A SAMPLE OF ENDORESMENTS The following are some of the endorsements for Julian’s 900+ page book called Evangelism: Strategies from Heaven In the War for Souls. Some people are daunted by such a big book so Julian made a small book out of each chapter of the 900+ page book. What you are about to read is just one of the chapters of the larger work.
David Cole, YWAM Campaigns Asia/Pacific Board of Regents Chairman University of the Nations.
“This book is one of the most in depth looks at what Evangelism really is (and what it isn’t) that I believe has been written in the last century. I have been so inspired in my own calling through its content and often use it as a text book for teaching and imparting to young leaders in YWAM training courses as well as throughout other parts of the Body of Christ. Thank you Julian not only for such a valuable resource as well as for modeling the outworking of its content in your own life over the past few decades.”
Pastor Mike Smith, Melbourne, Australia
“An incredible book that all pastors should read. I have been a Christian for 28 years and a pastor for many years, and when I picked up this book, I thought, I doubt this will teach me anything new about evangelism. I was so wrong. It has revolutionised my thinking. This is an incredible book that all pastors should read.”
Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland
“The best book I have ever read. I am a solicitor (54) and a partner in a law practice. I unhesitatingly give my endorsement for Julian s book. Indeed, I would rate it as the best book that I have ever read!” Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland
Michael Angulo, Pastor and Church Leader
“Truly a work of Ministerial art. I really like this book and every true evangelist will love it also. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PUT IT DOWN, BUT WILL BE THINKING WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO READ IT AGAIN! A truly very well written book with good retrospective learning ideas. No true evangelist should be without this book. It is worth what it is worth and it will catapult you into great, deliberate PROVEN, ministry approach. Great book and I highly recommend it. Get this one, you won’t be disappointed!”
Julian Batchelor, M.ed (Hons), B.Th, Dip.T’Ching
Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 4)
Copyright Julian Batchelor Evangelism Strategies International Press Auckland New Zealand
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Acknowledgements I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people for the production of this Mini Series: Sheryl Kampenhout, who transferred a mountain of material from Power Point shows into Word documents and who served and encouraged me in such a loving and kind way; to Matthew Old, a faithful friend and fellow evangelist, who has been a Barnabas. He reached out his hands when the hills seemed steepest, loved me in spite of my failures, stimulated me with his sharp mind, and made me laugh when I wanted to cry; to Janice Teo, and her intercessory prayer team who are as vital to the ministry I direct as the heart is to the body; to the team of editors, including Ken Francis and Julie Belding; to all the financial supporters who have given so generously to me over the years. I especially want to thank Paul and Tina Richards, of Club Physical, owners of a gymnasium chain in Auckland, New Zealand, and Derek van Beynen, who have faithfully sponsored my ministry for over a decade. Few people have the privilege of being able to leave secular work to write and produce resources to further the cause of the evangelisation of the world, and to motivate and equip the Church to do the same. You, and all my other financial supporters, have made this possible; to those I live with who have not seen me for years because I have been locked away in my office writing, I give my sincere thanks. Special thanks to Neil Pollock. To Jenny Windeyer, the graphic artist, who designed the cover of the original 800 page book (which we’ve turned into this Mini Series), and to Jenny’s husband Drew for going beyond the call of duty so that Jenny could focus on this project; to faithful Bernie Anderson who has sacrificed and given way beyond what a leader would expect of a dedicated co-worker; to Eleanor Goodall and Sue and George Jeffrey who epitomise love and true friendship; to the team at ESI for keeping all the various aspects of the evangelism ministry moving forwards whilst I directed most of my time to write this Mini Book Series; for Dr Martyn Bowis who did all the programming for the electronic version of the gospel called “Proclaim it!”; for Henoch Kloosterboeror for producing all the brilliant
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drawings; Dr David Stewart, retired Principal of the Bible College of New Zealand for nearly two decades of encouragement and mentoring; Denise James and Anne Bartley, staff at the Bible College of New Zealand for helping with research; all those who have helped proof read the manuscript and given comment, particularly Dr Marie Sewell, Gill Donald, Gill Lukey, Donna Hansen, Ainslie Vines, Ann Hunter, and Miriam and Ted Martin; to the academic staff of the Bible College of New Zealand for giving me a grounding in theology; for all those who have given financially and sacrificially to pay for specific aspects of the publishing of this Mini Book Series; for my friend Ray Comfort, for his inspiration and encouragement. There are few evangelists today who have journeyed on the road of trial and tribulation to achieve breakthrough as Ray Comfort. For John Stott, the academic evangelist for his coaching and input via his many books. For all the people who we have trained in evangelism around the world who are out there doing it – you are the heroes in the battle for souls; for the many hundreds of pastors, leaders, and lay Christians around the globe who have contributed to my life as a Christian, and to this Mini Book Series; and finally, I thank Jesus Christ, whose amazing grace and love has inspired and kept me. All the revelations in this Mini Book Library about evangelism and the gospel were given by Him – to Him be all the glory.
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How To Read The Mini Books In This Library This Mini Book is one of a Library of 27 Mini Books. The Library is a detailed critique of the battle between light and darkness which is relentlessly raging all over the earth for the souls of men and women. The insights and revelations in each Mini Book are hierarchical i.e. Mini Book Two builds upon Mini Book One, Mini Book Three upon Mini Books One and Two, and so on. Hence, the ideal is to try and read all the Mini Books in the library in sequence. If you skip Mini Books, or even parts of Mini Books, you might miss something vital, and open yourself to misunderstanding or even defeat. Having said this, after you have read Mini Books One to Seven, which are the foundational books in the Library, each Mini Book is designed to stand alone. So, read Books One to Seven first. This is essential. With respect to evangelism, if you follow the advice I am giving here in the pages of each Mini Book, you’ll position yourself perfectly to be used by the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus in ways you’d not imagined possible. How so? Read the 27 Mini Books in the library and find out. Along with Mini Books 1-7, I suggest you also purchase Mini Book 27, which is the “Evangelism Fitness Test.” This is a diagnostic survey which will tell you the extent to which you have been unwittingly influenced by the devil with respect to evangelism. Sit this test before you read anything. Then do the same test again after you have read all the Mini Books to check to see if all his devices have been thoroughly purged from your mind!
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Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 4)
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evice 61. Have leaders who are evangelising mix regularly with non-evangelising leaders.
Satan knows that if he can surround an evangelising leader with enough non-evangelising friends and ministry associates, it is likely he or she will be ‘dulled down’ in their enthusiasm for evangelism or they will eventually stop. This might seem an odd thing to say. Let me explain. This is a very subtle device. It is a general rule that people who are not doing evangelism already feel some degree of guilt and condemnation because they are not doing it. This is especially true of committed Christians. The presence of a person active and enthusiastic about evangelism can heighten these feelings. So when evangelising and nonevangelising leaders get together, the non-evangelising leaders won’t want to talk about personal evangelism since they’re not
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doing it.1 The evangelising leader, sensing this, won’t want to make the others feel awkward. Over time, our leader begins to feel that talking about evangelism is taboo – which subtly puts him or her off doing it. This explanation might make leaders look petty and immature, which they are not. No Christian leader deliberately intends to put anyone off evangelism or marginalise an evangelist. No leader ever wants to be marginalised, or to make those not doing evangelism feel condemned or guilty. It’s commonly called negative peer group pressure. The phenomenon of those non-active in evangelism subtly discouraging those active in evangelism all happens in a subliminal way. No one is quite sure how it happens, but it happens. As Pascal, the famous mathematician once said, “… there is a reason of the heart that the head does not know.” 1 In Mini Book Fifteen, I said we could categorise evangelists as “crusade”or “non-crusade”. Below is another way of categorising them. 1. EVANGELISTS WHO “DO” THE EVANGELISM FOR THE CHURCH: These evangelists do evangelism “live” on stage or proclaim it via DVD (like Alpha) or they serve the Church by proclaiming the gospel at children’s programmes, in prisons, at camps, or at youth events etc. They are living in obedience to Mark 16:15. They willingly train anyone who is interested in evangelism how to do what they do i.e. how to copy them. All this is biblical and to be desired. Thank God for crusade evangelists like Billy Graham and Greg Laurie. Evangelists who serve the Church in this way enjoy enormous popularity for several reasons. First, they make few demands on fellow Christians to do evangelism. Secondly, they tend to appease the collective conscience of the Christian community by doing the evangelism for them. Third, God works mightily through these evangelists to save people and few things bring joy to the Christian community like seeing people saved. 2. EVANGELISTS WHO WANT TO MOBILISE WHOLE CHURCHES TO “DO” EVANGELISM: These evangelists seek to follow exactly the job description given to them in Ephesians 4:11-14 which is to equip Christians to do evangelism. Their desire is to motivate and equip the 98% of the Church who show no apparent interest in evangelism. i.e. the culture of most churches today is not evangelistic. In fact, sadly, it’s even hostile to the idea. This is how low “evangelism” has sunk in the Western Church. The solution? Leaders, our great challenge is to change the very culture of our churches to make them evangelistic. Here are some things you can do. Connect with us as a ministry. We have plans and strategies which will change the culture of your church. Evangelists, how can you help? Soak in the truths of this Mini Book Series and then connect with us as a ministry and we’ll show you how to help churches in your area mobilise all their people into evangelism. Write to me: julian@esisite.com
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One of the enemy’s goals is to create a whole culture of nonevangelising leaders. If enough leaders are not active in personal evangelism, negative peer pressure kicks in, and not doing evangelism becomes the ‘in’ thing. So, how can we combat this device? Let’s make sure, if you are a non-leader, that you regularly honour, affirm, and encourage your pastor about the evangelism they are doing. If they are not going to be encouaged about evangelism from other leaders, they’ll need all the encouragement they can get from other people like you! The greatest thing you can do is pray for your leader that they won’t be affected by the negative influence on non-evangelising leaders.
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evice 62. To target the leader with positive distractions.
If the enemy cannot discourage an evangelising leader through non-evangelising peers, he’ll employ other little schemes which on the surface seem harmless. For example, he’ll throw in a few appealing distractions: • A plan to build a bigger and better church. • A plan to redecorate the church. • A business opportunity. • A plan to focus on some other good aspect of Christian life, like a “season” of prayer and fasting. • A “season” of seeking the presence of God or signs and wonders. • A fund-raising drive. These are all good things. But, sometimes, when a special event is happening in a church, it is tempting to discard evangelism in order to focus on the current project. The enemy knows that if he can knock us off evangelism temporarily, we might get out of the habit and not return to it – another perfect result for him. This doesn’t mean such projects/seasons/opportunities are 9
initiated by the enemy. But whatever project or season comes along, we should never drop regular personal evangelism, any more than we would drop prayer, worship, tithing or the sermon.
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ow to stay focussed…
The apostles demonstrated this attitude of keeping the focus no matter what: “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, ‘It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word’” (Acts 6:1-4). By “the ministry of the Word” they mean evangelism. Commenting on this passage, J. Oswald Sanders wrote: “The apostles faced the problem of perverted priorities very early in the programme. With the multiplication of converts, the legitimate social responsibilities of the infant church began to crowd out the more important spiritual ministries. The apostles had the insight to perceive that incipient satanic deflection and announced their determination to put first things first.” Sanders points out that Christian workers will always be tempted to allow their horizontal relationship with fellow human beings to take precedence over their vertical relationship with God – indeed to oust it altogether. They will also be tempted to look after the physical needs of the lost, instead of making a priority of securing their soul.2 This has happened on a worldwide scale within the ecumenical movement. “Not that social action is not authorised in scripture,” Sanders 2 It is interesting to note that in the account of Jesus healing the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12, He forgave his sins first, and then healed his body.
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said, “but many church leaders have accorded it a priority not given to it in scripture. Meanwhile, billions of souls languish ‘without God and without hope in the world.’”3
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evice 63. To hit the leaders with a tidal wave of other work to stop them evangelising.
The enemy delights to see a leader overwhelmed with work. He knows that an overloaded pastor or leader will never get around to doing evangelism. I have found that if I build my day around evangelism, rather than build evangelism into my day, I will always do evangelism, no matter how busy I think I am. In other words, I treat the few minutes it takes to present a non-Christian with the gospel as the main event of each day. A few minutes is not a lot to devote to the priority of the Church.
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hat’s the bottom line?
Many years ago I made a commitment to reach one person a day with the gospel. I leave my office and go and find someone to whom I could present the gospel. I would spend about 10 minutes looking, 15 minutes delivering the gospel, and 10 minutes getting home. Initially I found reaching at least one nonChristian a day with the gospel an enormous challenge. I always had dozens of other things to do which seemed much more urgent, but I did it any way. 1 Corinthians 9:27 says “I discipline my body and make it my slave.” This is what we must do too. We must be ‘broken in’, like a horse, in order to establish the priority of Jesus in our lives. What’s interesting is that when I returned from doing evangelism, I’d feel like all the pressures of the things I had to do had vapourised! Somehow, miraculously, doing evangelism causes the burdens of life to temporarily lighten! Try it. You’ll see what I mean. 3
J. Oswald Sanders. Satan Is No Myth. Moody Press, 1975, pp.88-89
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Before I established the habit of evangelising regularly, I didn’t want to tear myself away from what I was doing to go and evangelise, especially if I was in a cosy office, with a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and it was cold and wet outside. But I found that if I made the excuse “I’m too busy” on a particular day, the next day the same excuse came more readily. It was so easy to form the habit of making this excuse. It seemed to come as easily and as often as blowflies on a decaying carcass. As I mentioned before when we discussed leadership theory and practice, if you as the leader pull out the “I’m too busy” card, you’ll give permission for all those under you to do the same. Believe me, they will whip their “I’m too busy” card out as quick as a flash if they get even a whiff of an idea that you as the leader have been using it. But if you pull out the “I’m extremely busy but this is the priority and I’m going to go anyway” card, you’ll inspire everyone around you to follow your example. It’s really that simple. You will help cut a path to victory for an army of others. Eventually, after a gruelling fight with my inner man, the flesh, God, and my priorities, I put a match to my “I’m too busy” card, and watched it burn. I want you to do the same. As long as this particular card sits around in the filing cabinet of your mind, available when you need it, the temptation to use it will be too much for most. For me, now, the “I’m too busy” card just doesn’t exist any more. Thankfully I let God win me over to His way of thinking, and I have broken through. I have not stopped doing all the other things that need doing – the difference now is that I just don’t go to bed at night without having reached a lost soul with the gospel. What’s the result? My spiritual life is better, healthier, richer and more satisfying for it. The bottom line is that to do evangelism or not is, ultimately, 12
just a choice, based on perceived priorities. Only you can make that choice. Only you can adjust your priorities. I urge you to get your priorities in sync with those of Jesus. You will never regret it. Today, I still reach one person a day with the gospel, but most often now I don’t proclaim it (i.e. deliver the full gospel myself) I often spread it (i.e. point people in the direction of the gospel via the web site www.biblein11.com). We have a great tool for doing this called THE TWO RIGHT ANSWERS. This means that rather than make a special trip to find a lost person with the gospel, I ‘do’ evangelism naturally as I go about my day. It takes only a few minutes to do this to the shop keeper, the man at the petrol station, the checkout operator, etc. It’s a very natural way to ‘do’ evangelism.
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evice 64. To persuade leaders that it is better to hang out with Christians.
Christians love the company of other Christians, which is understandable. The enemy has tried to twist this desire, however, to stop us from evangelising. He reminds us subtly that it is more comfortable and pleasant to deal with people we know, people who love and respect us, than with strangers. Subconsciously we say to ourselves, “I just want to be with the people I know and like. I adore the safe and comfortable.” Before we know it, these thoughts have banished the idea of going out with the gospel, and we’ve decided to stay put in our offices at church. Our time is consumed with little else but Christians and Christian activities.
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ow to stay fresh and relevant in your ministry…
I sometimes take leaders with me when I go out evangelising, and many freely confess afterwards that they felt uncomfortable talking to non-Christian strangers, admitting they have lost the 13
common touch. Jesus was utterly different in this respect. Many leaders genuinely struggle to hold an evangelistic conversation with a stranger without sprinkling it with religious jargon, sounding like someone from a completely different culture, or as if they were preaching to the converted on Sunday morning. Most are shocked to find they have developed “church-bound-itis.” They have lost their saltiness (Mark 9:50). Regularly doing evangelism helps to keep a leader fresh, salty, and in touch with the people in the world. It will also positively affect almost every other area of their life including their preaching, Bible reading, prayer, worship, and marriage. How can doing evangelism have this effect? Since evangelism is a strong theme in the Bible, a leader who is doing it will feel the Scriptures come alive with new relevance and interest. How will doing evangelism help your preaching? Non-Christians you meet will ask questions that few in your church will ask, and finding answers will cause you to run to the Bible and prayer for wisdom and answers. Since prayer and Bible reading are rich sources of fuel for our spiritual lives, when we feed on them everything around us is positively affected. The people in your church will quickly sense new enthusiasm and freshness in you – and your preaching. Most importantly, they will follow your lead to go to the lost with the gospel. Non-Christians you have reached personally in evangelism will fuel your prayers more than praying for the lost in a general, abstract way. Now when you pray you will have names, faces, situations and people you have evangelised to pray for. Finally, leaders who learn to evangelise find a new source of joy, which in turn spills over into relationships, including marriage.4 The enemy, of 4 R ecently (28/07/06), a couple emailed me with the following message. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that since we’ve been involved with your ministry it has improved our marriage so much as we are really one in
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course, doesn’t want you to know any of this.
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ow the enemy uses scripture to keep you churchbound…
The enemy will even bring to mind certain comforting scriptures such as John 21:17, in which Jesus says “Feed my sheep.” “You are the pastor,” he will remind you. “If you don’t feed the sheep no one else will. So you had better stay in your office, prepare that sermon, write that report, read those letters, or make the comforting phone call to that parishioner who is ill. It would be unwise to go and look for the lost. After all, they are not the ones paying you. You must put the flock first.” Paradoxically, for the reasons I have outlined above, when we make a priority of reaching the lost, we become a better pastor to the flock. The enemy knows this and so he is delighted when he sees an office bound pastor. Watching a church-bound leader is a relaxing exercise for him. When he sees one, the enemy often takes time out, puts his feet up, smiles and exhales with a freshly-brewed cup of coffee in hand. “The more I see this lovely sight,” he says, “the more I feel secure about my future.” Pastors, don’t listen to the advice of the enemy intended to keep you church bound. God’s plan is to have you at your very best for the people in your church by getting you out. The plan of the enemy is to keep you in, and to make you spiritually stale and stodgy.
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evice 65. To persuade leaders that the words of the gospel are already “in the church programme” and that there is no need to proclaim a concise say-it-all-at-
this. Our other Christian activities used to prise us apart. This has united us and brought life! Thanks so much for that. Our marriage has had its ups and downs like most! We can’t thank you enough for the changes that you have made to our life through taking up evangelism.” To write to this couple please email George Jeffery gjeffery@eol.co.nz.
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one-time gospel message.
I call this the “thousand piece jigsaw” device of the enemy. Imagine that the programme in the church, with all that is said and done, is like a thousand-piece jigsaw. The words of the gospel message are 25 pieces of this jigsaw,5 but they are scattered throughout the 1000 pieces. Yes, it is technically true that the gospel is being proclaimed in the programme. But the non-Christians in the programme are not necessarily grasping it. When we say “the gospel is in the programme,” we are expecting the non-Christians to identify the 25 pieces and make sense of them among the other 975. Instead, we should put together the 25 pieces that represent the words of the gospel and present them in one sitting, so the message can be clearly understood. Why make it hard for them when it is within our power to make it easy? As a ministry we have produced a clear, eleven minute, multimedia presentation of the gospel which can be played through a data projector and a laptop. The gospel ought to be proclaimed as a distinct message regularly in church programmes. If we mix it up with 975 pieces of church life, non-Christians just won’t see it. And nor will the Christians. The enemy enjoys the “thousand- piece jigsaw” approach, because if non-Christians hear the words of the gospel scattered randomly through the 1000 pieces, they might as well not have heard them at all.
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evice 66. To blind us to the difference between simple exposure to the gospel and hearing and understanding it.
One of the enemy’s favourite devices is to dupe the church
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I am not saying the gospel has literally 25 component parts, nor the programme 1000.
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into believing the citizens of their country have already heard and understood the gospel. “There are churches in every neighbourhood in New Zealand,” some argue, “and we have Christian TV and radio. Surely everyone in the nation has heard the gospel?” George Barna makes a comment on the situation in the USA which applies to other countries too: “We may confidently say that most, if not all, adults have been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he writes. “We may also suggest everyone has access to the gospel. But we may not conclude that everyone has actually heard and understood the gospel. Until we present the message in ways that penetrate the consciousness of the people we seek to influence for Christ, we have not truly communicated. We have only made noise.”6 I would contend with Barna at this point. It would be more accurate to say “Most non-Christians have been exposed to Christianity as a religion” rather than “most adults have been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.” If by “the gospel of Jesus Christ” he means the gospel message, our research shows only 1% have heard it.7 Remember the vision of the waterfall which the Holy Spirit gave me which I wrote about in Mini Book One? Would other Western countries fare any better than our 1%? What would Jesus say if He audited our efforts to fulfil His priority command in Mark 16:15? Should we be content that 99 percent of people in our country go to a Christless eternity, never once having heard and understood the gospel? A church in every neighbourhood with a billboard outside 6
George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, p.41
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We know this because we now evangelised tens of thousands of non-Christians. We often ask them after we have presented the gospel “have you ever heard this message or anything like this message before?” Over 95 percent say “No.”
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gives a Christian presence but those who read what’s on it, no matter how clever the wording, could not be said to have been evangelised. Having Christian radio and TV in no way guarantees nonChristians are hearing and understanding the gospel. First, most don’t listen or watch. Secondly, usually only bits of the gospel are scattered through the various programmes, and it’s virtually impossible for nonChristians to put them all together to make sense of the whole gospel message. If we love them, we’ll want to put the gospel message together for them. This essentially is what it means to “love our neighbour” (Matthew 12:31). Paul’s aim was to make the gospel plain (Ephesians 3:8-9).
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evice 67. To lull leaders into thinking that successful evangelism initiatives mean we are successful with evangelism.
Successful evangelism initiatives can give a false impression. They can lull us into thinking the world is being successfully evangelised. Alpha is an example. As brilliant as Alpha is, its emphasis is not mobilising and equipping Christians to proclaim the gospel.8 8 I would encourage every church to do Alpha, a programmee God is using wonderfully around the world. The challenge is finding sufficient non-Christians to attend the course. Non-Christians are invited in two ways: 1). Christians invite their non-Christian friends and associates. 2). Non-Christians that attend the course invite other non-Christians. Both groups usually have no trouble inviting their friends, family and workmates. But after they have exhausted the pool of people they know, what then? Personal evangelism is a good adjunct to programmees like Alpha because it provides a means for Christians to access the pool of total strangers. In our experience, non-believers in this pool fall into one of three categories. The first group represents those whom we approach and who politely indicate they don’t want to know anything about Christianity. This group would represent about 5 percent of the population. We will not be held accountable for group one because at least we tried to reach them with the gospel. The second group is open to hearing the gospel. At the end of a presentation, they indicate they understand it and appreciate the Christian taking the time to come to them, but they want to think about it some more before making a decision. They would not be interested immediately in attending a course like Alpha. This group represents about 75 percent of the population. The third group is interested in going further immediately, and would attend an Alpha course or similar
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Do we really comprehend how limited our present evangelism efforts are? I fear not. Let’s take New Zealand as an example. There are roughly 250,000 born-again believers in a population of about five million (5 percent). Say each believer has five people in their sphere of influence and that each of these 250,000 believers brings his or her five non-Christian friends to an Alpha course. As such, we are going to reach 1.25 million people with the gospel. Who will reach the other 3.75 million? New converts from Alpha may be enthusiastic evangelisers at first, but the reality is that most people who have been Christians for a while come to fear mentioning their faith in public, so they hesitate to invite others to a brilliant programme like Alpha. Anyone who has organised an Alpha course will tell you it’s a major challenge to get Christians to bring non-Christians along. The solution? Let’s remain passionate about Alpha, but let’s prioritise mobilising all believers for personal evangelism. I believe this would put programmes like Alpha on turbo. I have found too that most pastors love programs like Alpha because it creates new converts for their church, but these same pastors have little enthusiasm for the idea of evangelising the world generally because the new converts might end up in someone else’s church! i.e. they are more interested in building their kingdom, rather than THE Kingdom.
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evice 68. To persuade leaders that using tools to proclaim the gospel reduces evangelism to a formula, and that “formulas are not of God.”
We have already ascertained that the gospel message has a fixed content. In the ministry I direct, we have taken this content and developed tools which help Christians stay on track as they if invited. This group makes up the remaining 20 percent of the population and its members are hearing the gospel twice – first when a Christian presents it to them on the first encounter, and secondly at Alpha. With the third group, the church has found a way of identifying fresh non-believers to attend its courses. In reaching all three groups, evangelism is happening and people in all three groups are hearing the gospel.
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deliver it. We need to adjust the delivery slightly with each person, contextualising it, but the content of the gospel message is essentially the same for every person. And yes, a fixed body of content, delivered over and over again, is a formula. There are some Christians who believe formulas and tools are suspect, however, and won’t use them. Is there a biblical foundation to their reasoning? No, there is not. Think about this.
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illy Graham repeated some of his messages over and over…
Billy Graham and other great evangelists often recycle many of their messages, and each time God blesses these mightily. With Billy Graham, there have been thousands in each audience, each person with a different need, culture, life experience and background, and yet the same message has touched a huge proportion of people. We have to conclude that God does not withdraw His blessing when a message has been used before – even many times before.
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octrinal formulations are ok, says John Stott…
Dr John Stott writes: “I have heard it said that we should ‘seek to impart the minimum of truth’ and point to Christ as the way without doctrinal formulation. With this viewpoint the apostles would certainly have disagreed. Their presentation of the gospel was remarkably rich in intellectual content. They reasoned with people out of the Scriptures and sought to persuade them of the truth of their message.”9
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hy I became frustrated with “witnessing”…
For years I went out to witness on the streets on Friday or Saturday night. I was taught as a new Christian that sharing your faith was about having ‘God’ conversations with people and trying to turn the conversation gently around to spiritual things, e.g. “Have you had any church background?” or, “What do you think
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Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. IVP, 1997, pp.54-55
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about spiritual things?” I call this “free-wheeling evangelism.” After a decade of doing this I came to some conclusions. Most of the conversations I had with people about God were just that: conversations about God. General conversation, which I initiated, generally led quickly to the non-Christian asking a question such as, “What about all the suffering in the world?” Before I knew it I was on the back foot, answering hard questions. Discussions or debates about certain topics became the norm: the problem of pain, the suffering in the world, wherever there is religion there is war, immorality in the priesthood, church leaders who just want your money, where did God come from, evolution, the big bang, and so on. Often it was hard, if not impossible, to prevent the discussion from drifting towards points of difference, which I tried to avoid at all costs. I found the old adage to be true: “If you win the argument, you lose the person.” Occasionally I’d also end up counselling people hurt by other Christians. But whether it was essentially counselling or simply talking about points of difference, after we had said goodbye I increasingly found myself wondering, “did that person really hear and understand the gospel?” The answer, I had to concede, was no. I had often done good works for non-Christians, too. I had carried their shopping, mowed their lawns, cleaned their gutters, planted their trees and babysat their children. I had good conversations about God with those I was helping, but when I returned home I asked the same question. “Had these people heard the full gospel?” Again, I had to be honest and say “no.”
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hy formulas help when evangelising...
Since receiving training in evangelism and using good tools which presents the essential gospel, my success in evangelism (i.e. actually proclaiming the gospel or spreading it) has increased 21
remarkably. This is because: 1. I have confidence that what I am about to say will be understood by the non-Christian and that it is faithful to the Scriptures. The tool I use has been well thought out and carefully crafted, well in advance of the delivery. 2. The presentation I give via the tool is based on experience in communicating with non-Christians, plus an extensive study of Scripture. 3. The sequence of truths presented through the tool has already been tested with tens of thousands of people and its effectiveness proven. 4. With the tool, there is no room for me to get side-tracked by my listener. I can stay in control of the event. This does not mean I’m not prepared to listen sensitively to the non-Christian I am talking with, or to answer their questions. God forbid! What it means is that I stay on track. 5. Conversely, with good tools, the listeners don’t feel their time is being wasted with pointless debate or disorganised waffle. 6. By using tools, non-Christians appreciate that you have honoured and valued them by taking time beforehand to prepare your message. 7. By using tools, you are conforming to the instruction of Jesus in Matthew 13:23, which exhorts Christians to ensure listeners understand the gospel. 8. Listeners will more likely “connect” with the message because they have understood it. It is my view that the extent to which they understand determines the extent to which Jesus is glorified. 9. With good tools, the presentation asks and then answers many questions non-Christians have. So it is relevant and interesting. 10. With good tools, the message is faithful to the Bible. Nothing important is left out, and nothing unimportant is included. 11. I can be confident that any hard questions asked by my listener can be handled easily. At the back of the follow-up booklet10 which I give away each time the gospel is presented, there is a website address with answers. 10 How to be Sure of Going to Heaven When We Die. You can view the content of this booklet by going to our homepage at www.esisite.com.
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At the end of the presentation, non-Christians occasionally say something like, “Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. That was so clear” or “Wow! That was so powerful.” They then often reveal deep issues in their lives. Such things rarely happened in many, many years of free-wheeling evangelism. Good tools, then, which formulate the gospel message, can really help Christians succeed with evangelism.11 Anything that does that has to be “of God.”
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evice 69. To persuade Christian leaders and churches to invest heavily in oversea’s missions and missionaries as a substitute for evangelising their own back yard.
There are some leaders and churches who unwittingly drift into thinking that they are doing evangelism if they support someone else who is doing it. I call this ‘evangelism by proxy’, where we fund someone else to do what we ourselves should be doing. No thinking Christian would object to the idea of supporting overseas’ missions and missionaries, but neither would a true Christian pass on their personal responsibility for evangelism to someone else. Let me say it again - if you are a pastor/leader in a Western Church, your responsibility before God is to do evangelism yourself, and to mobilise 100% of the people in your church to do the same. If some end up overseas as missionaries, well and good. Dr Leighton Ford said, “North American churches are mission-centred rather than witness-centred. Absorbed in supporting missionaries overseas, they become irrelevant in their witness at home. Is it possible that a church’s missionary 11 Yes, there are some who don’t need a tool in order to effectively communicate the gospel. These people are usually Ephesians 4:11-12 evangelists, the minority group in the Church. The challenge for this group is to train the majority how to evangelise. This is where good tools are so vital.
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programme could become an idol to the detriment of evangelistic zeal [at home]?”12 In my own country there are some churches which have unwittingly drifted into adopting this device of the enemy. Jesus said we should never neglect personally evangelising our own community, no matter how passionate we are to support oversea’s missions and missionaries. Indeed, He said we should make it a priority (Acts 1:8). It’s not “evangelise overseas” or “evangelise the local area.” The Biblical ideal is to be passionate about both, and getting 100% of the people in your church passionate about both.
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evice 70. To spread the idea that “if Jesus didn’t spell out what the gospel was, then surely it can’t be a specific message we all need to proclaim?”
I have sometimes heard a Christian say something like this: “Jesus told His followers to go and preach the gospel, and He said He had come to preach the gospel, yet we don’t ever see Jesus explaining exactly what it is. Why is this? We can piece the gospel together when we look at the whole New Testament, but if it was so important, why didn’t Jesus spell it out clearly and simply for us as He did with the Lord’s prayer?”
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t was so obvious, it did not need to be spelled out…
Certainly, in the first four books of the New Testament, the biographies of Jesus, He does not clearly define the content of the gospel in one brief definition. The reason? Jesus was the gospel. Therefore, to find out what “the gospel” is we have to study Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. When we do this, we find there are three different aspects to the gospel: works, effects, and words. I explained the difference 12 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Rowe, 1976, p.21
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between these three in Mini Books Eleven and Five. In these Mini Book Series, I noted that “evangelism” has to do with the words of the gospel. As we read the rest of the New Testament, we see that the gospel message proclaimed by Jesus in the four gospels is fleshed out in the Epistles. When Jesus commanded the disciples to proclaim the gospel, it must have been so obvious to them what He meant, that the gospel writers did not need to write it out in one tidy, succinct passage. Let me illustrate. I have been living at the same home address for a number of years. If someone at my home phones me while I am out, and asks me to come home, they don’t say “Julian, come home to 123 John Street, Smithsville, Auckland, New Zealand. Postcode 45678. Your house is the third on the left, next to the house with a green roof.” It is so obvious to me and the caller what the instruction means, that the detail is unnecessary. In summary, just because Jesus didn’t clearly define the gospel in one succinct passage does not mean there is not a definite gospel to proclaim or spread. In Mini Book Six we saw how scholars concluded the gospel could be defined. So don’t worry that Jesus didn’t spell it out. There are other foundational doctrines of the Christian Church which Jesus did not spell out clearly too yet we accept them as vital and formulate our teaching around them e.g. the doctrine of the Trinity.
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evice 71. To persuade Christian leaders that accountability in evangelism is not necessary.
To set up accountability structures in your church to monitor who is doing evangelism and who isn’t is one of the most powerful strategies from heaven in the war for souls. If there is one thing God wants you to do, it’s this. 25
One of the reasons the enemy has been so successful in hindering evangelism in the West is that we have failed to be accountable for our evangelism and so we have had no way of measuring our evangelistic effectiveness. As a result, the enemy has been free to work his many devices unhindered. No one has noticed that so few are proclaiming. Can you imagine a business which never cashed up each night to see whether the money in the till matched the sales? Or owners who never did a stocktake, or kept records of debtors and creditors? Employees could steal unhindered and unnoticed, and financial disaster would be inevitable. In our churches there are some things we do measure. For example, we count: • how many new people are coming to the service • how many new people are coming to the various ministries • how many people are coming back • how many people are finding Christ • how many people are being baptised • how many people are involved in ministry • how many people attend training • how much money is given each week But where is accountability with respect to evangelism, the most critical measure of all? The measure which most interests Jesus? Many leaders have absolutely no idea whether their people are proclaiming or spreading the gospel, and the people in the pews have no idea whether we leaders are doing it either! I have met leaders who are living in denial about the percentage of the people in their church who are active in evangelism. “I would say about 10%” one leader told me one day. “How do you know?” “Just my knowledge of my church” he said. The truth? He didn’t have a clue about who was doing evangelism and who wasn’t. How do I know this? One thing about those doing evangelism is that they love to hang out with each other. They gravitate towards each other. There is tremendous camaraderie between those doing evangelism. Everyone 26
doing evangelism knows this. Now, I knew the evangelist in this pastor’s church. He was a great guy and a very good evangelist, yet no one in that church ever came to this dear man to share their stories and encounters in evangelism. Rather, the people in the church steered clear of him! This was the clearest sign ever that no one in this pastor’s church was doing evangelism. Furthermore, this pastor hadn’t ever defined evangelism or ‘the gospel’ for his people, so how could he possibly accurately gauge who in his church was doing evangelism and who wasn’t? The conclusion of the matter is this - this pastor was living in la la land with respect to his “10% of my people are doing evangelism” statement. He was trying to hide his shame. His 10% figure was a fig leaf. I have already reported in Mini Book Fourteen what the research says about the need for accountability if we want to succeed with evangelism, but I will state it again as an important reminder: “If there was a single characteristic that separated the pastors of effective churches from other pastors,” wrote Thom Rainer after concluding his research, “it was the issue of accountability in personal evangelism.”13
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ow to be accountable in evangelism…
What can we do to become accountable in evangelism? One idea is to use “Great Commission Surveys” on Sunday mornings. Let me explain. When people enter the auditorium, they are given a piece of paper along with their bulletin / Sunday morning notices. On this paper are two headings: Proclaiming the Gospel and Spreading the Gospel. Church attenders write a number under each heading, indicating how many non-Christians to whom they have proclaimed the gospel, and how many to whom they have spread the gospel. The survey is anonymous. Once the numbers are written on the paper, they are collected with the offering and counted at the back of the church. At the end of the service, the leader announces the result, how it compared with the previous 13 Thom S. Rainer. Evangelism And Church Growth. Zondervan. 2001, p.162
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