BOOK 23. Friendship Evangelism. What's good about it, and what's heretical?

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

FRIENDSHIP EVANGELISM. WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT, AND WHAT IS HERETICAL?

Copyright Julian Batchelor Evangelism Strategies International Press Auckland New Zealand

3

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

4

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.

5

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!

6

Friendship Evangelism.

What’s Good About It, And What Is Heretical?

M

aking friends with non-Christians is a strategy from heaven.

The practice of intentionally making friends with nonChristians is a great thing. When we make friends, we might invite some of them to dinner, take them fishing, spend time talking to them about their lives or introduce them to other Christian friends by bringing them to church.

Many people have been saved through a Christian bringing their non-Christian friend to church where they have heard the gospel and responded. The strategy of deliberately making friends with non-Christians includes putting on interesting events at church (e.g. a mid-winter Christmas dinner) to which visitors can come.

Making friends with non-Christians has many positive spin-offs: 1. we set up an environment of trust.

2. we gain opportunities for ongoing contact.

3. there is a basis for mutual sharing.

4. common interests can be developed.

5. our Christian message can be authenticated through our lives.

For these five reasons, without a shadow of a doubt I firmly believe all Christians ought to intentionally make friends with non-Christians.

Unfortunately though, there is a problem with so called “friendship 7

evangelism.”

The problem lies not with making friends (obviously), but with the term “friendship evangelism” itself.

It is hindering world evangelism.

NE: The term has caused many Christians to believe that if they are making friends with a non-Christian, they are evangelising…

As we’ve already seen, to evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel. In friendship evangelism, if a Christian was actively pursuing a friendship with a non-Christian with the purpose of bringing him or her to faith, the exercise was still called “evangelism,” whether or not the gospel was actually presented to the friend or not. This led some Christians to believe they were evangelising when they were not, and removed, in their minds, the need to actually present the gospel to their friends.

As we saw in Mini Book Thirteen, this misconception is the kind the enemy is keen to propagate. He loves to see us classifying friendship-development as “sowing” when in fact it is a “ploughing” and “watering” activity.

WO: A vital aspect of friendship evangelism is the idea that nonChristians will not accept the gospel until we have established a relationship with them…

We debated different aspects of this idea in Mini Book Ten, and concluded that friendship is not a necessary prerequisite for the blessing of God on the gospel. This issue is so important and relevant to the subject of friendship evangelism, that I want to briefly expand on what I said in Mini Book Ten. If you believe non-Christians will come to faith only through an established relationship with a Christian, it can put you off proclaiming the gospel. It makes you think, “I don’t have time to establish friendships with many non-Christians and so there’s no way I can do evangelism.”

O

T

8

Or “I only have one non-Christian friend and so he’d be the only one I could evangelise.”

Just think of all the people we meet in the course of an ordinary day, including at gas stations, shops, schools and around the neighbourhood. We would not class all these people as friends, but would we choose not to share a gospel tract or booklet or www. biblein11.com card with them because of this?

Jesus did not say, “I came to seek and save My friends.” Rather He said, “I came to seek and save the lost.” If the mandate of the Church is “to evangelise everyone, everywhere,”1 friendship evangelism would make it impossible to do this. For one thing, the Christian population in most Western countries, as a percentage of the general population, is tiny. There are just not enough of us to be friends to all the non-Christians out there. For another, many Christians, especially as they age, have few, if any, non-Christian friends.

M

edical doctor testifies: “I gave the gospel to a complete stranger and she came to Christ.”

I received an email from a guy called Scott which supports my argument. Scott is a medical doctor. He gave me an account of when he shared the gospel with a non-Christian woman named Karen outside a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand. Prior to this meeting, he did not know her. Two years after he shared with Karen he received an email from her. She had been able to contact him because of the email address he had written in the follow-up booklet he had given to her after presenting the gospel. Here’s what she wrote: “Hi! Is this Scott Cameron? My name is Karen. You won’t know me but I want to thank you. I think it was about two years ago you 1 Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.248

9

were witnessing outside Pak ‘n’ Save on Lincoln Road.

I wasn’t really interested when you presented the gospel to me two years ago but I listened to what you said and I am so grateful.

Now I’m living my life for Jesus. I’m so grateful for people like you who broke the ground and sowed the seeds. [Since you shared the gospel with me] I met another girl who led me through the prayer of salvation. I grew increasingly hungry for God. [My heart] was broken through hearing the Word. So be encouraged that you may not lead the person to Christ but you are planting things in them so that in God’s time it will happen.

I was cleaning my room and found the book you gave me, with your email address in it. So I wanted to let you know that what you do by witnessing to people is so great.

Thank you, Karen.”

Karen knew nothing about Scott. No prior friendship had been established. She didn’t know he was a doctor; she had no idea whether he was a good, kind person. He had not built up any credibility with her. He would not have called her his friend. But God saved Karen – through the power of the gospel which he spoke to her.

I

s this an isolated example? What does the research say?

Research shows that no matter how the question is asked, about 25-50 per cent of Christians first came to church without any established relationships.2 There were many factors which contributed to this. For example, after reading about Christianity, hearing a radio show, watching Christian TV, observing creation or reading the Bible by themselves, they decided to go to a church.

HREE: If we only give the gospel to our friends, and not also to strangers, we make it impossible to succeed with our priority, the evangelisation of the earth…

T

2 Thom S. Rainer. Surprising Insights From The Un-Churched And Proven Ways To Reach Them. Zondervan.

2000. p.79

10

The following is a recent email from a medical doctor called Rebekah who is a keen evangeliser. She writes: “Julian, I was wondering what you would say to leaders who supposedly have statistics that show that the Western world could be reached in “x” number of days if every Christian would just simply share the gospel with their friends? The reason I am asking is that although it is great people are being encouraged to evangelise, it is actually being given as proof that we shouldn’t talk to strangers but only to friends. Of course, I was able to say that 98 percent of the church in the West isn’t sharing, and so that is why there is a need to be talking to strangers as well as friends. But I am also sceptical that every non-Christian has a Christian friend. From first-hand experience throughout my teenage years as a non-Christian, I had no Christian friends. What do you think?”

We all know Rebekah is absolutely right.

To answer her fully, I asked her to imagine the following. Say you chose two people to pour your energies into. You played golf with them, went to the gym with them, invited them for meals, looked out for their needs, prayed for them, took them to church, and so on. You valued their friendship and felt that you genuinely loved them. At the end of the first year, both of them became Christians.3

D

oing the maths…

Say you put an average of five hours a week into these two friends in order to get them to the point where they became Christians. That equates to around 250 hours a year, or 15,000 minutes. With the tools we have developed in our ministry, it takes only a few seconds to spread the gospel to somone, and about 5 3 Actually, the talk on the street about the concept of friendship evangelism is mixed. Many people have seen great success with this strategy. Friends and relatives have been befriended and saved into the Church.

Other Christians are feeling very frustrated and disillusioned. They have been ‘working the friendship with someone’ for years, and there has been little or no movement towards conversion.

11

minutes to proclaim it.4 How many non-Christians could you have shared the gospel with in 15,000 minutes?5 Three thousand.

If I were a farmer with two fields, and into one I planted only two seeds, and the other 3,000, which one do you think would yield the best result?

In light of the Mission of the Church, which is to proclaim or spread the gospel in all the earth for the glory of God, so that every person on earth hears and understands the message, which approach is more effective? You know the answer.

Some might reply, “Well, if all the Christians in the West focussed on three non-Christian friends and gave the gospel to them, we could evangelise the world in no time!” What are we to make of this? In most Western countries apart from the US, the Christian population hovers at five to ten percent of the general population.

Take the ten percent figure. With three friends each, we could reach 30 percent of the non-Christian population. Who is going to reach the other 60 percent?

There are other factors to consider. First, most Christians progressively lose all their non-Christian friends as they age.

Secondly, many Christians who do have non-Christian friends don’t want to share the gospel with them for fear of losing their friendship. All things considered, to think that we can evangelise the whole world by focussing only on people we know is sheer fantasy.

I had people reply to this argument by saying, “Well, if the 30 percent we befriend are all saved, the Christian population would climb to 40 percent. If this 40 percent befriended two nonChristians each, the job is done!” How should we reply? If we cannot mobilise current Christians for evangelism, the thought of 4 There are of course many other ministries that have developed great tools to help Christians proclaim the gospel.

5 Please do not misunderstand me here. I am not advocating number crunching. God forbid. But the fact remains, Jesus has made it clear to us what our priority ought to be - to evangelise the earth. Some things are going to hinder us achieving this goal, and some things are going to help.

12

mobilising a hypothetical army of new Christians is as likely as my budgie launching a successful space shuttle program. Why do some Christians default to fantasy when it comes to explaining away why they are not evangelising?

What is the best strategy? Make lots of non-Christian friends, always share the gospel with them when the time is right, and make the sacrifice to give the gospel on a regular basis to strangers also.

G

iving the gospel to friends as well as people we don’t know is the ideal...

If we focus on getting the gospel to the people we don’t know as well as the people we do, and promoting the idea of making friends and bringing them to church, then evangelising the world is entirely feasible. Take New Zealand as an example.

As I outlined in Mini Book Eleven, there are said to be around 250,000 genuine Christians in New Zealand, which has a population of about five million. If these 250,000 communicated the gospel clearly to a non-Christian once a week, we could evangelise the whole nation in less than 20 weeks.

Evangelising in this way would be like pouring spiritual petrol over the whole nation. Once everyone has clearly heard and understood the gospel, and the message is delivered with love and grace, we have an intelligent reason – a truly biblical/spiritual reason – to pray, fast, and intercede earnestly for a spark of the Holy Spirit to ignite each of the seeds planted, and maybe we could have an unprecedented harvest of souls such as we have never seen before in our country.

I say “maybe” because we cannot say what God will do.

He is the Lord of the harvest. But one thing is certain. As with an insurance policy, if we do not fulfil the conditions for a claim, we also have to accept that the company will not honour the claim.

D

on’t make evangelising the world impossible to complete…

Given that the population of the world increases every day by 13

260,0006; that most of those are not born into Christian families; that 98 percent of Christians in the West are not evangelising; that Christians are already a minority in the West, and that many Christians don’t have a non-Christian friend they are actively evangelising; then evangelising the world by means of friendship evangelism is well-nigh impossible.

I know God can do the impossible. But we shouldn’t presume on what He might do.

Unless all Christians are mobilised for evangelism, to reach all people including those with whom we do not have a friendship, we will never complete the Great Commission.

OUR: Some advocates of “friendship evangelism” discourage Christians from giving the gospel to non-Christians, telling them to ‘Just love non-Christians as they are…’

The idea here is that sharing the gospel is not loving - it’s ramming religion down people’s throats or invading their privacy. What are we to make of this? This has a ring of truth about it, but it’s actually another device of the enemy. Yes, we are to proclaim or spread the gospel in ways which are loving and gracious, never ramming down people’s throats. Yes, we are to time things rightly so that we can never be accused of invading someone’s privacy. Yes, we are to love and accept nonChristians “just as they are,” but we are not to leave them like that. How can a genuine Christian have a friendship with a nonChristian person and not want to see them saved?

Furthermore, “love” and sharing the gospel with our friends ought to go hand in hand. In fact, if we have no desire to see our friends saved, via sharing the gospel with them, we do not really love them at all, for true love would want their highest good, which is their salvation. To want them saved is to “love our neighbour as ourselves” (Matthew 22:39).

F

6

Dr Ron Blue. Evangelism And Missions. Strategies For Outreach. Word Publishing, 2001, p.210

14

Charles Spurgeon contended that loving God, loving people, and evangelism were inseparable.

“The love of God is first,” he wrote, “but this by no means lessens the obligation of love to man; in fact, the first command includes the second. We are to seek our neighbours’ conversions because we love them, and we are to speak to them, in loving terms, God’s loving gospel, because our heart desires their eternal good.”7 If just loving people “as they are” was the best way to win people, why did Paul call the gospel “...the power of God for salvation?” He should have said “Loving people just the way they are is the power of God for salvation.” And what about Jesus? If loving people just the way they were was the best way to win the lost, He would have said “Go into the world and love people just as they are” rather than “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.”

IVE: “Research” about friendship evangelism may be misleading…

Research is often produced by those promoting friendship evangelism which concludes that most people come to faith through a friend or a family member.

But the conclusions are very misleading.

Let me explain.

First, if most Christians talk only with friends and family members about Christianity, as opposed to total strangers, which is what research reveals, it is no wonder the research finds most people come to Christ that way.

If there is only one horse in the race,8 we shouldn’t be surprised when it wins.

Please think this through before basing the evangelism strategy

F

7

Charles H. Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Focus Publication, 1992, p.14

8 I am not suggesting that other strategies for evangelism do not exist. People who walk into church, television evangelism, crusade evangelism etc are other points where non-Christians can be evangelised.

15

of your church on “research shows making friends is the best way to win the world.”

If you were a non-Christian (e.g. Peter) and you became vitally interested in Christianity through a TV programme, book, or radio message, what would you most likely do? You’d seek out a friend, a workmate or a neighbour or someone you knew who was a Christian and talk to them.

In turn, they would most likely take you to church where you would be led to Christ or they would lead you to Christ themselves.

The research might suggest your friend was the critical factor in your conversion.

But, in reality, God was working in Peter’s life long before he went to his Christian friend (e.g Andrew).

Other research suggests most people need five to seven positive experiences of Christianity before making a decision.9 This being so, how can we so quickly attribute a conversion to a friend or a family member? The “Christian friend” may simply have been the last link in a long chain of events. There is a second reason why we need to be cautious about this friendship evangelism research.

Other reputable research appears to challenge its findings. For example, Thom Rainer and his team found 20 to 50 percent of non-Christians who came to church did so without any previous relationship with a Christian.10 Other factors drew them there.

Furthermore, I imagine that when this 20 to 50 percent wandered into a church, they would most probably have made a Christian friend who eventually led them to Christ. Yet the research about friendship evangelism would attribute the conversion to the work of the Christian friend. So what can we conclude? Many factors 9

Laurence Singlehurst. People-Sensitive Evangelism. Crosssway Books, 1995, p.26

10 Thom S. Rainer. Surprising Insights From The Un-Churched And Proven Ways To Reach Them. Zondervan.

2000. p.79

16

influence a person’s coming to faith in Christ and we ought to be cautious not to attribute their salvation to the work of the last person in the line.

Many pastors have built their entire evangelism strategy solely on the foundation of this ‘research’ and the New Testament mandate to mobilise everyone in their church to proclaim or spread the gospel to strangers has been sidelined. Yes, the research has fuelled their resolve to befriend non-Christians, which is a great thing, but hindered their efforts to evangelise the world, which is a disasterous thing. ix: Churches can grow rapidly through “friendship evangelism” with very little evangelism having taken place…

A church leader and I were discussing church growth one day. He said, “Most of the churches which are large and flourishing say they have achieved their growth by promoting the idea of making friends with non-Christians and bringing them to church. So that’s where we want to put our energies too.”

What are we to make of this? There is no doubt some churches are growing phenomenally – but the reasons, in my opinion, are generally not as clear-cut as this leader made out.

There are at least four explanations why some churches are expanding fast. First, some of the growth might be because the members of the fast-growing churches are making friends with people in more traditional, static churches and bringing them to the fast-growing ones.11 There are two types of people in static churches: those who are already saved, and those who are not. For those not saved, when the gospel is preached at the fast-growing church12 they respond. This is

S

11 I see nothing wrong with moving from a dead church to a living one where I am going to flourish and grow.

One would presume God made it clear that it was time to move i.e the person had a peace about the situation.

12 My experience is that the gospel is hardly ever preached in the mega churches. I attended a mega church for a number of years and have attended conferences at many others. My observation is that most people who respond to the altar calls in these churches are responed to anything but the gospel. Rather, they are responding to a feeling.

They are asked to respond to a message about something which is completely unrelated to the gospel, as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15. They are invited to “put their hand up if they feel something in their heart.” They are then told “this is God speaking to you.” I argue that this reasoning is specious in the extreme. I go to movies and feel someting in my heart, but that’s because my emotions are being stirred, not because God is speaking to me!

17

genuine church growth. But what about those who are already saved?

Their entry into the mega church is transfer growth.

A third category of people joining the fast-growing church are the previously unchurched. When they are genuinely saved and thus assimilated into the fast-growing church, they also represent genuine church growth. Finally, there is biological growth – existing church members having children. Only two out of the four ways a church grows have to do with evangelism.

So, are there other problems with attributing all church growth to “friendship evangelism?” The answer is “yes.”

Many leaders from large, fast-growing churches have been lulled into thinking that there is no need to mobilise their people to proclaim or spread the gospel.

They say their church is growing phenomenally just through people making friends with non-Christians and bringing them along.

They say “Why change a winning formula?”

How should we answer? First, the priority of the Church is not to grow the Church (believe it or not), but to evangelise the world for the glory of God. We should rely utterly and completely on God to build His Church (e.g. Matthew16:18 “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it”) , and focus instead on the priority of what He has clearly commanded us to do, which is to evangelise the world.

Second, a church can grow rapidly without any evangelism going on, just like a non-christian club can grow rapidly when existing members invite their non-member friends along to the club. What am I saying here? I am saying that people can join a church because their friends go there but this does not make them genuine Christians.

That is to say, there is a massive difference between joining a church (small “c”) and joining the Church (capitcal “C”). The former does not require a true conversion experience, but the latter does. Now here is the point - even if a church is growing rapidly through genuine conversions, and that same church is not mobilising all its people to 18

evangelise the world, that church will still be a disappointment to Jesus.

How does this truth relate to mega churches? I showed in Mini Book Fifteen how mega-churches could be 10 times more effective (literally) with God’s mission of the Church if they mobilised their people for personal evangelism.

If I was in business and someone showed me a way to be 10 times more profitable, I’d be a complete fool not to take on board what they were saying. So why don’t mega-churches mobilise their people into evangelism? They do not do so for all the reasons unveiled in this Mini Book Series, the main reason being that mega church leaders have lost sight of the mission of the church - or maybe they have never known it. In the final analysis, Jesus is interested in obedience to His commands (1 Samuel 15:22 “Obedience[doing His will as revealed in His Word] is better than sacrifice [growing a big church for all to see]”). A big church means little to him if that church is not helping to complete His mission. Rather, it’s a stench in His nostrils.

But there is something even more troubling here. Because “friendship evangelism,” mega-churches often hold seminars on how to grow churches, other church leaders who also want to grow their church copy their example. In this way, unwittingly, world evangelisation is hindered. The blind end up leading the blind, just as Jesus said.

Just imagine how much more fruitful these large, fast-growing churches would be if they retained their excellent strategy of making friends, but made a priority of mobilising their people to personally and regularly proclaim or spread the gospel as they went about the course of their ordinary day, 7 days a week?

The results would be spectacular. Most importantly, such a change would delight Jesus because these pastors would then be leading their people and a whole lot of people in a whole lot of other churches who come to their seminars and conferences into fulfilling 19

His priority, and not turning them away from it. Wow! Think how amazing that would be. Amen. even: Friendship evangelism infringes upon the integrity of relationships if our motive for the friendship is not exposed early.

Let me expalin. When we are making a friend for the purpose of seeing them saved, we ought to share our motives very early on. If we don’t, things can get ugly.

Our integrity will be infringed and Jesus’ name sullied. How so? What will be their reaction when they find out some time later that the only reason you were cultivating the friendship was to convert them to Christ? They will say to themselves “Hey, the principle reason you were being so friendly, nice, and kind is that you were trying to convert me.” How would that go down with your nonChristian friend? Think about it. If you’re honest, this is what you are doing.

The better way, God’s way, is to be up front and honest at the beginning of the friendship. How do we do this? Choosing our moment well, we’d say something like “Mary, I am a Christian. Can I share with you what I believe? What motivates me?” Then share the gospel with great love and grace. If this is done early in the friendship, then the problem of ugly hidden motives is not there. After you have shared the gospel with Mary, it will be obvious to her that you want her to find forgiveness and become a Christian as well. If Mary rejects you at this point, so be it. Really, she is not rejecting you, but Jesus. If she accepts you, then you know you can relax and move forwards with integrity in the friendship, because you have been up front, transparent, and honest about your motives from the start. In this way, you are putting God first, not the friendship (Matthew 6:33). By sharing the gospel early in a friendship, it puts the ball in His court as to who your friends will

S

20

be, and you will have preserved your integrity and the name of Jesus in your relationships.

I want to wrap this chapter up with a quote from a book on church planting by Steve Smith with Ying Kai. It is entitled “T4T A Discipleship Re Revolution” and is the story behind the world’s fastest growing Church Planting Movement.

T4T stands for training for trainers and obviously is all about multiplication. The quote is from pp 205-206. It’s a conversation between a church planter, and Steve Smith, the author of T4T. “Steve, for seven years, we bought the lie that we had to build relationships first and slowly reveal our Christian identity. It took us years. We saw ourselves as picking up rocks to prepare the field to hear the gospel. We would drop little nuggets of truth, but not really the gospel. As we developed these relationships and got very close to these lost friends, we got nervous about sharing the gospel. We thought, ’What if they reject us?’ We began to forget the reason we were there.

“Finally, after seven years of no fruit, we got desperate. We shared the gospel with these friends, and they almost all rejected us. That’s when we realized that our approach of ‘relationship evangelism’ was getting us nowhere. We resolved as a team to share the gospel first, and build relationships afterwards.

“We started sharing everywhere.

We bridged into gospel conversations with as many people as we could. A lot of people didn’t respond. But we finally began to find some that said ‘yes’ and it is through these new believers that God is starting to build His kingdom.”

S

ummary

• L et’s continue to vigorously promote making friends with non-Christians.

• Let’s call making friends with non-Christians “ploughing” and “watering” rather than evangelism.

• Let’s not use the term “friendship evangelism.” It is confusing 21

• • • • • •

•

• •

many Christians, and as such is hindering evangelism.

Let’s keep bringing non-Christians to church.

Let’s not rely solely on the speaker at the front of the church to do all the evangelism. Let’s help the speaker at the front by mobilising all believers for personal evangelism.

Building relationships, and bringing non-Christians to church do not constitute “evangelism” unless the gospel has been proclaimed to them or given to them via a tract.

It is not necessary to build a relationship with a non-Christian person in order for the gospel to be effective.

Rarely does God use one factor alone to save people.13 “Loving people as they are” is a great general principle for relationship building. However, Christian love does not leave people where they are, but seeks to bring them into vital relationship with Jesus Christ through sharing the gospel.

The ideal evangelism strategy is to present the gospel to people we know and people we don’t. It is not either/or – it is both. Jesus has given us the authority to vigorously evangelise everyone (Matthew 28:18).

Friendship evangelism can compromise the integrity of a friendship if the gospel is not shared very early on.

CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Mini Book to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Mini Book, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file.

You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. Help others come to an awareness of the serious issues raised in this Mini Book . Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF. If you are reading a hard copy, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite.com.

A

13 Dr Thom S. Rainer. Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions Evangelism and Church Growth.

Surprising Insights From The Un-Churched And Proven Ways To Reach Them. Zondervan, 2001, p.78

22

•

A

CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them.

Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue.

In the next Mini Book, I explore how evangelists with the Ephesians 4:11-14 gift are critical if we want to see a resurgence of evangelism in the Western Church.

Believe it or not, much of the blame for the birth of the Dark Age of Evangelism (this is what we are living in now) can be attributed fairly and squarely to evangelists who have drifted from their Godgiven job description.

Come with me to the next Mini Book, and I’ll explain what I mean.

23

Real Life Story

MINISTER’S WIFE GETS ANGRY Anonymous

This is what happened in an Auckland cafe one day.

Recently I was out and about evangelising and I noticed an elderly lady sitting alone in a cafe, with no one else near her.

I approached her in the same way as I have thousands of other people.

Getting eye contact first, I said (smiling and light and breezy) “Hi, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure” she said, smiling.

“What’s the best selling book of all time?”

“Mmm...you’ve got me thinking. OK, what is it?”

“It’s the Bible” I said, smiling.

Before I got any further she said “Are you evangelising me?”

“Yes” I said.

“Stop right there” she said. “I don’t agree with what you are doing. I think it’s entirely inappropriate to be going up to people, attempting to give them the gospel. I am a minister’s wife, retired now. I think the best way to win this world is to be the gospel with your life, going about doing good. What you are doing is intrusive.”

24

“No problem” I said (feeling very embarrassed). “Have a nice day.” I didn’t feel it would have been right to have had a debate with her on the spot as to the rights and wrongs of her theology, especially in a cafe.

I went back to my seat and sat down and resumed conversation with the person I was with.

Some time later (about 30 minutes later), when the person I was with went to move her car to avoid getting a ticket, the minister’s wife came over to me.

She let fly!

I got a finger wagging lecture about how going into the world and giving the gospel was inappropriate today, and how times had changed, and how people were not open anymore, and how I needed to follow her advice. She must have talked for a full 5 minutes without interruption.

She was a Baptist.

When she finally finished I challenged her as gently as I could.

“Thank you for your advice. But you know what? Jesus is God. He commanded us to go into the world and proclaim the gospel.

With all due respect, you are not God. So whose advice should I take?”

With that, her lips 25

pursed, and she scuttled off.

Later that day, I approached another person somewhere else in EXACTLY the same way as I had approached the minister’s wife, and I received A COMPLETELY different response. The person was open, responsive, hungry, and soft hearted. This person was a complete non-Christian.

What’s the lesson?

Julian’s comments.

When the 12 spies went up in Canaan to spy out the land in Numbers 13-14, 10 came back with a negative report, and the other two (Joshua and Caleb) were positive.

These two encouraged the Israelites to go up and take the land and the other 10 discouraged them to do this.

God affirmed Joshua and Caleb. Listen to this amazing verse: “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.” (Numbers 14:24) Wow! “The land” today is the non-church world. To “possess it” is to go into it with the gospel with the intention of winning as many as we can. Our job is to go with the gospel. God’s job is to grow the seed we plant.

When we do this, and with respect to the Great Commission, we are showing God we are “following Him fully”. He would say “we have a different spirit” compared to those who don’t go.

And what of the minister’s wife? Who is she in the account of the 12 spies?

You know the answer.

All I can say is I am thankful she is retired.

She now has minimal influence.

God wanted minimal influence for the 10 negative spies in Numbers 26

13-14 as well. This is why they are never heard of again after their mention in Numbers, but Joshua has a whole book dedicated to His life and what God did through Him! He showed such strength and courage!

His influence will live on forever, but the influence of the 10 negative spies ended abruptly. And it was God who ended it.

The biggest threat to world evangelism is not the devil or the world - it’s Christians inside the Christian Church discouraging their own from doing what God commanded.

Nothing has changed since the days of Joshua and Caleb. The 10 negative spies are in every church and often they are not as blatant in their negativity as the lady in the cafe. They operate subtly.

For example, sometimes they dress their negativity in RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE, saying things like “Let your light shine - this is the best way to win the world” or “Your life speaks louder than your words” and so on.

Or they dress their negativity in SUPPOSED WISDOM, saying things like “the time is not right for our church to evangelise” or 27

“we have found better ways of reaching the world than with the simple gospel” and so on and so on.

Or they dress their negativity in THEOLOGICAL GARB, arguing about what the gospel is and isn’t, or what evangelism is and isn’t.

They muddy the waters, making everything unclear and Christians uncertain.

Ultimately, driving all negativity are principalities and powers.

What pleases God is simple, child-like obedience (Matthew 18:3).

Jesus did not seem to tolerate excuses. “Let the dead bury the dead” He said (Luke 9:60).

The irony is that whatever garment the 10 spies in every church pull from the wardrobe of negativity, 99.9% don’t actually, physically, personally, regularly go to the lost with the gospel themselves.

And while we in the church are arguing this point and that, and debating one thing and another, the lost are pouring into hell, never having heard the gospel.

Friends, recognise the clothing of negativity and those who proffer it for what they are - what they say is not from God, just like the negative report from the 10 spies was not from God. Dismiss these reports, just like God did in Numbers.

The good news is that there are positive spies in every church!

The challenge for all of us is to find these people, stick close them, pray for them, learn from them, fund them, and go up with them to possess the land and walk into all God’s promises and blessings!

Now there’s a great thought.....!

28

(p.s being negative about a negative report is not being negative. On the contrary, it’s being positive :))

29

The Full List Of Books In ‘The Truth About Evangelism’ Mini Series Book One

Evangelism Lost! Exposing The True State Of Evangelism In Today’s Church

Book Two Seven Deadly Motives Exposing How The Enemy Is Shutting Down Evangelism.

Book Three

The Sorrowful Collapse Of The Great Commission- A Dangerous Redefining Of Evangelism

Book Four Evangelism Redefined? Six Subtle Yet Devastating Redefinitions Of Evangelism

Book Five Confusion Busters 7 Things You Should Know About The Gospel Message

Book Six

Six Ways To Move From Gospel Confusion To Gospel Clarity

Book Seven

The Evangelisation Of The World Is The Ulimate Purpose Of The Church. 7 Irrefutable Reasons It Is Time To Prioritise

Book Eight

A Gift, A Call, Or A Commission. Are All Christians Commanded To Evangelise

Book Nine

12 Keys To Fearless Evangelism In The 21St Century

Book Ten Take Them Down. 12 Road Blocks And How To Get Through Them

Book Eleven

The Key To Victory. Start Viewing Evangelism As An Event, Not A Process

Book Twelve

Confidence In The Gospel, Come Back! Four Essential Steps To Reclaiming Lost Ground!

30

Book Thirteen Prepare To Be Amazed! What Jesus Really Taught About Evangelism!

Book Fourteen

What Leaders Must Do To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

Book Fifteen

A Plan Of Action To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

Book Sixteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 1)

Book Seventeen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 2)

Book Eighteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 3)

Book Nineteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 4)

Book Twenty Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 5)

Book Twenty One

Climb On Board! 4 Reasons Why Doing Evangelism Will Help Create A Better World!

Book Twenty Two

Devastation! How Pseudo-Conversions Hinder Evangelism And What You Can Do To Stop The Rot!

Book Twenty Three

“Friendship evangelism.” What’s good about it, and what’s heretical?

Book Twenty Four

Unholy Grief! Five Ways Evangelists With The Gift Can Grieve The Holy Spirit

Book Twenty Five

The Highest Motive For Doing Evangelism? You’ll Be Amazed What The Bible Teaches!

Conclusion

Book Twenty Six Appendix One : If We Fail To Evangelise, We Fail. Period. By Dr K.P. Yohannan

Appendix Two : The Pastor Evangelist. By Dr. Roger S. Greenway

31

Appendix Three : True Gospel Must Be Heard, By Kevyn Harris

Appendix Four : This We Believe Signatories

Appendix Five : Device 84. “I don’t like being told to do evangelism!”

Book Twenty Seven The Evangelism Fitness Test

32