Evangelism Coach

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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:

• Ten Prayer Points For your Friends
• Prayer and Evangelism
• Three Verses on Prayer (in a book review article)
• Take the Risk, Offer to Pray.
  
• Prayer and Evangelism (Acronym to lead your prayer)
• HEART.
• Evangelism PAINS

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:

• 10 Ideas To Reach Out To Your Neighborhood

Proclamation:

7.  Choose a gospel script.

• Gospel Scripts Series

8.  Practice the gospel script until you are comfortable with it.

• How To Practice A Gospel Presentation

9.  Discover your story

• Personal Testimony Questionnaire
• Evangelism As Storytelling
• The Power Of Testimony
• A 2 part Questionnaire

10.  Learn how to use questions in a conversation

• 20 Evangelism Questions To Start A Conversation
• Evangelistic Questions For Evangelism

See also:

• Keys For Evangelism Training
• Evangelism Training In The Local Church
• Effective Evangelism Training Lab Time,

For help with any of these through 1-1 coaching, see also Personal Evangelism Mentoring

I found this list of evangelism questions from Campus Crusade:

1. People invest time and energy into developing their career, their bodies and relationships, but often neglect the spiritual dimension of their lives. How do you actively pursue spiritual growth?

2. Do you think much about spiritual things? (This usually leads to conversation about what “spiritual” means–i.e. religion vs. relationship.)

3. How has this experience affected the way you look at God?

4. We’ve never had a chance to talk about your religious background. Where would you say you are in your spiritual pilgrimage?

5. I’d like to tell you how I established a personal relationship with God.

6. What is your concept of God? Do you view Him positively or negatively?

7. Have you ever come to a point in your life where you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, or do you think that is something you’re still moving toward? May I share with you how I came to that point?

8. Do you find that faith and spiritual values play a role in your (work) (day) (marriage) (perspective on life)?

9. If you could be sure there is a God, would you want to know Him? Or if you could know God personally, would you want to?

10. Bring a friend to your church or a Christian event, then ask:

• What did you think of it?
  
• Did it make sense to you?
  
• Have you made the wonderful discovery of knowing God personally?
  
• You’d like to, wouldn’t you?

11. Do you go to church? Why or why not?

12. I’d hate for you to come to my church and not understand what it’s all about. Would you want to get together and discuss our basic beliefs?

13. We’ve been friends for quite some time now, and I’ve never really talked to you about the most important thing in my life. May I take a few moments and do so?

14. Is church something that has had an influence in your life? Are you at a point now that you want church to be a bigger part of your life? What prompted this? Would you want to hear our basic beliefs so you’ll know if that fits in with what you’re looking for?

15. How do you think someone becomes a Christian?

16. Can I share the thing I’ve found most important to me as a (dad), (mom), (boss)?

17. What do you think about when you go to sleep at night?

18. Most people in America say they believe in God. What does believing in God mean to you?

19. Before I came to know Christ personally, God was a vague concept that I could not relate to or grasp. How would you describe your view of God? Jesus? Is He a reality to you or more of a vague concept?

20. If you were to die tonight are you sure you’d go to heaven? Has anyone ever explained how you can know for sure?

Source: 20 QUESTIONS

Download a PDF Version of 20 Evangelistic Questions.

I found that Intervarsity.org has a some good evangelistic questions during a reasonable conversation, broken out into groups.  Check these out:

Some sample questions. Here are some good questions that will help you move into a conversation about spiritual things. Be sure and listen carefully to their a

nswers. And be prepared to share your own answers to these same questions as well.

• Questions about CHRIST:
  • Who is/was Jesus Christ (i.e., his identity)? What do you think was significant about his life? What was he trying to accomplish (i.e., his purpose)?
  • What do you think was significant about his death?
  • A lot of people claim that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today. What do you think?
  • How do you see Christ fitting into Christianity? (Try to separate religion from relationship.)
  • Jesus said a lot of interesting things like, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but by me. What do you think he meant by these statements?
• Questions about HUMANKIND:
  • What is humankind’s reason for being? What is your purpose in life?
  • What do you think humankind’s basic problem is? Do you believe we are good or evil or both? What kind of solutions to this do you see?
  • What kind of needs do you see in the people around you? What is your deepest need?
• Questions about CHRISTIANITY:
  • How would you describe a real Christian? What exactly is it that makes one a Christian?
  • What’s been your experience with Christianity? What’s your church background?
  • What do you think it means to believe in Jesus?
• Questions about BELIEF IN GOD:
  • Why do you (or don’t you) believe in God?
  • When did God first become real to you?
  • How has your view of God changed since coming to college?
  • What do you think God is like and where are those ideas from? Is he concerned about us? What do you think God expects of us?
• Questions about their VIEW OF THE WORLD:
  • Many people say that if there is no afterlife, then life is meaningless. What do you think of life after death? How about the idea of heaven and hell? How would we get into heaven?
  • What is your basis for ethics? What absolute truths are there?
  • Why is there evil in the world?
  • What do you think sin is? (Or, how would you define sin?)
  • Would you be interested in getting together to discuss what the Bible says about the issues we’ve been talking about?

Source: Communication Skills for Evangelism - Evangelism - InterVarsity.org

The point of questions is not a have a litmus test, but to create and continue conversation.  These questions can help that process.  

Download Evangelistic Questions Conversation Starter

Print out this list of questions to use for your devotional time to reflect on your own faith.  Download your own version of “Evangelistic Conversation Starters.“  You are free to distribute or email this list as you see fit.

Many of us who do personal evangelism have found useful questions or statements to help continue or start a conversation that potentially leads to a conversation about the gospel.

For example, sometimes I have asked long distance truckers:

"What to you do to take care of your soul in all that travel?"

The quality and level of their response can encourage further conversation or quickly reveal that there is no interest in talking along those lines.

We all need to have a group of questions that we use to facilitate a discussion about faith.
 

Let me ask you this?

What conversation starters have you used to help gauge a person’s interest in further spiritual conversation?

Feel free to share.

1. When was the last time you had a conversation about faith with someone who wasn’t a Christian?
2. What was the last book on evangelism that you read?
3. When was the last time you preached (or heard) a series on evangelism?
4. When was the last time you took the initiative to greet a first time visitor, and took the time to converse with them, beyond the handshake?
5. How would you answer the question from a non-Christian: “Why do you believe in Jesus?”
6. When was the last time you prayed for your neighbor to know Christ like you know him?
7. How many friends do you “do life with” that do not know Jesus?
8. How many Bible studies or church events do you go to that keep you too busy to be with non-churched people?
9. What gospel scripts have you learned and are ready to use at a moment’s notice?
10. Who are the new believers in your church that you can help coach in evangelism?

Mark Driscoll on video explaining the various themes on the Emerging Church. I find this a helpful summary of the ongoing conversation and a fair critique of it.

The Jolly blogger asks: “Why are church plants the most successful at reaching people and does my established church stand any chance of being renewed?”

Five ways to sharpen you evangelistic skills.

A pastor’s conversational encounter in a cafe. Get out of the office my friend and see who you run into.

Take a risk and pray. From a slide show on evangelism full of quotes from books.

Check out this quote on authentic Evangelism at Pentecostal Post-it Notes:

Quote on Conversational Evangelism:

“Actual conversations with other human beings rarely follow a script. So resolve now to be OK with interruptions, awkward pauses, rabbit trails, and even bursts of anger. Keep your agenda to love, but drop your agenda for how the conversation has to play out.” – Walter Henegar Evangelism for Dummies: The surprising gift of stating the obvious.

 

 

Next week, I’ll be teaching on Evangelism in Panama at the Youth with a Mission Base.  Pray for the work there.

This weekend, I’ll be preaching 3 services at Centro Cristiano Betania in Panama City.  If you are not in church on Sunday, you can listen to the live stream at http://www.stereoferadio.com/ at 8.30CT or 11:00CT.

Have a great weekend.

 

 

I like to use questions in my conversations with people to help them think about matters of faith.

Questions help draw people into conversations, and likewise can help further a conversation along rather than me making declarations all the time.

I was looking at an article by Paul Hazelden about The Modified Engel Scale (Complete). The Engel Scale (use your favorite search engine to find more information) was developed several years ago to help map out evangelism as a process.

It presupposes that conversion is a linear event, that happens after a rational conclusion of examining the evidence that one needs a solution for sin and that Jesus is that solution.

We are a generation that often thinks with its feelings, so I no longer think that the scale is helpful. My own conversion was without any understanding of my sin — I just knew I needed to follow Jesus. I understood what that meant as I began reading the Bible later.

But, I digress. At the end of the article, there is a list of questions that can be helpful to the evangelist. I refer you to the article for the larger contex. The Modified Engel Scale (Complete).

These are some possible questions to help determine where a person is on the revised scale.

Is it possible there is a God?
Do you believe God may exist?
Are you certain there is no God?
Is there a purpose to the universe?
Does the human race have a destiny to fulfil?
Do you think you may be mistaken about whether God exists?
Is it possible you may be mistaken in your ideas about God?
Do you think there probably is a God?
Do you think God is a person?
Do you think God gets angry about some things?
Do you think God created the universe?
Do you think a person can know God?
Do you hope it may be possible to get to know God?
Do you believe anyone in the past has known God?

Let me ask you this?
What questions do you like to use in your conversations?