Evangelism: Reasons of the Heart

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Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
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4 Suggested Reads on the Topic of Evangelism
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- Building Bridges -
- Finding Your Conversational Approach -
- Starting the Conversation -
- Listening to Their Questions -
- Doing Life With Them -
- Belonging Before Becoming -
- Praying With and For Them -
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Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
- Building Bridges -
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- Building Bridges -

• STEP ONE Believing that God is the author of
  salvation, and therefore the main cause of
  successful and meaningful evangelism. That
  building bridges to our non-Christian friends and
  families didnt begin with our desire to reach
  them but His.

the Triune God is the author of salvation.
And, inasmuch as He has executed in time the
eternal plan of salvation, has revealed its
execution in the gospel, and has ordained the
gospel as the indispensible means of salvation,
it is no less clear that the Triune God is the
author of salvation. R. B. Kuiper, God-Centered
Evangelism
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- Building Bridges -

• STEP TWO Acknowledging the danger of finding the
  satisfaction of intimacy inside the church so
  appealing that we no longer have life investments
  with the lonely broken people outside her
  walls. While also realizing our need for that
  intimacy.

To put it another way many Christians churches
these days are like a ghetto in one of our big
cities a community of immigrants in a foreign
country, clinging together for warmth and
understanding, and surrounded by a society that
does not understand or seem to care. When
churches have become like this, their biggest
need is to get out of the ghetto and to put to
rest forever their ghetto mentality. We have got
to build bridges. Michael Green, Sharing your
faith with friends and family
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- Building Bridges -

• STEP THREE Building bridges by first
  acknowledging where we are in relation to the
  world. If weve left it years and years ago, or
  just emerged from within it, or wake up beside it
  each morning. Acknowledging where we are is vital.

Your neighbors door is not a Billy Graham
shaped door but a you shaped door. You are the
best person to reach your neighbor in a
non-artificial manner where they can see the
gospel is for real people too. But the question
remains who is your neighbor -Anonymous
missionary
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- Building Bridges -

• STEP FOUR Seeing your weaknesses as a point of
  contact rather than a reason not to believe
  Christ could use someone like you to reach others
  with his Gospel.

Faces were smiling and several hands reached
out for the pamphlets. I know that they were able
to take them instead of retreating in suspicion
because they had heard Rose Marie and me confess
many of our weaknesses. We have made a conscious
effort to move with humility into the lives of
other people, to love them from below, rather
than from above. Our weaknesses have become our
point of contact, and this openness and
vulnerability causes people to open up to us in
return. -Jack Miller, A Faith Worth Sharing A
lifetime of conversations about Christ
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Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
- Finding Your Conversation Style -
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- Finding Your Conversation Style -
THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY

• God knew what He was doing when He made you. He
  did! He custom-designed you with your unique
  combination of personality, temperament, talents,
  and background, and He wants to harness and use
  these in His mission to reach this messed-up
  world. That means He wants to use you in a
  fashion that fits the person He made you to be.
  God doesnt call us all to spread His truth in
  the same way. Instead, He built diversity into
  the fabric of His body of believers And until we
  realize that, well find ourselves needlessly
  imitating each others outreach efforts,
  wastefully duplicating some approaches while
  harmfully squelching others.
• Bill Hybels, Becoming a Contagious Christian

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- Finding Your Conversational Approach -
IDENTIFYING YOUR CONVERSATION STYLE

• CONFRONTATIONAL
• direct, bold, and right to the point kind of
  approach, demanding action immediately
• INTELLECTUAL
• an inquisitive type who enjoys working with
  ideas and evidences, someone who not only
  declares the gospel but also defines and defends
  it kind of approach
• TESTIMONIAL
• focuses more upon the individuals journey with
  God, re-telling the drama of how you moved from
  religion into relationship is a common part of
  this approach
• INTERPERSONAL
• enjoys having long discussions over coffee with
  others, enjoys bringing people into the web of
  your life, places friendships before witnessing
  kind of approach
• INVITATIONAL
• you constantly are widening the circle of
  people involved in your activities, and you have
  a natural knack for getting people to come with
  you, you are good at drawing people out kind of
  approach
• SERVICE
• you find it relatively easy to serve others,
  if meeting peoples needs is what you find to be
  the most compelling witness, then this is your
  kind of approach

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- Finding Your Conversation Style -
THE RELATIVE WORTH OF LABELING YOUR
CONVERSATIONAL STYLE

• nobody fits perfectly into just one of these
  styles. In fact, youll probably find
  opportunities to use all of them. The point is
  that God designed diversity on His team and each
  member is stronger in some styles than in others.
  You might come up with style number seven or
  eight, and thats fine, too.
• Bill Hybels, Becoming a Contagious Christian

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Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
- Starting the Conversation -
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- Starting the Conversation -
Beginning the conversation within yourself
Understanding what the gospel is, and isnt.
Being real with them means being yourself

• Valuing dialogue instead of monologue

Starting the conversation with in the right tone
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- Starting the Conversation -
Beginning the conversation with a reminder
Understanding what the gospel is, and isnt.
The gospel starts by teaching us that we, as
creatures, are absolutely dependent on God, and
that He, as Creator, has an absolute claim on us.
Only when we have learned this can we see what
sin is, and only when we see what sin is can we
understand the good news of salvation from sin.
We must know what it means to call God Creator
before we can grasp what it means to call God
Redeemer. J.I. Packer, Evangelism The
Sovereignty of God One part of providing
clarity when we share the gospel, sometimes
missed by earnest evangelists, is the willingness
to offend. Clarity with the claims of Christ
certainly will include the translation of the
gospel into words that our hearer understands,
but it doesnt necessarily mean translating it
into words that our hearer will like. Too often,
advocates of relevant evangelism verge over into
being advocates of irrelevant non-evangelism. A
gospel that  in no way offends the sinner has not
been understood.. Mark Dever, The Gospel
Personal Evangelism
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- Starting the Conversation -
Being real with them means being yourself

• There is no surefire way of going about
  evangelism, or of adopting a Christian approach.
  Be yourself. Be true to your own nature not
  sinful nature, but rather your personality, your
  own way of expressing things, your own special
  relationship with that friend you are trying to
  help.
• Michael Green, Sharing your faith with friends
  and family

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- Starting the Conversation -

• Valuing dialogue instead of monologue

Because of all the baggage and lack of trust
in our Post-Christian world, people need to be
engaged in dialogue. Few people are interested
only in a monologue. Creating a culture
of dialogue requires us to walk in the shoes of
the other person. To consider how it feels to be
an outsider to the faith desiring to
understand, but not having a clue wanting to ask
questions, but afraid to offend needing to fit
in to explore, but not sure of the rules. John
Burke, No Perfect People Allowed
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- Starting the Conversation -
Starting the conversation with the right tone
Start by Asking Questions It diffuses their
assumptions that were only interested in giving
them answers to questions they may not even be
raising. It makes our conversation with them a
two-way street. Speak with Modesty The world is
too full of brash people, trying to sell you
something at any cost. Were not selling Jesus to
our friends, were sharing his love with
them. Speak with Confidence We may not always
know what we believe but we know who we believe.
And he is the King of all Kings, He has answers
for them. Speak with Enthusiasm Our
conversations should be marked with celebration,
after all weve found Jesus, or better put hes
found us! Speak Naturally about Him Jesus is
both God and man, hes approachable, dont make
your conversation about him feel like a bad
Televangelist crusade on TBN. Speak in
Understandable Language Whether we realize it or
not weve learned Christianese well, we need to
be careful about what we assume they understand
in our language. Learn the local tongue
translate in it (contextualization) Speak in
Prayerful Timing Be sensitive to the Spirits
leading, asking the Lord whether or not its time
to take them further into the message of who and
what Christ has done, and demands.
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- Listening to Their Questions -
Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
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- Listening to Their Questions -
- INVOLVES VALUING SILENCE -

• Real conversations, the ones that connect
  hearts and transfer understanding, need breathing
  spaces. We dont have to jump in with words as
  soon as the other person pauses. In fact, we need
  time to hear and digest what has been just said
  before we jump in with the next thought that
  comes to mind. Training our hearts to be silent
  precedes our mouths doing the same. By doing so,
  we can develop the self-control we need for
  sharing the Good News-both with and without
  words.
• Randy Newman, Questioning Evangelism Engaging
  Peoples Hearts the Way Jesus Did

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- Listening to Their Questions -
- INVOLVES KEEPING YOUR AGENDA TO LOVE -

• Actual conversations with other human beings
  rarely follow a script. So resolve now to be OK
  with interruptions, awkward pauses, rabbit
  trails, and even bursts of anger. Keep your
  agenda to love, but drop your agenda for how the
  conversation has to play out.
• Walter Henegar, Evangelism for Dummies The
  surprising gift of stating the obvious

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- Listening to Their Questions -
- INVOLVES PUTTING ASIDE THE AIR OF ARROGANCE
BENEVOLENCE WE OFTEN DONT REALIZE WE HAVE -

• Peter Berger captures the style of witness that
  is dead for most people today A peculiar
  mixture of arrogance (I know the truth) and
  benevolence (I want to save you) has always
  been the chief psychological hall mark of
  missionary activity. People can smell this
  combination of arrogance and benevolence a mile
  away. At the first whiff they will fly away-miles
  away.
• Rick Richardson, Evangelism Outside the Box New
  ways to help people experience the Good News
• The primary reason outsiders feel hostile
  toward Christians, and especially conservative
  Christians, is not because of any specific
  theological perspective. What they react
  negatively to is our swagger, how we go about
  things and the sense of self-importance we
  project.
• David Kinnaman Gabe Lyons, UnChristian What a
  new generation really thinks about
  Christianityand why it matters

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- Listening to Their Questions -
- INVOLVES BOTH BIBLICAL CULTURAL LITERACY -

• Once he had absorbed Athenian culture through
  listening and observing, Paul compared and
  contrasted Christian beliefs with those of the
  Athenians. I call this skill dual listening,
  which is like holding the Bible in one hand and a
  screenplay, script, lyric sheet, book, magazine
  article, or newspaper in the other. Holding the
  two side by side, the culturally savvy Christian
  engages in dual listening by assessing,
  comparing, contrasting, correlating, analyzing,
  evaluating, understanding, synthesizing, and
  conceptualizing in order to interpret faith in
  light of cultural insights and to interpret
  culture in light of insights from our faith. Dual
  listening requires both biblical and cultural
  literacy.
• Dick Staub, The Culturally Savvy Christian A
  manifesto for deepening faith and enriching
  popular culture in an age of Christianity-lite

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- Doing Life With Them -
Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
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- Doing Life With Them -
MEANS REDEEMING THE IMAGE OF EVANGELISM

• Lets be honest, evangelism is not very cool
  these days. The word evangelist conjures up for
  many people a slick, oily-haired man in a dark
  suite and tie, smiling out of a TV screen, Bible
  in hand, with the phone number for donations at
  the bottom of the picture. Most evangelists I
  know are as far removed from this caricature as
  Brad Pitt is from the Queen of England, but mud
  sticks. Like it or not, the word carries negative
  rather than positive overtones for most people
  outside (and often inside) Christians circles,
  and the image remains.
• Graham Tomlin, The Provocative Church

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- Doing Life With Them -
INVOLVES LETTING THEM INTO YOUR DAILY ROUTINES

• I was learning to let others into my life. Mel
  could see me studying the Bible and finding
  something there that changed and satisfied me.
  Thats why h wanted to study the Bible, too. And
  I lived close enough to John to be fed up with
  his sins and to let him know (less than
  perfectly) how they affected me. There at the
  boarding house, the men could see that I had the
  same sins and needs as they did and that my God
  had helped me. The Holy Spirit did the rest.
• So wherever you cook breakfast, there is your
  classroom for learning to share your faith. The
  people you encounter daily are the ones Jesus
  wants you to share the gospel with. But make sure
  that you are understanding and loving the gospel
  more each day yourself or you will not be able to
  love and understand the friends at your
  breakfast table.
• Jack Miller, A Faith Worth Sharing A lifetime of
  conversations about Christ

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- Doing Life With Them -
REQUIRES THE TYPE OF PASTORAL CARE THAT CAN ONLY
BE APPLIED IN RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM

• Gospel communication sees through a persons
  name, position, reasons, and arguments and tries
  to reach the real lifes problems. It involves
  meetings, but meetings filled with love. We
  recognize ourselves in the other
  personMissionaries are not annoyed by the
  stupidity of the natives, at their
  primitive behavior. This personal involvement
  with others determines the pastoral dimension of
  our work. Bearing the balm of Gilead, and not
  patent medicine, we are motivated by the heart of
  the shepherd.
• Harvie M. Conn, Evangelism Doing justice and
  preaching grace

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- Doing Life With Them -
INCLUDES SEEING THEM AS BOTH SINNERS, AND THE
SINNED AGAINST IN OTHER WORDS IT MEANS MERCY

• The New Testament church does not escape the
  obligation of doing justly for evangelism. We are
  marked as those who hunger and thirst after
  righteousness (Matt 56). And that righteousness,
  as Herman Ridderbos points out, is not
  righteousness in the Pauline sense of imputed
  forensic righteousness. It is the kingly justice
  that God has promised for the salvation of the
  oppressed and the outcasts. It is the kingly
  justice that God has promised the Messiah would
  bring. We live in a new day, the day of the
  promised King. And His coming was to be a coming
  on behalf of justice for all, fairness for the
  afflicted of the earth (see Isa. 111-5). The
  Old Testament promise of the Messiahs jubilee
  year meant justice and freedom for the oppressed,
  the broken (Isa. 611-2). In Christ the jubilee
  year of restoration for society has begun (Luke
  417-21). It will not be finished until Christ
  returns and consumates all creation being
  regained.
• Harvie M. Conn, Evangelism Doing justice and
  preaching grace

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- Belonging Before Becoming -
Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
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- Belonging Before Becoming -
KNOWING WE HAVE A HOME INSIDE OUR LOCAL CHURCH
BEFORE WE INVITE OTHERS IN

• Always before, well-meaning people had told me
  that I just had to have faith. Well, I didnt
  have faith, so their answer never did me any
  good. But Jim didnt respond that way. He had
  thoughtful answers to my questions. He admitted
  when he didnt know something. He seemed to be
  taking me seriously. I felt listened to and cared
  for. And my heart began to open up. As I watched
  Jim, he seemed to know who he was. He seemed to
  feel a sense of belonging wherever he went, and
  he gave other people that sense. He was at home
  with himself, and I felt more at home with myself
  when I was around him.
• Rick Richardson, Evangelism Outside the Box New
  ways to help people experience the good news

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- Belonging Before Becoming -
WE NEED TO REALIZE WE MAY NOT BE AS WELCOMING OR
ACCEPTING OF OTHERS AS WE THINK

• most people assume they will not be accepted
  until they change, not by God and definitely not
  by church people. So we must tell them the truth
  over and overInstead of acceptance that draws
  them into relationship and says Im for you,
  non-Christians pick up an us versus them
  mentality from many Christians. It is subtle but
  deadly.
• John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed Creating a
  come as you are culture in the Church

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- Belonging Before Becoming -
HELPING SOMEONE BELONG BEFORE BECOMING MEANS
TURNING TO THEM IN RESPONSIBLE SERVICE AND
OFFERING THE ONE THING NO ONE ELSE CAN OFFER
ACCEPTANCE BASED ON THE TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL!

• the Christian turns both from the world and to
  the world. He turns from irresponsible sin to
  responsible service the evangelist, on the way
  from Jerusalem to his city-wide crusade in
  Jericho, will not, in passing, toss a tract or
  decision card to the man who has fallen among
  thieves, but will stop and minister and care for
  him.
• Will Metzger, To Tell the Truth The whole gospel
  to the whole person by the whole person

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- Belonging Before Becoming -
BEGINE THE PROCESS OF HEALING THE WOUNDS OF THOSE
WHOVE BEEN DEEVANGELIZED OR DECHURCHED.

• First, notice that many of these outsiders were
  former insiders. And, second, realize that what
  they see from Christians creates their ideas
  about the reality and authenticity of following
  Christ. By our words and actions, are we boosting
  the reputation of Christianity, or are we
  unwitting accomplices in presenting an
  unChristian faith to outsiders?
• In asking about how Christians come across to
  people, we interviewed Steven, a
  thirty-four-year-old who moved to New York from
  Phoenix. During the interview, he described his
  initial excitement when he met a peer in an
  unfamiliar city. A young guy approached me in a
  subway station once, friendly, full of questions,
  interested in talking. He seemed really nice, and
  I couldnt believe a New Yorker was being so,
  well, nice! We exchanged numbers and said wed
  hang out sometime. Next time I heard from him, he
  invited me to a Bible study, and that was all he
  wanted to talk about. When I said, No thanks, I
  never heard from him again. Rather than being
  genuinely interested in people for their
  friendship, we often seem like spiritual
  headhunters.
• David Kinnaman Gabe Lyons, UnChristian What a
  new generation really thinks about
  Christianityand why it matters

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- Praying With and For Them -
Evangelism Reasons of the Heart
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- Praying With and For Them -
- Praying With Them -

• John and I were sitting in the café, I was
  anticipating a good hardy breakfast as well as
  some deep conversation about mission and
  evangelism since John was one of my seminary
  professors who taught in that area, and then it
  happenedOut of the blue John introduces me to
  our waitress and says, Hello, his name is Tony
  and hes a pastor, how can he pray for you.
  Well, at that moment I was praying but it wasnt
  for her it was for me, the embarrassment and
  out-of-placeness I was feeling. Then something
  amazing happened, she just opened up her entire
  life to us and what she was struggling with.
  After praying for her I realized that sometimes
  the best witness I can give for my faith is a
  praying witness. Being willing to pray with them
  on the spot
• A testimony from my own spiritual journey while
  at Westminster Theological Seminary. John Leonard
  Dr. of Missiology was the John in this story.

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- Praying With and For Them -
- Praying For Them -

• Prayer for others is the supreme God-ordained
  method in evangelism. Unless God changes a
  persons heart, nothing lasting will be achieved.
  Prayer is a means of raising the dead sinners to
  life!...Until we see the incapacity of sinners
  and our helplessness to save them, we will not
  commit ourselves to pray prayer is pleading our
  helplessness before God. Our prayers should be
  marked by expectancy and longing.
• Will Metzger, Tell The Truth The whole gospel to
  the whole person by whole people

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- Building Bridges -
- Finding Your Conversational Approach -
- Starting the Conversation -
- Listening to Their Questions -
- Doing Life With Them -
- Belonging Before Becoming -
- Praying With and For Them -
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Evangelism Reasons of the Heart