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servant evangelism

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Six Evangelism Styles – A Video Summary

Lee Strobel shares a quick video synopsis of the 6 styles of personal evangelism.

The material came from Becoming a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels and Mark Mittleberg.

In the book, Becoming a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg point out that there are a variety of different evangelism styles.

  • Confrontational: Peter, Acts 2.
  • Intellectual / Philosophical: Paul, Acts 17.
  • Testimonial: Blind Man, John 9
  • Invitational: Woman at the Well, John 4
  • Serving: Dorcas (Tabitha), Acts 9: 36ff
  • Signs and Wonders: First Corinthians 2:1-5.

To this list, I would add “Chance Conversations,” based on Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

The greatest contribution this book makes is the recognition of various evangelism styles.

This list has become a fountainhead for a lot of other teaching.

For example, it is the foundation for Jeffrey Johnson’s work, “Got Style?”, which helps your church decide the best evangelism course based on it’s personality.

My own Evangelism Teaching on DVD

DVD from Evangelism Coach on How to have more effective Evangelism Conversations

I have a DVD set (or digital download) that focuses on a conversational style evangelism that would be effective in:

  • casual conversation between friends
  • causal conversation between strangers
  • a relational style evangelism
  • a friendship style evangelism

Read more about the Effective Evangelism Conversations in the store

It will show you how to have good faith sharing conversations no matter what your style.

Lee Strobel shares on Different Evangelism Styles

 

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7 Servant Evangelism Ideas for Black Friday Shopping Crowds

Black Friday Shopping Evangelism

In the United States, the Friday after Thanksgiving is a major shopping day.

The media will show reports of Black Friday shopping crowds outside of major department stores and malls.

People who are waiting to be nearly the first in line to get the savings on Christmas presents for family and friends.

When the doors open, mayhem erupts and people get injured as crowds stampede through the open doors.

Corporations are now beginning to open on Thanksgiving Day to allow people to shop after the big meal.

I’m not a big fan of that scene, but the waiting lines that happen in your city or town can give your church an opportunity for a servant evangelism project.

Servant Evangelism Ideas on Black Friday

Servant evangelism is a simple way to market your church’s Christmas outreaches after Thanksgiving has passed.

On the simplest level, servant evangelism is marketing your church.  It involves some form of giveaway that meets a need, with an attached card that gives information about your church.

These servant evangelism ideas are useful any time of year, but post Thanksgiving and Black Friday crowds at malls present a natural crowd that you can bless.

Your act of kindness can build the bridge for the person to receive a touch of love from God.  You are showing the community that your church cares and does not exist only for itself.

Add a invitation to church—even a simple card  with your church’s name, phone number and times of services.   They might come and hear more about Jesus during the Christmas season.  You can add a comment that your church wants to bless the community, showing God’s love, with no strings attached.

Be Prepared before Black Friday for Evangelism moments.

ShareTheGospelYour act of kindness is not sufficient for people to hear the gospel.

They might not even know that you are serving “in His Name” unless you somehow share that.

The gospel does need words to accompany the good deeds.

But attentive volunteers will recognize the nudge of the Holy Spirit in some interactions.

Those conversation can turn evangelistic with a gospel sharing moment, or maybe even a prayer moment.

Remind your volunteers to watch for those moments and be equipped with conversation skills.

A Side Note:

Always obey the rules of your locality, and know that you may need to secure permission of owners if you are on private property.   For example, your local mall may be considered private property and security may not allow you to bless the people who have gathered.  You’ll have to learn ahead of time what boundaries are in place and make sure you obey them.

7 simple Black Friday Evangelism Ideas.

These 7 servant evangelism ideas for Black Friday can be used at other times of the year, but this would make a natural gathering for your volunteers to participate in these ideas

  1. Coffee with sugar and cream available.  Be careful with the hot coffee.
  2. Water Bottles
  3. Prepackaged snack like raisins, trail mix, granola bars (go peanut free).
  4. Hot Chocolate
  5. Donut Giveaway
  6. Candies
  7. Popcorn

Prepare some kind of connection card that gives information about your church, the church website, and service times.

For more servant evangelism ideas, consider the book Outflow, Steve Sjogren and David Ping.

Is your church doing any Thanksgiving Outreach?

If so, please share in the comments.  Give a brief overview and if you have a page on your church website that explains it, feel free to link to it.

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10 Roles an Evangelism Committee Can Have in The Church

Why does your evangelism committee exist at your church?

Is it just another meeting?

Does it really fulfill the role of helping the church do the work of evangelism?

Recently I’ve been asked to comment on the role of an evangelism committee or evangelism ministry in the local church.  What are the functions of a church evangelism committee?

I want to give you ten roles that an evangelism committee can play in a healthy congregation.

[Read more…] about 10 Roles an Evangelism Committee Can Have in The Church

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Book Review of Outflow

Water Well Fountain ThirstOutflow, written by Steve Sjogren and David Ping, is a group study book aimed at small groups that want to try their hand at servant evangelism, a methodology of evangelism that emphasizes random acts of kindness.

The main metaphor in Outflow is the concentric circles of a multi-tiered fountain, that parallels the concentric circles of influence seen in Acts (Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth).

Outflow’s target audience seems to be those who have a fear of any kind of conversational evangelism, which in my experience includes a large number of people.

Even more so, Outflow seems aimed at those who have many negative images of evangelism.  Servant evangelism gives the reader a way to express their faith.

Outflow isn’t so much about sharing the faith in words as it is demonstrating the faith in love, and maybe talking about your faith when asked.

The Layout of Outflow

Servant Evangelism BookEach story filled chapter in Outflow is a reading for a week day, followed up by

  • reflection questions
  • an exercise for homework

Each week’s reading ends with a group project and includes some debriefing questions.

These practical suggestions are what caught my eye.

Instead of simply leaving it to the group to brainstorm all the time, these practical exercises suggested one particular action step that would be easy to implement.  Groups that implement the action steps will make a big impact in the community around them.

Two Ends of the Evangelism Spectrum

At one end of the spectrum, you have word based evangelism styles, like the way of the master stuff, tract distribution and other forms of gospel presentations.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have the deed based evangelism style, like servant evangelism.

The former focuses on communicating the truth through a scripted monologue to lead to a decision to accept or reject Christ.

Demonstrate truth first.

The later focuses on demonstrating acts of love, answering the occasional question, and planting the seeds for future conversation.

Demonstrate love first.

For many believers who find the former model of evangelism too negative and intimidating, the later model gives them plenty of room to express their faith.

However, for those that believe that the former model is high priority, Outflow will frustrate them as it doesn’t talk at all about how to actually talk about your personal faith.  The one chapter that comes close is about planting seeds for future conversation.

A Broader Appeal

Outflow will have a much broader appeal to small groups that want to express their faith in tangible ways, rather than memorize a scripted monologue to present to strangers.

For small groups that want to add some kind of missional component to their purpose, a study through Outflow could help provide that expression (though I don’t recall the word “missional” being used).

The practical exercises in Outflow can help a group find some practical ways to express God’s love in the community in which they were planted.

One missing ingredient

If I were leading an Outflow group, I would add a practical part in how to actually talk about what your faith means to you.

Servant evangelism as presented in Outflow is an awesome tool to express God’s love and plant seeds for future conversation.

However, Outflow to miss helping a person grow comfortable talking about your own faith in the process and what is the gospel.

Outflow is all about seed planting, and not really about how to water or harvest a seed that’s been planted.

I would add sections about

These additional pieces are beyond the scope of the book, but I think they remain vital core training to anyone doing a servant evangelism project.

You might very well encounter someone who has been prepared by God for that moment, like the Ethiopian eunuch was in Acts 8.  Your Outflow Group members would need some idea of what to do.

As a leader of the group, I would use these ideas in the exercise debriefings each week to help group members grow comfortable not only in random acts of kindness, but talking about their faith more frequently while doing random acts of kindness.

Order Outflow from Amazon (affiliate link)

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Saturday in the Community » The Blind Beggar

Looking for an idea to engage your neighborhood?

Read about Saturday in the Community at The Blind Beggar. (Photo from the Website).

The last church I served does something similar at Christmas time. Local churches donate toys that are sold in the local low-income community. Proceeds buy more toys that morning until the funds run out.

At back to school time, there is a similar event with school supplies, and a gathering where the local principal comes and welcomes the new kids.

The story at the blog article at the Blind beggar adds a bible giveaway.

Perhaps additional “stations:”

1. Prayer Station.

A prayer station is a booth or table a place where people wanting prayer can seek it out. Perhaps that’s a spot to give Bibles away to. People can be invited to fill out a card if they wish further follow up.  Read more on how to setup a prayer station

2. Church information

A display booth with promotional materials about church programs, contact information, schedule of future events etc.

No matter how your church event is done, an important feature is to repeatedly do it, so that its something the church becomes known for in the neighborhood.

No need to be disappointed if there is not an increase in attendance at church the next day. I’ve observed through experience that it may take a few years before people start trickling in after they’ve learned the church cares.

Let me ask you this:
Does your church regularly host an event that is geared towards serving the neighborhood?

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What is Evangelism? Part 3

This entry is part 3 of 9 in the series Define Evangelism

I want to continue the evangelism definition discussion on with “Joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God.”

For this part, we focus on the activity: Sharing.

As I travel and speak, I discover many different definitions of evangelistic sharing.

What comes first to my mind is conversation.

For others, what comes first is deeds.

Which comes first?

Conversation:

In most every occasion, our faith needs described as well as defended.

We share the content of our faith. Jesus died for sins, paid the price for sins, etc.

We explain how we are separated from God by sin and that Jesus was God’s provision for solving that.

We explain how God calls us to repentance, to faith in Christ, etc.

All of this is explained in the course of conversations, sermons, books, events, etc.

We share through a variety of means words, images, sermons, printed materials, etc. There is content to communicate. Many evangelism books and tracts focus on this.

I’ve written on about scripts that people use and various models of evangelism. These focus on content.

Dictionary with Glasses for Definition

Deeds:

For other people, what comes to mind is actions. A famous quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi is “Preach the gospel everywhere. If necessary, use words.” (Did Assisi get it wrong?)

For example, during a health outreach our church did for its neighborhood, one unchurched person commented,

“I don’t like to listen to sermons, today I saw one.”

Our service to the community was interpreted as we wanted – a tangible demonstration of the love of Christ that we have for our neighborhood.

It’s a witness to the world thru actions.

Yet that interpretation came about because we gathered all the volunteers at the beginning and I explained to them why we as a church are doing this outreach. We are serving because God first loved us and we want to demonstrate that to the community.

In our committee discussion last week, we got into a debate over whether sending church teams to build a Habitat house, or taking our week’s turn for providing overnight housing for the town’s homeless ministry was evangelism.

I get into this at: Is Community Service really Evangelism?

Servant evangelism focuses on actions. Many churches have social outreach programs to their local areas, but often, many find that doesn’t increase significantly to church attendance or new members.

My take:

When it comes to action based activity, I want to be clear – I’m not convinced it’s evangelism in and of itself.

Good works demonstrate our faith.  But those good works need an explanation.

Without any overt explanation that our actions are propelled by God’s love for whom we are serving, what makes our good deeds any different than what a social service agency provides, or what good corporate citizens provide?

I’ve written more about this in a prior post.

Actions can be a good support or point of contact for evangelistic conversations.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. - Colossians 3:17

Either/Or?

It’s not an either/or proposition for me. Both are necessary forms of sharing. Deeds are love demonstrated, but a further explanation of the gospel is necessary.

Giving food to the hungry, tutoring underprivileged kids, providing free medical care are all good deeds. They demonstrate love.

But beyond the demonstration comes explanation. It is my view that many churches that only serve are not growing because there is often no conversational explanation of the gospel to go along with the service.

Let me ask you this?

How do you see deeds in relationship to evangelism?

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