From the back cover:

“a book about breaking free from a spiritually weak life to achieve the consistently powerful one that is available to every believer.

It’s a Bible Study 101 that guides reader to a greater revelation of God.”

Summary of Beyond Belief

The 66-page book is a simple explanation of basic Christian belief and it’s relevance to life today.  The chapters are short, with related Scriptures listed at the end of each.

It uses the basic gospel script of the sharing the Law and then the Gospel.

It covers other basic points such as the authority of Scripture, sovereignty of God, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, prayer, and so forth.

His goal within each chapter seems to want to build a case that the best spiritual life is one centered in a relationship with Christ.

In Chapter 9, he offers a roadmap on how to begin your spiritual life by inviting Christ into your heart.

Yielding to the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, available only to those who have received Christ as Savior and Lord, will change your life today, not just for eternity.

Chapter 1 is available for free online at Beyond Belief Book.

My take on Beyond Belief

Worldview Assumptions in Beyond Belief

The book can be used as a primer or a review in your basic discipleship work.    It assumes the reader has a biblical worldview and agrees with the authoritativeness of Scripture.

As a tool to use in evangelism, the biggest challenge will be the book’s generous use of Scripture.  The assumption of biblical authority runs through the text.

If the seeker reading the book doesn’t yet share that foundation of biblical authority, the proofs offered in the book may seem circular or insufficient.

They might say –- “the bible says it, ok.  So what?”

(Read about handing biblical illiteracy here under the header Seeds already planted)

To use Beyond Belief as a pre-Christian evangelism tool in small groups, the small group leader should be aware of how to handle alternative worldviews and help the seekers discover biblical authority.

Exclusivity of the Gospel in Beyond Belief

I appreciated the simplicity of how he treats the exclusivity of the gospel, and how he affirms that Jesus is the only way to salvation.   I share that belief so I had no problem with it’s presentation.

For my readers who don’t share that viewpoint, this book may seem too fundamentalist to your liking.

Overall reaction to McElroy’s Beyond Belief

The book is simple, short, and can likely be read in one sitting.

As a small group resource, I can see where it can be useful for those who grew up in a church and left and are reaching a season in their life where they are returning to their Christian roots, where there are still seeds of respect for Biblical authority.

Order your copy of Beyond Belief direct from Amazon.

Buy through the link and we’ll receive a few pennies commission to support our work.

I propose one accountability group as an Evangelism Training Small Group.

Here is a sample 6 week group.

Week One

• Read together Mt. 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8. Use a flip chart or poster paper to list as many observations as you can from these verses.
• How you would define your “Jerusalem?”  Is it a neighborhood, workplace, your circle of acquaintances, or something else?
• Do the same with “Judea” “Samaria” and “ends of the earth.”
• Brainstorm how your small-group members can reach their Jerusalems. Write your ideas on a flip chart or poster paper.
• Commit to pray daily for one another to become more evangelistic.
• Ask group members to spend the next week asking the Lord for the names of three people they can reach out to.  See Evangelism Prayer List
• Close in prayer.  Read How to Lead an Evangelistic Prayer meeting.

Week Two

• Tell each other about the three people you want to share Christ with.
• Divide into prayer partners, and pray for each other and the people on your lists.
• As a group, brainstorm ways you can reach out in kindness to your three people. Refer to the ideas you came up with last week.
• Look at gospel scripts and work at getting to know just one.  See How to Use a Gospel script
• Role-play sharing the gospel with each other using these presentations.

Week Three through Six

• Discuss your evangelistic conversations since the prior meeting.
• Debrief the conversations (see below) to discern what worked and what didn’t.
• Plan an outreach event–a picnic, hike, potluck dinner, etc. Invite the three people on your outreach list, plus others who come to mind.
• Continue role-playing your gospel presentations. Discuss together how to answer difficult questions that arise in your conversations with nonChristians.
• Dismiss again till next time.

Debriefing the conversations

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?”

See Part I of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part I

See Part II of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part II

This final section of Chapters 5 – 8 gets into the nuts and bolts of what this might look like in the local church.

CBSE involves a Christ follower who serves others out of his or her passion, using one’s spiritual gifts at connection points of need in the community to demonstrate the love of Jesus to others as a salt and light servant.  . . . .

Administratively, CBSE reduces the church’s events and ongoing programs to allow people to be deployed into their daily lives to exercise their passions and gifts. (73)

Chapter 5: Salt and Light Servants

The majority of current discipleship material seems to be focused on information, not so much on experiential transformation.  The idea was that better information and accumulated information would lead to spiritual transformation.

The authors have seen this descend into matters of personal preference, rallies around the latest Christian bestseller, and rabbit trails into the most effectively marketed latest trend .

However, they see a shift from information to experience.

A method that fosters experience to help shape a person’s spiritual formation.

Educational materials are connected with service in the community “as the context to live out the expression of a life in relationship to Christ.”

I have often noted and taught that I learn by doing.

In other businesses, I could study, study, study, but until I was actually doing, the study didn’t make sense.  Study lead to hypothesizing, thinking about 1000 what ifs.

But not until I got into people’s lives and talking with them 1-1 about their spiritual journey did any of the studies seems to start finding a purpose.

Perhaps a quote from Randy Pope captures this better in this illustration:

Much in the way that eating creates no appetite for exercise, so too, I have found that Bible study and prayer alone do not create mission oriented Christians.  But, just as exercise creates a desire for food and drink, mission related activities create an insatiable thirst and hunger to feed on God’s word (89).

The idea is deploy your church members to serve their community and that kind of relational context will spur personal growth.

Eating has never created in us a desire to exercise, but preparing to run 26.2 miles in about 4 hours definitely creates not only a desire, but a need to eat (89).

In the same way, service may very well be the missing factor in developing fully devoted followers of Christ.  Transformation happens in combination with information and experience.

Chapter 6: Connection Points

The subtitle focuses the chapter on Evangelism Training.  The authors have given lots of evangelism training over the years, from memorizing gospel scripts, to relational evangelism seminars, yet not seeing any statistical evidence of new believers.  The rare church had more than 5 new believers in a year after the seminar.

Church’s are beginning to ask “Why is training people on how to share their faith not resulting in new Christ followers?”

The authors claim that intentional community service is the missing ingredient.  The chief issue is that our church members have lost touch with genuine relationships with people far from God.

To fulfill the front half of the Great Commission the process will always begin with a Christ-follower connecting with someone far from God.  To lead someone into a personal relationship with Christ has little to do with whether someone has attended training and learned a model presentation to the Gospel (95).

Connecting Points

The chapter lays out how to find connection points with the local community, beginning with an inventory from Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels and Mittleberg:

• People we know
• People we used to know
• People we would like to know.

I use a similar idea with Spheres of Influence.

The key for churches is to assist members in creating a context for connection, but it remains up to the individual member to connect.

The third group, people we would like to know, is where the role of community service comes into play.  Relationships develop best around a need the mutual relationship can meet.

Where is your church member passionate?  Where is their burden? Examples:

• Single Moms?
• Fatherless kids?
• Teachers?
• Firefighters?
• Undercover FBI agents?
• Little League?

Where are their gifts?  Administratively gifted folks can organize events or run leagues.  Mercy gifted folks can visit people.

We have come to realize that not assisting our church members to develop a connection point into an authentic relationship is simply not providing good leadership.

Chapter 7 and 8: Implementing CBSE

Chapter 7 and 8 map out how to make such philosophical changes in implementing Community Based servant evangelism.  The authors note that there are several books about systemically changing a congregation, and they note that their system works when followed.

The process is organic and leadership driven.

First four steps are for the pastor, the next two are are for the leadership, and the last 5 are how to make it public.

• Pray and read the Bible
• Church leadership must own the mission of “Love God and Love Others”
• Must be totally supported by the Senior Pastor and or Lead Pastor
• Enlist top / key church influencers
• Enlist a CBSE champion
• Enlist a CBSE leadership team
• Design a plan
• Provide training
• Cast the vision to your church
• Implement the plan
• Evaluate all aspects and correct

This list may seem generic in terms of changing systems, but the chapters tease them out more fully.

A Pastor’s Personal Prayer life

It strikes me how a pastor’s personal relationship with God is the root of this change, not only the pastors, but so also the rest of the leadership.

In a 2007 review of surveys of pastors,

two hundred seventy (270 or 26%) of pastors said they regularly had personal devotions and felt they were adequately fed spirituality.

Seven hundred fifty-six (756 or 72%) of the pastors we surveyed stated that they only studied the Bible when they were preparing for sermons or lessons.

If the root of systemic change in a church is found in a pastor’s personal relationship with God, then how can churches give their pastors time to nurture that relationship?    From another study in the same report:

We found that 90% of pastors work more than 50 hours a week. One out of three pastors state that being in the ministry is clearly hazardous for their families. One out of three pastors felt totally burned out within the first five years of ministry.

Research from Crandall (see 5 phases of renewal from Turnaround and Beyond: A Hopeful Future for the Small Membership Church) indicates that personal renewal is the number one factor in successful turnaround in churches.

Research from Martha Gay Reese (Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism (Real Life Evangelism Series) elevates the importance of prayer for a congregation to pick up and maintain an evangelistic passion.

Order your copy

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community from Amazon

I’ve been reading Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community and I think it is a must read book for pastors of churches seeking to engage its community.

Over the next few days leading up to the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar, I’ll be pulling out a few themes.

A philosophy of Ministry

The foundational drive of this book is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work it’s way into the DNA of a congregation.

A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . . living out the great commandment and the great commission in our network of relationships in the marketplace and neighborhoods.

Chapter 1: Foundations

Pate looks at ineffective methods of church based evangelism and the relationship between personal evangelism and the local church.  The end results he points out is a lot of effort, but little results.

Programmatic changes have not led to church growth, so perhaps a systemic change needs to be made.

Ever after a lot of evangelism training, people can’t give a scripted gospel presentation, but they can answer the question: “What is God up to in your life?”

But all the emphasis on programming in the past few decades has created several barriers to this kind of relational evangelism on a church level.  Friendship evangelism models have been around for some time, but how do you mobilize the church to engage the mission field where it is planted?

Based on his own experience as a consultant and a practitioner, Pate and Wilkes put forth a philosophy of ministry that makes sense and develops this idea throughout the book:

The key argument is:

The premise of this book is simple: the key for a local church is to create natural connection points for Christ-follower to intersect the lives of people far from God through service in the community as salt and light servants. (8)

The church must purposefully deploy people into the community, become friends of sinners, if Christ-followers are to live out the Great Commission.  (15)

Their answer, using the “salt and light” images of the NT:

Churches can deploy their members according to their passions and gifts to be an irresistible influence among the people of their community. (10).

We do not offer a presentation to be memorized but a lifestyle of service that engages tangible needs wherever they occur and seizes every opportunity in that interaction to introduce the person/people served to our Rescuer and Leader, Jesus. (18)

Chapter 2: Barriers that keep us out

Pate and Wilkes give a summary of barriers that keep church individuals from connecting with the neighborhood.

Time (or perceived lack of time), program maintenance, church structures, and unawareness of passion and spiritual gifts among members of your church are primary barriers that keep your people out of the community and within the walls of your church.

The chapter unfolds this list with great detail and I think accurately reflects what I see in churches that I consult with.

Time

Many churches have far too many time consuming programs, events, and meetings each week that do not enable their church to moves even one step forward in accomplishing either the Great Commission or the Great commandment (24)

To the pastor, they provide a simple way to calculate the total number of volunteer hours it takes to sustain the current programming of the the church.  The simple question is that with all the man hours church’s ask their people to give, is there any time left over for building relationships?

Church Programs

Programs are not bad, the authors are clear to say.  But are they the tail that wags the dog?  Do your programs assist the church in fulfilling its mission, or are they stale and lifeless relics of a past era?

People far from God are not looking for more things to do.  Are we a bit off center because of the countless hours we devote to the programs at our church? (27)

The authors encourage pastors to examine their church programming to see what is hindering the mission of intentionally deploying people in the community.

Church structure and control

Essentially, how does leadership respond to new ideas and new directions.  Are policies prohibiting new directions?  Does leadership trust new ways the Holy Spirit is leading?  Are new initiatives squashed or are people given freedom to pursue them?

Unawareness of Gifts and Passions

Passion determine where a person serves best, and gifts determine how.  Passion is God-given and answers the “where” of ministry.  Gifts are God-given and answers the “how” of ministry.  The authors maintain, rightfully so,

churches cannot reach their potential when those joined to the mission and vision of the church either (1) do not know their God-given passion and spiritual gift(s) or (2) if those aspects of who they are in Christ are underdeveloped.

Their main point in all of this is to explore how can the church get outside it’s walls?  How can the local church get out of the building and into the neighborhood when these barriers are in the way?

Learn more

Part II comes tomorrow — Grab my feed to have it delivered to you automatically

Learn more about this philosophy of ministry direct from the author, Stephen Pate.  Register for the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar this coming Thursday.

Over the next few days leading up to the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar, I’ll be pulling out a few themes.

What’s not working?

The authors ask:

Why Aren’t Our Efforts Producing Anything Other than More Work?

Think about all the evangelism training, all the conferences, new ideas, new books, new resources that have been offered in the last few years.

Pate looks at the statistics from his own denomination and notices no noticeable change in baptism statistics (which is a marker of growth in their Baptist tradition).

Of their 2100 Baptisms in 2003

• 12% were Christ-followers not previously immersed.
• 54% were children or grandchildren of members
• 34% were individuals with no prior church connection.

Numerical statistics from their association note that their membership in relationship to their county decreased in its percentage from 4.3% to 1.9%

The church was not reaching people for Christ, in spite of all their efforts in evangelism training, programming, and lots of resources.

Church outreach programs, age-grouped bible studies, church-wide evangelism emphases and events have produced current results.

As a consultant earning a living from evangelism training, this bothered him.  Why is there no noticeable change even after all time and effort to do training and provide resources?

A philosophy of Ministry

The foundational drive of this book is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work it’s way into the DNA of a congregation.

A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . . living out the great commandment and the great commission in our network of relationships in the marketplace and neighborhoods.

The key argument is:

The church must purposefully deploy people into the community, become friends of sinners, if Christ-followers are to live out the Great Commission.

It is relational evangelism to the core.

How is this different from other relational evangelism material?

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is different in that it seeks to figure out how relational evangelism can work in context a local congregation.  It’s not a curriculum, but a philosophy that can shape the culture of your church.

A lot of relational evangelism training curriculum is focused on individual — helping you develop relationship and then skills in sharing the gospel.  The authors refer to several, such as Just Walk Across the Room (or Just Walk Across the Room Video Curriculum)

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community focuses on the implication of relational evangelism in the church DNA.

What happens to your programming?  What happens when your calendar is too full to spend time with unchurched people?

Example:

Let me share an example from my own life.

I’ve been asked via email to conduct an evangelism training program for a local church.

The coordinator has asked to meet with me, so

FOR 5 MONTHS

we have been trying to arrange an in-person meeting time.

We have had at least 10 appointments set, and every time, this coordinator has canceled on me.

Every time — “something came up at the church”  “I have to be at the church” and so on.

He’s left me hanging.

No-shows, and canceled appointments.

I’m frayed.

I am unable to meet him at his church because of distance.

We keep trying common meeting points, half-way, but each one keeps being canceled.

The point is — the church calendar is so full with surprise meetings or other meetings, that even the evangelism coordinator doesn’t have time to meet with me unless I make it to the church to catch him between meetings.

His church calendar is so busy — can he spend time with unchurched people building relationships?

Pastors and Leadership

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is aimed at church leadership to help think through these hard questions.

Time (or perceived lack of time), program maintenance, church structures, and unawareness of passion and spiritual gifts among members of your church are primary barriers that keep your people out of the community and within the walls of your church.

They present a relational evangelism philosophy that will seriously impact your church’s DNA.

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community isn’t really aimed at individuals, but pastors and leaders seeking to answer the question: How can our church connect with the community?

This goes beyond servant evangelism (doing random acts of kindness in Jesus name) and beyond scripts, to deploying members to meeting community needs.

Greeting church visitors is every one’s responsibility.

However, you know this doesn’t always get done.

Thus, many churches  have organized greeting teams to serve a few weeks in a row.

In my experience, some times people who are recruited as church greeters may not be sure exactly what to say or how to give a greeting.

It can be a little embarrassing to say “I don’t know how to do this” so in the privacy of their own home, they search the Internet for

• “How to say a welcome to a church visitor”
• “Welcome Scripts for Church Guests”
• “Greetings to 1st time visitors at church”
• “A word of welcome for church visitors“
• “How to Say the Welcome Greeting at a church“
• “Words of welcome to/for church visitors”
• “What to say to welcome visitors in a church”
• “How to say a welcome to visitors at church“
• “Tips on welcoming First timers in Church”
• “Welcome address to visitors in Church.”
• “Church Welcome Address to Visitors.“

This list above comes from my search logs just in the past 3 days.

In one month of traffic, over 700 people visited my website (www.WelcomeChurchVisitors.com) looking for what to say to church visitors.

So let me share some possible starting scripts that you can use yourself, or develop more fully into a resource you can use at your church.

If you are a church greeting coordinator, perhaps you might want to consider giving a script to your new greeters.  Once people say something a few times, they might feel the liberty to relax and put their own flavor to it.

You can give your new greeter permission to mess up.  Consider these as guidance to offer them.

Greeting Church Visitors at Entrances:

Sample one line greetings for parking lot or entry greeters or for your members to say in a hallway:

Welcome to [church name] this morning!

God bless you.

We’re glad you are here this morning.

I’ve not met you yet!  Welcome.

Greeting Church Visitors from the Front.

During the worship service, the leader can say something like the following to welcome visitors.

We are glad that you are here with us this morning.

If this is your first or second Sunday with us, we are grateful that you have come to be with us this morning.  It is our hope that you experience the love of Christ this morning and His presence during our worship.

If your church does the passing of the peace handshake ritual, the worship leader can go on to say this to help the church greet visitors (See #5 in this list of 10 practices to welcome church visitors).

Get up, turn and greet someone that you’ve not met yet. Shake their hand, introduce yourself, and take a few moments to welcome them to God’s house.

See more tips at How to Say the Welcome Greeting at a church.

Greeting Church Visitors After the Worship Service

During the fellowship reception time after the service, church members can be encouraged to look out for and intentionally greet people they haven’t met.

I have find it helpful to break the ice and initiate the conversation by saying:

“I’ve not met you yet.  I’m Chris.”

With that, I offer my hand to shake and I continue with a conversation.

Follow up: 20 Blunders in Welcoming Church Visitors.

Let me ask you this?

What do you say to greet visitors to your church?  Add your thoughts below.

One of the joys I get in my travels as an evangelism trainer is meeting new people all over the country. 

Pastors from various denominations and gifted lay ministers. 

At this conference, new initial groundwork was laid to start a new track of the Dunamis project sometime next year in multiple places in Washington state as well as perhaps just over the border from southern Western Canada.

Tierra Nueva Ministries

Prior to The Evangelism Dunamis, I had an extra day, and spent the morning with Mike Neelley (left) and Bob Ekblad of Tierra Nueva Ministries. 

Bob (right)  had returned from the southern tip of Argentina the night before, as he is an international speaker and trainer. 

Tierra Nueva (New Earth) is an ecumenical ministry located in Burlington, Washington, that seeks to share the Good News of God’s liberation in Jesus Christ with migrant farm workers, new immigrants, and permanent Hispanic residents in Western Washington.

Tierra Nueva is caught up in a vision of a shepherding ministry that seeks after lost sheep until they are found (Luke 15:4).  They have consciously structured our ministries to:

  •  seek after lost sheep until they are found–through Skagit County Jail Ministry, migrant chaplaincy, and Tierra Nueva Honduras.

  •  care for, defend, and protect–through the Family Support Center.

  •  gather, feed and heal–through our English and Spanish faith communities, bilingual jail services and healing services.

  •  equip and send out–through the People’s Seminary events and courses.

Mike told me of one gang member he disciples who is smoking a joint while studying the Bible.  He told me of a sex offender he meets with.  He told me of former meth addicts who are now working for the ministry trying to get their life reoriented around following Christ.

This kind of Christianity on the edges is messy as God works transformation in real life.  People on the margins.  This takes a special calling and is the prime opportunity for evangelism as broken people seek to find their purpose in life.

Bob has written two books that are now on my reading list of books to get

• Reading the Bible with the Damned
• A New Christian Manifesto: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom of God

Presbytery of North Puget Sound

The executive of the Presbytery of North Puget Sound, Corey Schlosser Hall (right), organized a lunch for us. 

Some Cambodian church planters (left) joined us at lunch.  It seemed to be a divine appointment for Bob Ekblad (tallest one in the back)  to meet these church planters at lunch.  I had time to visit and talk with these men about their work among Cambodian immigrants they work with.

Leadership Coaching visit with a small rural church

That evening, I had the joy of visiting with Pastor Tom Ross of Deming Presbyterian Church and Mount Baker Presbyterian Church.  He and 3 elders for some evangelism coaching — talking about the burning questions on their mind. 

These were small rural churches in the hills of Northwest Washington, with about 15-25 in worship.   A 3rd elder was from a church of about 600, tucked in the back of a subdivision, away from the main traffic flow.

Two questions were on the minds of those gathered:

• How can we increase awareness in the neighborhood.
• How can we talk with individuals who are comfortable with their non-Christian spirituality.

We spent about 90 minutes brainstorming.  They reported to me what a blessing it was to have me lead that session and they felt energized with a new list of ideas (see Church Leadership Coaching Session).

One elder wrote (edited for spelling and clairty):

 Thank you for the wonderful evening when Chris
Walker visited.  I found his style very natural
for our little church.  We needed his calmness and
small town way about him.  I know that what he does is
truly from the heart.  He allowed us to express
ourselves and our needs.
He responded to our questions and gave us his
undivided attention.  I
believe we found in his answers some answers that were
right in front of us. 

Evangelism Training 101

The Evangelism Dunamis is focused on personal evangelism training.  (See related article: 10 Practical Ways Of Sharing Your Faith)

It began on Thursday morning and ended in celebration on Saturday afternoon where people offer their stories of what God was doing in their life during the event.  Several people from lots of different Christian traditions attended.

Much of the content for The Evangelism Dunamis is found in various pieces here on Evangelism Coach, and it is always fun to present the material live. 

This time, my co-presenter was Susan Finck Lockhart (See Guest Article: Sharing your faith in the ordinary course of life), who is part time pastor of El Calvario Presbyterian Church in Waco Texas.

We focused on some theology, including the wonder of grace, but much of the teaching time was also given over to lots of practical work, praying and sharing in small groups:

• Sharpening the focus of your testimony
• Using a Gospel Scripts.
• How To Practice A Gospel Presentation 
• Praying for those who don’t know Christ.
• Listening for God’s call to a particular region or people group.
• Sharing in small groups about your faith journey.
• Learning how to recognize Kairos moments.

Conference Follow up.

For my newest subscribers through the EvangelismCoach feed and Monthly Evangelism Tips Newsletter, here are some important links that I highlighted at the Evangelism Dunamis.

• Using a Gospel Scripts.
• Personal Testimony Questionnaire

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

I will also post over the next few days, the actual slides that we used for the event since I wasn’t able to get them printed as handouts.

Feedback?

Did you attend the conference?  I’d love for you to put your words of encouragement in the comment form, or email me privately if you wish.

One of the joys I get in my travels as an evangelism trainer is meeting new people all over the country. 

Pastors from various denominations and gifted lay ministers. 

At this conference, new mission outreaches were launched as well as the initial groundwork to start a new tract of the Dunamis project sometime next year.

Breathtaking Alaska Scenery

It’s hard to talk about Alaska without speaking of the jagged mountain peaks, glaciers, and an all around cross cultural food experience:

Moose tacos and reindeer sausage. 

I also enjoyed the first sight of snow for me this season. 

It was also new to me to try an get a grasp of the size of Alaska.

The state is bigger than Texas, and I’m told that two Texas sized states would still fit in Alaska.  The Aluetian island chain actually crosses the International Date Line and as such, is the only US state to experience two days at one time, and the first state to experience the brand new day.

I invite you to see the full photo album mountains at my Facebook photo Album.

Evangelism Training 101

The Evangelism Dunamis is focused on personal evangelism training.  (See related article: 10 Practical Ways Of Sharing Your Faith)

People arrived on Wednesday and the conference continued through the celebration on Sunday morning, finishing with a communion service where people offer their stories of what God was doing in their life during the event.

Much of the content for The Evangelism Dunamis is found in various pieces here on Evangelism Coach, and it is always fun to present the material live. 

We focused on some theology, including the kingdom of God, but much of the teaching time was also given over to lots of practical work, praying and sharing in small groups:

• Sharpening the focus of your testimony
• Using a Gospel Scripts.
• How To Practice A Gospel Presentation 
• Praying for those who don’t know Christ.
• Listening for God’s call to a particular region or people group.
• Sharing in small groups about your faith journey.
• Learning how to recognize Kairos moments.

Given the remoteness of the location at Victory Bible Camp in the rugged Alaska mountains, we didn’t really have an “on the street” opportunity.  We usually like to include a live practicum, based on the Phillip and Ethiopian Eunuch.story.

Conference Follow up.

For my newest subscribers through the EvangelismCoach feed and Monthly EvangelismCoach Newsletter, here are some important links that I highlighted at the Evangelism Dunamis.

• Using a Gospel Scripts.
  • Personal Testimony Questionnaire
  • Evangelism As Storytelling
  • The Power Of Testimony
  • A 2 part Questionnaire

Upcoming Evangelism Dunamis

The Next Evangelism Dunamis will be in Mount Vernon Washington (Oct 23-25), just outside of Seattle. 

If you are in the Pacific Northwest, or even want to come down from Alaska, see Seattle WA Personal Evangelism Training Conference for registration. 

Registration covers only catered meals.  A love offering for advancing the vision will be received nightly.

Here are a 10.  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 would attend a seminar and learn the newest script for evangelism.  The idea is that I would learn a series of conversational steps that would help people

• See their need for Jesus
• Make a decision to follow Christ
• Repeat a prayer after me.
• Sign here for follow up.
• All in less than 30 minutes.

The script was “the powerful new tool,” and it was meant to help you “share your faith” and confidently prepare you to “lead people to Christ.”

If we were truly honest with ourselves, in the practice of your life did it ever work?

Not in my life.

I never really latched onto that sales pitch.  Most of the readers of this blog never latched on to that model as it felt forced, maybe dishonest and turned Jesus in a product marketing.

Life doesn’t fit the script.

In the last few days I’ve had to deal with customer service people in various businesses.

In each case, my need was not “in their script.”

• Company A sent me to at least 4 departments today on the telephone, because no one could answer my question.  That was after going to 3 different departments yesterday.  I wasn’t permitted to speak to a supervisor because they didn’t have the  power to get out of their script.
• Company B simply said “I don’t cover that situation — you can’t be our customer anymore.”  I’ve been their customer for 11 years and now they don’t want me anymore.

I did not fit their script.  They didn’t have an answer for my questions.  They didn’t have a solution for my need.  Their scripts didn’t have a place for me.

This is the problem with scripts when they are positioned as the “one true way” of doing evangelism.

Human beings and life conversations can’t all fit into a one size fits all  scripted evangelism presentation.  Humans have so many different needs, so many different starting points, so many different questions.

I don’t teach complicated scripts in any of my evangelism seminars.

Rather, I help people learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit for the right place, right time, right words.   I don’t have a script I follow because each person and each conversation is unique.

What then are the role of Gospel Scripts?

I’ve written on gospel scripts before and will do so in the future (grab my feed to get these future posts).   They are handy little tools and I’m not throwing them out.

The gospel scripts that I like are all simple presentations of the gospel that are useful at an appropriate point in a relationship.  They address different needs but ultimately get at the Need to Follow Jesus.

In my life, I haven’t found that any of my conversation partners are at the same starting point the gospel script is at.

The scripts assume

• that a person recognizes the consequences of sin.
• that the person is ready to deal with a spiritual need.
• that a person is seeking for a relationship with God.

Phillip and the Eunuch

Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch had a ‘chance’ conversational encounter.  Yet in that encounter, the text says that

“Beginning from that point [where the Eunuch was reading],
Phillip went on to explain the good news about Jesus.”

Notice that Phillip began where the eunuch was.

The eunuch was dealing with

• grammar issues with pronouns,
• frustrations with reading a foreign language, and
• perhaps his own disappointment in not finding what he was searching for in Jerusalem.

Phillip spent time talking with the eunuch at that point.  A point unique to the eunuch’s spiritual journey.

So many scripts want to “begin from their own point.”

Yet not every conversation is at that starting point.

• It often takes a series of conversations to get there.
• It takes listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit
• It takes good questions that open new conversational lines.
• It takes some skill in noticing life themes and linking them to spiritual needs.

Evangelism Scripts such as the Four Spiritual Laws, Bridge, or others are handy once a person has gotten to the starting point of the scripts.

Being familiar with an evangelism script can help you comfortably explain the gospel when the moment presents itself in a natural manner.

Getting to that point?  There is no script for that.

From Golf to God

This week, I was listening to the late Michael Spencer’s Coffee Cup Apologetics at Podcast 46.  In these 15 minutes (listen on line at Podcast 46) Spencer discusses issues with scripted evangelism.

He refers to a great article called Gospel Connections in Suburbia.

It deals with how to bridge a conversation from the subject at hand to the subject of the gospel.

Can  you go from golf to God?

There is a list of 8 topics that are great conversational topics and an example of a conversational bridge is given for each (I encourage you to read the whole entry).

1. Corruption, evil and sin.
2. Community.
3. Politics.
4. Environment.
5. War.
6. Family.
7. Church.
8. Art/pop-culture

Spencer’s podcast picks this up and points out that to make such transitions, one requires three skills

1. Relational Conversations — Casual life conversations with friends
2. Ability to see connections between the mundane and the spiritual
3. Make the transition from the mundane to spiritual in a natural way.

Part of doing this is developing the skills of

1. Making use of good questions
2. Making use of good observations.

Start to Notice

In your own conversations, start to ponder how the mundane can be bridged towards the spiritual.  I’m not talking about ketchup on fries representing the blood of Jesus.  Rather, listen to the heart cry in the culture.

• What is being looked for?
• Why are people passionate about politics and what does that say about order in the world?
• Why are people willing to sacrifice their marriage for a moment of personal pleasure?
• Can you hear the spiritual need behind the conversation?
• What is the question behind the question?

Let me ask you this?

Taking a cue from the original blog post:

Do you have some useful conversational bridges? 

I invite you to elaborate in the comments.