Evangelism Coach

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One of the questions that I have received frequently via “Ask Evangelism Coach” has been on the role of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism.

That as a topic is broad, so I’ll begin a series of posts on that topic.   Here is an older post I wrote: Role Of The Holy Spirit In Evangelism that speaks of the actual conversation moment.

Prepare the way

The focus of this post will be on the work of the Holy Spirit in your life before you came to faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus makes this claim: “No one comes unto me unless the Father draws him.” 

That drawing, that wooing is accomplished by the activity of the Holy Spirit.

To use the cultivation imagery as found the in the New Testament, one might say the Holy Spirit prepares the soil, waters the seed, and prepares the seed for harvest. 

Various tools

Think about your own conversion journey.  Or if you don’t have a season in time where you know you became a Christian, think about the early influences upon your life that shaped your faith.

• How many individual conversations about God did you have?
• How many different individuals helped you talk about your faith while exploring Christianity?
• How many different sermons did you hear?
• Where there songs, art, poetry, or music that moved you to explore Christianity more?
• Did you have some late nights pondering life issues such as is there life after death, how do you find meaning, how can you ?
• How many times did you look at the beauty of nature and wonder about the nature of God?

As I have coached people in developing their personal faith story or testimony, I have seen a few common tools that the Holy Spirit uses to draw people to Jesus.

1.  Conversations

These conversations between friends, and sometimes between strangers, add up over the course of time. 

Some people can point to specific conversations that set them on a journey to find the truth about Jesus, or presented plausible explanations for their questions.  

Some people can point to several conversations that had a cumulative effect of helping them deciding to follow Jesus.

Individually, these conversations may not cover all topics related to a faith journey, but over a period of time, they gather the collective weight to help one examine the Christian faith and make an intelligent and informed choice to follow Jesus.

I think of causal conversations over a bar-b-que at a picnic, friendly chatter at a stay at home dad’s group, or casual chit-chat while playing golf.  

In your life, you might be able to recall several individual conversations that eventually pointed you to faith in Christ.

2.  God’s self revelation

God sometimes will reveal Himself in some way to the person seeking to find Him. 

This might come in the form of an answered prayer, a clear act of guidance, or an encounter in worship.  This might come while reading the Bible for the first or second time, or while admiring the beauty of nature.  

In my journey to faith, there were two distinct moments where I was aware of God’s self-revelation.  One was an answered prayer, and the other was the night I decided to follow Jesus with my life.

I have coached people (see: Do you Need Evangelism coaching?) who have similar stories, where a self-revelation of God is part of their journey to faith, often helping the individual discover that God is not only real, but wants to be involved in their life.

3.  Contemplations or Reflections

I am convinced that many go through times in their life when their brain mulls over spiritual things. 

• What happens when I die? 
• How can I find peace in the face of death? 
• How can I know forgiveness? 
• How can I find purpose and direction in life? 
• Is life here on earth meaningful, or purposeless?

These life questions pop into our minds from time to time.  Sometimes during major life transitions, other times when things seem the be falling apart.   They come when one is backpacking up a mountain and takes in the vista from the peak.  They come when on a small boat, out in the middle of the Pacific ocean under the star light sky when the moon is not out.

These questions burden our soul and sometimes keep us awake at 2 in the morning.  Other times, they dance in our brain as when we feel the need to think about life at that level.

I am convinced that the Holy Spirit uses these contemplations to point out our spiritual yearnings, our desire to connect with God, and our desire to participate in God’s plan for our life.

4.  Sermons

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the proclamation of the Word of God. 

I have met many people that started going to church because of the first three tools here.  A small diet of excellent preaching is often used by the Holy Spirit to help people discover their faith.  The Holy Spirit empowers the preaching to communicate to the deep areas of the human heart.

Let me ask you this?

What would you add to this list?  What helped you come to faith in Christ? 

Share it with us in the comment section below.  I’d like to come up with a list of 10 and could use your help.

Bob Lotich, guest blogger for ChurchMarketingSucks.com gives a list of reasons to run from a church.  In it, he discusses visible clues that as a visiting guest he’s able to pick up on in a few repeat visits.

• Everything was Mediocre
• The Place was full of strife
• Unwillingness to Adapt
• Tickled the Ears
• Not Led with Passion.

From Chuck Lawless, Billy Graham School of Evangelism

· Evangelism in many churches is about believers responding to a guest who first visited the church rather than their proactively sharing Christ.  If the non-believer (whom we may not know personally) makes the first move, we are then ready to respond with the gospel. 

· Evangelism is sometimes reduced to “invite others to church, where someone else (the preacher) will tell them about Jesus” — and even then more corporately than individually.  In that case, nobody does personal evangelism.   

· In some congregations, evangelizing takes place more on the international mission field — as essential as that task is — than in a church member’s neighborhood.  The same believer who travels overseas to speak of Christ through a translator often leapfrogs his own unbelieving neighbors who speak the same language.   

· Despite the New Testament emphasis on laity, many churches still relegate evangelism to hired clergy.  As one church member told me, “We pay them to do that because they’re the ones trained for it.”  Personal involvement in evangelism is thus equated with putting a check in the offering plate on Sunday.

If you are one who likes to talk to strangers and you want some conversational items for travel rest stops, check out this list of evangelistic conversation bridges.

Ajith Fernando reminds us to get back to the priority of evangelism.

Leadership Magazine on Five Kinds of Christians.

Michael Spencer, in a post from May, writes:

“Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and sin no more.”

When the quality of God’s mercy in the Gospel no longer amazes you, you will begin to justify the dilution of amazing grace into religious grace, or moral grace, or grace in response to something.

Real grace is simply inexplicable, inappropriate, out of the box, out of bounds, offensive, excessive, too much, given to the wrong people and all those things.

I believe that it is both.

Evangelism is a series of kairos moments in a person’s life that have a cumulative effect of bringing a person to faith in Jesus Christ.  That can be a series of conversations, deep thoughts while walking the beach, a series of events, a confluence of circumstances and conversations that ultimately bring a person to a full awareness of the need for Christ.

Yet Evangelism is also an event:  A moment in time where the evangelist can sow a seed — one conversation.  Or a moment in time where a seed can be harvested — one conversion.  A kairos moment.

It’s not an either/or proposition.

Here is a reminder from Mark McCloskey, Tell It Often-Tell It Well: Making the Most of Witnessing Opportunities.  (I’m guessing this book is out of print, though older copies are available still at Amazon).

Evangelism as a Process

     In Acts 18:4, Paul gives us an example of the process of evangelism. In Corinth Paul reasoned with the Jews in the synagogue every Sabbath, with mixed results. The leader of the synagogue, Crispus, believed, but many of the Jews “resisted and blasphemed,” until Paul felt it necessary to leave and set up shop in a personal home next door. The point is that Paul kept coming back to explain, clarify and reason with these people. Paul followed much the same pattern in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9). Over a period of three Saturdays he reasoned with them, explained and gave evidence that Christ was the Messiah. Luke says that Paul did this “from the Scriptures.” The idea seems to be that Paul progressively built a case for Jesus as the Messiah. Thus, his evangelism in Thessalonica could be described as a process.

     I have had many experiences like this. One young man in particular, John, would invite me to sit down with him almost weekly to explain more about Christ. He asked me many times to repeat things so that they would sink in. He asked me more than once to tell him how crucial this issue was and how he really needed to trust Christ as soon as he felt he could make a sincere decision. He was always eager to hear more, but for some reason the gospel never “clicked.” He later moved away, and I did not hear from him for a year. Then by divine providence, I’m sure, I ran into him. The first thing he told me was that he had finally put together all the pieces and that he had trusted Christ through the help of a friend in his new church. He thanked me for hanging in there with him. My evangelism with John was definitely a process of sowing, so that another could have the joy of harvesting.

     I would have been greatly amiss had I told John that since he was not ready to decide for Christ I did not have time to talk with him. The fact that a person is not ready to make a decision to trust Christ now does not mean that he is not serious about pursuing the matter. I need to meet him where he is and be a patient ’sower’ in his life. I need to answer his questions, listen to him carefully, explain and clarify so that the issue of “Christ and Him crucified” is the only stumbling block to his receiving Christ. Misconceptions need to be cleared away so that the real matter at hand – “What will you do with Christ?” – can take center stage. Understanding evangelism as a process gives me the freedom to do this.

Yet in the same chapter, McCloskey gives us this reminder:

Whether evangelism is a ’sowing’ process or a reaping event is not so much to be determined by the intention of the evangelist, but by the response of the listeners. For some in Thessalonica, Paul’s first Saturday synagogue message was an evangelistic event; an experience of reaping the fruit born by God’s Spirit. They believed the first time they heard the gospel. For others it was the first step in a process that took weeks or even months and years. Paul assumed the role of sower in their lives and it would be up to others to reap where he had sown. He appreciated the truth that, at any moment, as he sowed the seeds of the gospel, someone could have his last question answered, his last issue resolved, and he would then be ready to be harvested. The persuasive nature of the gospel demands that it be shared with a sense of urgency grounded in an awareness of this truth. The time for decision is always now.

The danger is that the process can degenerate into a nonpersuasive dialogue that sacrifices the cruciality and urgency of the gospel for the sake of an expanded time frame. In such a context, it might be easy for both the evangelist and, consequently, the hearer to lose sight of the direction of their interaction. This is unfair to both the listener and the persuasive nature of the gospel.

Evangelism Training Podcast:

Overflow Podcast Show
A 5 minute podcast on how you can overflow into your non-Christian friends lives. Overflow is the best ideas from the best books on evangelism.  Subscribe through iTunes.  From  Godsquad.com

Improve Search Ranking for your Church’s Website

I was introduced to a company that helps churches optimize their website and helps them place higher in search engines.  As a result of better search rankings (and a newly redesigned website last fall) some churches report seeing more new visitors to our church than ever before.  See Optimize Your Church’s Search Rankings Case Study page at Church Marketing Online.

In American culture, many would look online for information before they’d pick up a phone book, before they’d drive to the church on the corner.  If somebody was looking for a Presbyterian Church in Richmond — would your church’s website appear in the search Engine?  What might a visitor think of your church’s website?

Ministry Marketing Coach series

Chris Forbes of MinistryMarketingCoach.com (who has contributed a guest article here on ministry followup) wrote a great post about the our cooperative role in Evangelism.  We participate in the work the God is doing. 

Some have made evangelism such a passive sport, thinking it will happen all its own.  Chris’ contention is that there is a role that the evangelist plays, like a farmer who has to nurture the soil, SO THAT the plant can grow.  Check out: We need people to witness

Baptists fret over Calvinism’s impact on missions and evangelism

Interesting Statistics about Reformed theology causing a problem in Baptist life.  Check out Tiptoe thru the TULIP. 

Can Calvinist and non-Calvinist Baptists work and worship together?

It depends, some advocates of Reformed theology say, on whether Christians on both sides are willing to tiptoe through the TULIP — the acronym for five doctrinal specifics that mark Calvinism — without stomping on anyone’s flower bed.

PC USA Poised to Grow World Missions

I’m glad to see this article about PC USA Missions.

A proposed 2009-2010 General Assembly Mission Budget – which would increase the number of full-time, financially supported mission workers from the current 196 to 215 in 2009 and 220 in 2010 – was recently approved by the General Assembly Council (GAC).

Here are some links that I have found while doing some research on the Missional Church:

• The Missional Church: becoming a Missional Community
• Planting Missional Churches –The Biblical Basis Of Church Planting
• Planting Missional Churches - The Basics Of Church Planting
• Planting Missional Churches - Re-Developing A Missional Mindset For North America
• Free Resources for Planting Missional Churches  (There are so many cool resources here).
• Planting Missional Churches: Planting a Church that’s Biblically Sound & Reaching People in Culture

Authors writing on the subject:

• Alan Hirsch
• Reggie Neal
• Ed Stetzer
• Scott McKnight
• Dan Kimball

References: (Thanks to David Allis for this list).

http://www.friendofmissional.org/

I’ve not yet had the time to link these to amazon book, but you can order these by title from www.evangelismbookstore.com

Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. (July 2006)
Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church. (November 2003)
Darrell Guder (Editor), Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. (1998)
Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches. (2006)
Ed Stetzer and David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code. (2006) **
Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church. (2003)
Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit. (2000)
Milfred Minatrea, Shaped By God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches. (2004)
Lois Barrett (Editor), Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness. (2004)
George R. Hunsberger (Editor), Craig Van Gelder (Editor), The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America. (1996)
Alan Roxburgh, Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. (2006)

Michael Green reminds us about the either/or nature of the gospel, using biblical descriptions that paint a contrast

We are either

• members of the kingdom, or outside its gates.
• reconciled to God, or rebels
• Lost or Found
• Invited to the wedding feast or left in outer darkness
• Building lives upon the rock or shifting sand.
• For Him or Against Him
• Sheep or Goats
• In the barn, or on the bonfire.
• on the Narrow way, or on the broad way.

That list of images shows that there is little middle ground, if any.  In considering our relationship to the Kingdom of God, we are either in it, or out of it.  As Christians, we can’t be both.  People who are not yet Christ followers are not both.

The list of metaphors is clear.  Perhaps we need to be reminded of people’s need for Christ to transfer them, as Paul writes in Colossians, from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of the beloved son.  Perhaps we need to remember what we Christians have been saved from.

People without Christ are

• Without hope in the world (Ephesians 2.12)
• Without God.
• Ignorant of God’s righteousness (Romans 10.3)
• Blinded to truth.

Let me ask you this?

When was the last time you thanked God for your salvation?  When was the last time you pondered what you once were or could have been if it wasn’t for God’s grace that saves you?

The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism issued a report from their 2004 gathering on the work of prayer and evangelism.  It is a 52 page downloadable PDF direct from the Lausanne website.

Here is the table of contents:

Introduction
1. Theology and motivation of prayer in evangelism
2. Principles and guidelines of prayer in evangelism
3. Spiritual warfare prayer in evangelism
4. Healing and prayer in evangelism
5. The role of prayer and fasting in world evangelism
6. Children and prayer in evangelism
7. Strategies for prayer in evangelism
8. Life prayer plan for world evangelism
9. Supplementary material
    A. Strategic definitions and applications of warfare prayer
    B. Experiencing Jesus: inner healing prayer as a tool for evangelism
10. Conclusion
11. Bibliography
    A. Children
    B. Toward motivating, mobilizing and monitoring
    C. Toward designing, deploying and developing a prayer strategy 
    D. Toward understanding and undertaking spiritual mapping
    E. Other
12. Participants

I recommend that you download and read the report on Prayer and Evangelism.