Evangelism

 I wanted to write out some things I've learned about evangelism and mention a couple mistakes I've made. As Christians we are called to share the gospel with others, this can be a daunting task for some, but it really shouldn't be that difficult.

1. When evangelizing keep it simple. I don’t mean to dumb the gospel down, but I do mean keep it simple so people can understand it.  One mistake that I made was that I thought I had to include absolutely every theological word when I would witness to someone. I had to explain justification, propitiation, etc. While these terms are immensely important, to unbelievers they do not mean anything. When you witness to someone it might be as simple as saying, “Look Christ died to save sinners, everyone must trust in Christ for forgiveness of sins.”  Remember it is not our words that do the converting; rather God makes someone understand and trust Christ. Remember when you first trusted Christ? Did the person or preacher who explained the gospel to you make it hard to understand? I remember when I first trusted Christ, I just knew that Christ died for sinners, and I knew I was a sinner. It is that simple. 


2. When evangelizing do not use one method. It is simply dumb to use only one method when witnessing to all types of people with different backgrounds. For example, we only have to look at the way Jesus evangelized different people. He was very different with the woman at the well than the rich young ruler. I don’t mean that we change the message, but we must be open to the fact that we will be dealing with different people, with different religious backgrounds. With a Catholic you will have to really press on justification by faith alone, not of works (Ephesians 2:8-9). With a professing Christian who is not truly converted, who may have a correct understanding of the gospel, but really not treasuring Christ, you will have to deal with him or her in a different way. Act accordingly with what you know about the person. 


3. When evangelizing it is very important to build relationships first. To clarify I do not mean that witnessing to random people is not important, it is, however I have not seen much good come out of it.  I have witnessed to many random people, invited them to Bible studies, but they never seem to come. If you are struggling with boldness witnessing to random people will help with that, but building relationships with people for the purpose of sharing the gospel is a really good way to share the love of Christ.


4. When evangelizing be normal. Let’s face it witnessing to an unbeliever can be very awkward. People love themselves and do not like when someone tells them that they are a sinner.  But the best tip I ever received on witnessing was to be normal.  It doesn't sound too hard, but I've found it really helps. What do you do when you have a normal conversation about the weather with someone? Do the same when you are witnessing.