How to Practice a Gospel Presentation

In our personal evangelism seminars, I have found that most participants have heard of a particular gospel script and think they know how to use it.

In fact, if you are an evangelism trainer, you can use this exercise to help the audience discover that they need to work on knowing a gospel presentation.

I want to give you a practice exercise I use in my evangelism training workshops.  I help people realize they might night be prepared when given an opportunity at a random moment in life.

The practice I use

Since I use the Bridge Illustration as my default setting for personal evangelism, I use it in training others with a little practice exercise.

You can do the same.

First, use a whiteboard.

Draw the pictures and go through the script as if you are with a live person.

Second, get them to do it in groups.

ask participants to break up into groups of two, and share the gospel via a Bridge Illustration (or their own favorite) with their partner.

You’ll hear a collective gasp in the room as the audience suddenly panics.

I’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years and it happens every time.

People will feel awkward and a little disoriented, but they will try it.

Third, debrief the experience

After a while, coach through the process and debrief the exercise together and they will have seen that they may not be prepared for those random evangelism conversations that happen during the ordinary course of life.

“I thought I knew how”

This hands on experience reveals to most participants that they don’t really know how to present the Bridge Illustration, nor are they initially comfortable with the script.

This practical group exercise

• Helps you practice your presentation
• Reveals gaps in your own understanding
• Increases comfort when the kairos moment comes.
• Reveals your use of Christianeese (words that only make sense to Christians).

Consider this

• Have you picked a gospel script to use as your default setting?
• Are you so familiar with it that you can go through it with ease and flexibility?

Find a good friend and ask permission to practice going through your default setting.

• Where do you need to improve your presentation?
• What Christianeese do you need to remove?
• What was clear as mud?
• What was clear as crystal?
• What part do you need to remember more clearly?

If you speak with a non-Christian, let them know you are practicing — that helps alleviate some of the inherent tension in a religious conversation.

God can still use it however in bringing a person to faith, but you’ve shared your motive ahead of time with some integrity.

Do you need help in Personal Evangelism?

Start here with this MP3 Download on Evangelism Training from the store to help you see where you need to grow.

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.

It’s a 70 minute audio file that takes just a few minutes to download, but it may help you answer the question:

What can you do in the next 90 days to grow in your evangelism skills?