I like to use questions in my evangelism conversations with people. Questions help them think about matters of faith. Questions help draw people into conversations. Questions can help further a conversation along rather than me making declarations all the time.
Today I read a post at 9 Marks about the corporate role of the church and its support of personal evangelism. The writer asks: What is the role of the local church (i.e., corporate witness) in our personal evangelism (i.e., individual, personal witness)? Consider the ethos of your church. Are you proud to invite a …
I was cleaning out a file cabinet this morning (what a way to spend a day) and came across my notes from a talk by Bill Hybels of Willow Creek given to an evangelism conference. I share them here as a pointed reminder about considering our life and witness. Three ways to repel: 1. “In …
Bill Easum writes a great article entitled How to Grow a Small Church. It’s geared towards pastors looking for the formula. It’s no formula, but their research shows “It’s a pastor who has one-on-one conversations withnon-Christians that leads to their conversion to Christ.” List for the small church pastor He also gives a good list …
I’ve been accosted by “drive by” evangelism. Situations where an evangelist interrupts my day, shoves something into my hand, and tries to convert me to their God.
Question: Why Do Atheists Object to Evangelism & Proselytization? This is an interesting article on an atheist oriented site that expresses how some evangelistic “sharing” comes across to the person we are talking to. The basic contention is that we Christians treat the other person as a “project” or “object.” We form “strategic relationships” with …
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 …
Over the weekend, we held a yard sale — selling off some our posessions (which is why it was a quiet posting week for me). We even let people know our house is for sale, though not at a yard sale price. We had a lot of people coming to our house, looking over stuff …
What is your motivation for Personal Evangelism? What motivates you to share your faith? Check out some of the motives I've encountered
I came across a great article today at The Resurgence [link broken]. It looks at ways to steer an evangelism conversation towards Jesus. Here is what I really like: In Acts 17, Paul started with the people’s religious views and philosophies. In Acts 13 he started with Jewish history, and In Acts 14 he started …
We go to a little Spanish community church. We are the only North American family in the place (by American — they mean me, the English speaker). God has used this little church in ways to allow me to experience some healing and growth in my life, even though Spanish is not in my native …
A young man described for us his journey from empty brokenness to faith in Christ. His spiritual thirst prompted him to take a key step.
Cornelius was a centurion (soldier) for Rome. Luke tells us the story of Cornelius and how the gospel was shared with him. The town was Caesarea. “He and his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.” He was a religious man, doing spiritual practices, and …
It’s much easier to cooperate with God’s activity, rather than wasting hours of argument prying open a locked heart.
Sometimes conversions are just unbelievable.
They “fall from heaven” so to speak.
There is no evangelist, no gospel presentation, no explanation of the law, it just happens – God does all the work.
Easter provides evangelism conversation opportunities in the course of normal everyday life.
You might find yourself at any given moment in a potential divine appointment, or prompted to start a conversation with someone whom God underlines for you.
I've learned to take the risk and offer to pray with people when they make small talk about some crisis the story of the life.
That crisis often brings out the spiritual thirst a person has.
As evangelists, we need a “Default setting.” A default setting is a gospel script that we have mastered so well that it is second nature to use it. A default setting enables us to explain a few points of the gospel clearly when its appropriate.
I felt like I was witnessing, but feeling awful that I had no purpose for the evangelism survey other than to force open a conversational door.
I’ve been thinking recently about “the testimony” — your story of conversion. Most of us have one and most of us have done exercises where we write it the testimony of our conversion, revise our testimony for clarity, and shorten our testimony to share it in 5 minutes or less.
The basic premise of Reimagining Evangelism: Inviting Friends on a Spiritual Journey is that God is at work already in the lives of pre-Christians, and our job in evangelism is to participate in that work. The author uses the metaphor of being part of a “detective agency” to explain personal evangelism.
All of us have unique stories that God has given to us. Some of us have conversion experience stories. Some of us have had gradual awareness stories of owning why and how we believe. But our testimony is more than just coming to a place of faith.
