelism work is preceded by prayer.  Encourage workshop participants to pray for people they know.  take the time to do it.
7. Model it — Make evangelism your own priority and follow your own steps.

I found in my own story that all of these are vitally important.  Seeing evangelism as a process rather than an event shifted my thinking towards seeing the sovereignty of God in bringing people to faith. 

Practice, Practice, and Practice — After every encounter, I examine the conversation to see what I can learn from, what would I do differently, and how can I pray for that person.  Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does increase confidence in sharing my faith.

Modeling — I found that when I was preaching weekly, nearly every week I would have a fresh encounter story to share with the congregation about a conversation that I had with a person.  I modeled evangelism conversations in my sermons, and one could tell it was such a part of my life.  The congregation grew in its own confidence and ability to do personal evangelism.

Tomorrows post will be on prayer and evangelism.

Do you want a facilitator to conduct your evangelism training?  See our Seminars / Workshops or sign up to receive notification of our next Online Webinar.  If you need someone to coach you through your conversations, we also provide 1-1 Evangelism Coaching.

In a post over at Jesus Creed » Letters to Emerging Christians, Scott McKnight does a good analysis of the “Romans Road” as a script for evangelism.

He says two things that are worthy of pondering:

The third thing now: the Romans Road works for some. It is just as important to say it doesn’t work for others. We have a big “golf bag full of metaphors” and there is no reason to use the same club every day for every shot on every hole. And this leads me to another point.

Fourth: I’m not sure the entry door into a kingdom relationship with God through Jesus has to begin with sin. Not all agree with me, but I want to ask you this: How often does Jesus begin with sin? How many times does he “evangelize” (which he did often) by getting people to realize their sin and then asking them to accept him and then tell them they are forgiven? Now, if you are a good Bible reader — and I know you are — you will know that Jesus did emphasize “repentance.” In fact, Mark summarizes the message of Jesus with three words: kingdom, repent and believe. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the best entry today is the word kingdom — a visionary word of what God is doing in this world through Jesus and in the power of the Spirit. Kingdom vision seemed to evoke response to Jesus.

He goes on to say:

Jesus called people to enter the kingdom. That’s his style of evangelizing. He wanted recruits, kingdom workers, ministers for God’s redemptive work in this world, and he was out and about summoning folks into that kingdom. When folks encountered him, they became aware of sin and Israel’s problem — how little they cared about God, about themselves, about others, and about the world. And they also saw their need to turn around and their need to turn to Jesus and their need to follow him and their need to get united with themselves and the other followers of Jesus. They also would have perceived their need to embrace in grace all humans and look after this world as God made Eikons to do. That’s how Jesus did it. Lots today get the needs and problems up front and they never get to the kingdom part. I suggest we learn more about evangelism from his summoning folks into the kingdom.

This last point is something very similar to what is presented in Logic of Evangelism by William J. Abraham.

Let me ask you this?
Is McKnight correct? Feel free to read the entire post at JesusCreed