I once pastored a turn around church where things were going well. Long overdue changes were being made, staff and team structures were realigned and people were all-in with our mission and vision. But, that year we only had one single baptism. I began praying for God to show me how to change that.
Not long after that prayer I attended a conference at Judson Baptist Church in Nashville, TN and learned about their church-wide evangelism strategy called Gospel Engagements. With the pastor’s permission, I knew my church could benefit from the same kind of initiative.
The Way I See It…
Every Christian should share the gospel, but not every Christian feels confident enough to do it, even with evangelism training. Creating incremental attainable wins can move them from never sharing to regularly sharing their faith.
I defined five ways to have a gospel engagement with non believers. Then I challenged everyone to look for opportunities. I wanted everyone – introverts and extroverts, spiritual babes and mature Christians, generation Z to boomers – no matter where they were on their Christian journey to be a part of this evangelism initiative in our church.
Here are the five Gospel Engagement we measured.
- Do a random acts of kindness – Extend a nice gesture to someone in Jesus’ name. Don’t just do a random act of kindness, explain why you are doing it. “Jesus loves me and I want to share His love with you.”
- Pray for someone in Jesus’ name – When someone shares their challenging life circumstances, let them know that you are a Christ follower and you believe in the power of prayer. Ask to pray for them right then. When people are hurting, they don’t usually turn down prayer. Then pray out loud with them in Jesus’ name.
- Invite and Bring – Invite someone to church. If it’s helpful, offer to pick them up. Lifeway research says 51% of unchurched Americans say an invitation to church from a friend or family member would be effective. Don’t assume they’ll say no.
- Share your story – Share how Christ has met a need in your life. It doesn’t have to be perfectly scripted, it just has to be genuine.
- Share His story. Share the basic gospel message and invite a person to respond to Jesus. There are several methods you can learn to share the gospel, but the bottom line is the Holy Spirit will do the work if we are faithful to share.
Every Sunday we celebrated gospel engagement testimonies with thundering applause. Everyone, from the 2nd grader who prayed with his teacher struggling with cancer to the senior adult who for the very first time invited someone in the grocery line to church, was actively looking for a way to be apart of the strategy. The goal was for everyone to get a win, to be stretched to look outward for ways to share the gift of Christ with others. It was a simple evangelism strategy that everyone could be a part of, and it reignited a passion in our church to look beyond themselves to a community who needed Jesus.
Keith Durham 