5 Ways to Bless Your Neighbor

Dave Ferguson shares five ways to bless your neighbors.

He says,

“From the very beginning, God’s way of reaching and restoring the world has always been through what I would call a blessing strategy…how do we in a very practical way that’s theologically grounded explain to people how they could bless people in places they are incarnating?

What is BLESS?

Check out how his group turned “Bless” into a acronym B.L.E.S.S. for the 5 Ways

• B- Begin with prayer. We want you to ask, ‘God how do you want me to bless the people in the places you’ve sent me to?’
• L- Listen. Don’t talk, but listen to people, their struggles, their pains, in the places God sent you.
• E- Eat. You can’t just check this off. It’s not quick. You have to have a meal with people or a cup of coffee. It builds relationships.
• S- Serve. If you listen with people and you eat with people they will tell you how to love them and you’ll know how to serve them.
• S- Story. When the time is right, now we talk and we share the story of how Jesus changed our life.

BLESS Creates Conversational Contexts

Personal evangelism happens through conversations.

Evangelism can happen in many other forms, but personal evangelism is sharing the good news in a conversation with one other person.

Read more: My definition of Personal Evangelism

Personal evangelism requires conversation.

Living out BLESS creates those conversational contexts.

Eating together, serving, listening, sharing stories – all create conversational contexts where you can hear spiritual thirst, a core habit in how I practice personal evangelism.

Conversation around spiritual thirst is natural and relaxed because walking out BLESS with neighbors creates that context for sharing.

You don’t have to manipulate or manufacture a conversation with a complete stranger about matters of faith.

How I live out BLESS

You could substitute E for Exercise, as I did.

For a few years before I moved to a new city, I had a friend that I walked with.

We would spend nearly 5 hours together each week, walking and talking.  Our conversations covered topics like personal dreams, goals for the future, family stories, weekend activities, and other small talk that covers the natural rhythms of life.  We’ve laughed, shared, and poked a little fun.

As we started walking together, I began to pray for normal opportunities to talk about my faith in Jesus.  By normal, I mean an unforced, un-manipulated opening in the conversation where I could talk about my spiritual life without the dynamics of pressure, fear, or awkwardness.

God has answered those prayers.

In the middle of conversations about work, life, hobbies and relationships, we’ve covered topics like

• What is the gospel message?
• What is the Church?
• How do I have a relationship with Jesus?
• What is our small group topic about?
• How do I disciple my children in the faith?
• Who is Jesus?

He’s now involved in a local church in his city, attending classes about the Christian faith.

Read more: How I live out evangelism in my daily life.

BLESS your Neighbors

I now live in a new neighborhood, 1700 miles away from where I last had a roof.

It’s time for me to start living this out again in my local community.

I want more faith sharing conversations, as I try to live out my teaching on personal evangelism in the ordinary course of my life.

I’ll BEGIN with prayer.

I’ll refreshed my prayer list of people I know personally who do not know the Lord.  In my current situation in life, I am bothered by the fact that my own sphere of influence with non-Christians is small.  I have to add new relationships.  I started asked the Lord to bring more people into my life that didn’t’ know the Lord.

I keep praying for more conversations, and now I pray for eyes to see the evidence of spiritual thirst.

Coaching Corner

Take a few moments and reflect

1. What stands in the way of you blessing your neighbors this week?
2. Which of these 7 personal evangelism habits do you want to develop this week?

Resource to help you

In this 70 minute MP3 AUDIO recording on personal evangelism you will learn:

• How church invitations are part of evangelism
• How to discover and share your own journey to faith
• What you can say about the gospel message.
• How to personally lead someone to faith in Christ.

Each of these four sections will be developed, with suggested take away growth step, “What can I do in the next 90 days to move to the next stage.”  Now in the store as a digital download.  You will need some kind of MP3 player on your computer to listen to this file.

Availability: Instantly after purchase.

Price: $10.00 USD for instant download.  You will have a 5 day window to download this recording in case you are unable to do so right away.

Order your copy here from the EvangelismCoach.org store.