Have you seen an evangelistic moment (a potential divine appointment) develop suddenly in a conversation and found yourself not yet ready to share the gospel? You may have felt a little clumsy in trying to bridge that gap. Perhaps you even wished your pastor was around to take over. Maybe you chose to let the …
In the previous article in the series of giving more invitations to church, I focused on prayer. As I continue to look at various ways to increase the number of personal invitations to church that your church members give, today’s article is focused on the number of personal friends who are unchurched. Again, the statistics show …
I’ve been in the Church for so long that deep friendships with people apart from Christ have been neglected. I’ve filled my day with work, managing the lives of my children, administrative and planning for the local church, and running an international ministry. Recently, I’ve been having a season of reading and re-reading a bunch …
No matter how much I share my faith, there are people in my life who remain apart from Christ. As an evangelist, that’s hard. Here is how I keep going.
“How do you find forgiveness?” This was a question my neighbor asks while we visit at the poolside on a spring day. While our kids are splashing, shouting, screaming, laughing and diving into the water, my friend talks with me about deep issues of the heart. How did we get to this point? How did …
You’ve probably seen it: An opening in a conversation when a non Christian expresses their spiritual insight, or opens up about some restlessness in their heart. Then well-meaning Christians become a one-way torrent of gospel information about what a person needs to believe and why other religions are wrong. Or maybe you’ve seen this: Your …
Without a doubt personal relationships are the most effective way to share the gospel in a meaningful way. I’ve had deeply personal conversations with strangers, and have led strangers to Christ. But those conversations were the results of months of spiritual preparation by their friends who were already speaking into their life – I just …
Moving a conversation around to spiritual things can be the most difficult part of witnessing. We can talk freely with our friends about many subjects, but are at a loss when we want to bridge the gap between everyday life and the Lord. What does driving to work every morning or playing golf or washing …
Darrell Davis points out how many conversations that Jesus had. Out of 132 contacts that Jesus had with people recorded in the New Testament, 6 were in the temple, 4 were in the synagogue, and 122 were out in the mainstream of life. (Adapted from Why Christians Sin, by J.K Johnson, Discovery House, 1992) As …
Beyond Belief by Patrick McElroy is subtitled Live a Consistent, Spiritually Powerful life. 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.”
As the author, I get to hear various reasons why people buy my book on church hospitality, How to Welcome Church Visitors. Why are church hospitality committees (Read: What do Church Hospitality Committees do?) looking to improve their hospitality ministry in their church by buying my book? Fear that a visitor to their church will come …
Several years ago, I was challenged as a youth pastor to give my leadership away — delegate, delegate, and delegate. The challenger warned me that I could only reach so many people, but if I delegated and empowered, I could lead larger ministries with longer reaches and greater sustainability. The challenger mentioned that my personal …
Leading your church to pray for their personal evangelism efforts may not be as easy as you think. I have found that people bring their own agendas to the prayer meeting and it becomes easy for the prayer meeting to be hi-jacked. Here, I want to offer to you a simple guideline for an evangelistic …
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. 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 …
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. See Part I of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part I The authors do make progress in developing their thesis in the remainder part of …
The foundational focus of Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work its way into the DNA of a church congregation. A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . …
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. What’s not working? The authors ask: …
The short answer: Personal Invitation from a Trusted friend. Charles Arn has surveyed thousands of people: (Source: 3 Questions for Charles Arn) In your research, have you found that there’s one specific reason that visitors come to church? The friendship factor. We’ve asked more than 50,000 people over the last 10 years why they came …
In They like Jesus, but not the Church, even Dan Kimball confesses that he made the same discovery at one point– no non-Christian relationships. As I have given relational evangelism training seminars around the US and Latin America, the most common confession I hear from those who have walked with Christ for many years I …
(HT: Image pslim) “I have no non-Christian relationships” confessed one of my evangelism coaching clients (shared with permission). “I was taking an inventory of my personal relationships and discovered that I had surrounded myself entirely with Christians.” In the Christian Cocoon This is a common description of many Christians who have been walking with the …
I found that Intervarsity.org has a some good evangelistic questions during a reasonable conversation, broken out into groups. Check these out: Some sample questions.Here are some good questions that will help you move into a conversation about spiritual things. Be sure and listen carefully to their answers. And be prepared to share your own answers …
One church, Solana Beach Presbyterian in Solana Beach California, has an effective small group ministry. One thing they are doing a little different this year (2008) is using their small groups to help people grow comfortable in doing evangelism — a place to practice telling their stories — “stories that testify to why they have …
