In yesterday’s post, I highlighted the importance of a church placing evangelism at the forefront of it’s ministries. When it comes to being an effective evangelistic church, research has proven there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, there is one method of evangelism that remains at the top of all other evangelism methods and that is the method of personal evangelism. Word of mouth remains the best way to share Jesus with others.
In this post, I would like to share a personal evangelism approach that I created. However, before I get to that, I would like to give a brief history of evangelism in the church from a broad scale perspective — “the how”, if you will. The gospel message never changes, but methods of sharing the gospel always will.
In the 1970’s, bus ministry ruled the day. In the 1980’s, mass media in the form of radio and televised services took over. In the 1990’s, the worship service, with an ever-increasing focus on contemporary music, became the tool (don’t forget about the family life center). In the 2000’s, Sunday School and small groups became the front door of the church. In the 2010’s, a church’s website became the virtual screen door before one walked through the physical front door of the church. In the here and now—the 2020’s— your church better have a presence on social media.
Once again though, in all these changes, the gospel never did. Within the church and its evangelistic training circles, we went through just as many changes as described above. We went from memorizing the Romans Road to participating in training such as CWT, EE, Faith, Grow, Share Jesus without Fear, The Story, 3 Circles, and the list goes on.
All of these tools have merit and are worthy of use, — even today. However, as our culture changes by the day, we need to come up with more relevant tools. In many ways, our evangelism needs to become more apologetics-based. One reason this is so is because our nation has become much more religiously pluralistic.
Here is a strategy I recently came up with. For right now, I am calling it the “Jesus is better” approach. I think we have reached a place in our culture where we first need to help people expose their own idols and then help these same people begin to deconstruct the idols they have put before Creator God (Jesus).
Here’s how my approach works! I like to ask people what their favorite thing in the world is. If it was me answering the question, I would probably say, “watching college football” (good thing the season is almost here!). Then I would follow-up the person’s answer by first affirming their answer and then asking the person another question. For example, “Watching college football is great, but do you know there is something better?” It is at this point you need to genuinely listen to the person’s response. If it was me answering the question, I would probably catch on that the person asking me the question was a Christian and I would say, “Yes, I know there is something better. Knowing and serving Jesus is the best!” But if I was not a Christian and I was answering the question, I would probably respond by saying, “What?” is better. If you are the one asking the questions, this is primetime to say “Being a friend of God” is better.
There could be a range of responses from here, but one of the most frequent responses will be “How?” do you become a friend of God. This is where you BOOM—share the gospel! Share your own story of how God saved you and how you became His friend. Tell about how you were walking planet earth not giving any thought to God when . . . You can talk about prayer and Bible reading, as it relates to being God’s friend, but you must first share the gospel! If the person you are talking to happens to reveal that he or she is already a Christian, discussing quiet time habits and devotional times are totally appropriate. These practices relate to being a friend of God, but outside of Jesus initiating a saving relationship with us, it is impossible for us to be God’s friend. Romans 5:10 is clear that left to ourselves and to our sin, we are God’s enemy. Thankfully, Jesus went on to say in John 6:44 that His Father had the ability to draw sinners like us to Jesus so that we, his enemies, could be saved and thus become his friend! That’s the gospel and that’s what we share!
Here is another example of my “Jesus is better” approach. Say you are a woman and you are talking to another lady. You might say to her, “What is it in life that you like doing the most?” or “What do you value most in life?” She might respond with “shopping” or “family”. This is where you reaffirm her, saying “Shopping (or family) is great, but do you know there is something better?” Here again, you will need to gauge the responses, but if she says, “No, what?” is better, you are now ready to segue into the gospel by responding with “Having a relationship with God whereby you can talk to Him and He can talk to you” is better. Again, be ready to receive a range of responses here such as “I didn’t know that was possible”, “What are you talking about?”, or “Oh, I see where you are going with this” and again be ready to respond appropriately to each. This is no cookie-cutter strategy to sharing Jesus with others. You will need to think of possible scenarios that could come up yourself and you will likely already know how certain people will respond. Know that the Holy Spirit will help you and can give you words you didn’t know you had (Romans 8:26, Mark 13:11).
What I love most about this approach is its conversational nature. The conversation is bound to go in a number of directions. People are tired of hearing us preach to them in the form of gospel presentations. What they really want to know is do we care. Do we care enough to discover where they are at in life and then are we willing to lovingly lead them to take the next step.
“If you’re not fishing, you’re not following.”