Should We Train People to Share Jesus?
A few days ago, I responded to the following tweet by @seventy8prod...
“If your church was putting together a digital evangelism training (sharing God online), what would need to be part of the "rules" to do it?”
Here is my response...
“Rule 1 Listen to Jesus & repeat what He says (Eph. 6:19-20).The more we train in evang. the less people evang.” @edwaken
My tweet was retweeted and a conversation began between myself and two guys I’ve never met in person. I love social media. Much can be lost in translation when you only have 140 characters to communicate profound ideas. I’m certain I totally missed what @seventy8prod was asking. In our 140 character conversations, I committed myself to writing a blog post to explain my understanding of the role of training in evangelism.
Defining Evangelism
Evangelism: simply stated, evangelism is sharing good news. Most Christians would say that they do not have the gift of evangelism or that they are not evangelists. When I hear this I strongly disagree with them. Everyone does evangelism for many things in their life. When we get excited about a good restaurant, we begin to tell people we know about the food, the service, the menu and the staff of this new restaurant. We might even write a short a review or rate this restaurant on various restaurant review sites. In essence, we become an evangelist (sharing the good news) about our new restaurant find. Evangelism is nothing more than telling people about the good news of life in Jesus. Every believer is to be an evangelizer for the good news of Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:19-20, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, Col. 4:5-6 etc).
Methods
Everyone has methods when it comes to evangelism. The question is should we be teaching methods and/or training people in evangelistic methodologies? I would say that it is fine to teach or train people in evangelistic methods...BUT...only if they first understand Jesus’ methods. Once this is understood, you may find you don’t need or want to teach other methods. Let me as briefly as possible unpack what I mean.
Paul had a method of going into synagogues to preach but that doesn’t mean that this method should be imitated or transferred. In today’s world, imitating Paul’s method would be equivalent to going into Kingdom Halls or Mormon Stakes upon entering a city to begin a dialogue. It may work for some, but it should not be prescribed as the ‘must use’ method or the method endorsed by the apostle Paul.
The world's systems needs methods to produce products or to perfect techniques. Spiritual tasks take on a different set of needs that have more to do with dependence, trust and weakness rather than control, consistency and production. When the disciples or a church try to apply enterprising techniques, we lose the flavor and excitement of the adventure and mystery that is meant to be experienced by following the Holy Spirit.
Jesus went about proclaiming the Kingdom of God (Luke 4:18) but he seemed to do it differently all the time. His approach with his disciples was different than he used with Nicodemus (John 3) or with the rich young ruler (Matt. 19), the woman at the well (John 4) or even the man born blind (John 9).
Here is what I believe Jesus’ secret was. He adjusted the message (the approach) to every person based upon what He heard from the Father (John 5:19-20). We then learn from the pen of Paul, that this is exactly what we are to be doing as well (1 Cor. 2:10-16, Eph. 6:18-19). In fact, Jesus taught his disciples that when we find ourselves in situations where the good news of Jesus can be shared, that God will actually give us the exact right words at the exact right time to have God’s exact right response for that interaction (Matt 10:18-20, Mark 13:9-11, Luke 21:12-15, Eph. 6:18-19).
No one has to train people how to share positive news about their good restaurant experience. It flows from their mouth naturally when the opportunity presents itself. Imagine actually engineering a course on how to tell people about good restaurant experiences. We really don’t need such a course.
As people begin to understand the Biblical promises about sharing faith in Jesus (see verses cited above), I believe there is less need to train people. As people believe that Jesus will actually give them the right words at the right time to meet the need of the hearer, it will bring freedom to their souls and cause their ear to be more in tune with what Jesus will be saying to them. When this basic principle is embraced, training people with the right order of truths to get a person to make a decision (training how to share your faith) begins to pale.
Training Often Equals Less Sharing
While I am not against training people with methods to share truth about Jesus, when we begin with this sort of training we often handcuff them (unintentionally) to the method(s) we present. These methods will always be artificial for most people. While most methods offer solid truth of the Gospel and are well intended to get people motivated and equipped to share Jesus with others, they are simply too complicated. Experience teaches us that most will abandon the method at some point. Even evangelistic systems that claim to be simple are often too complicated for many. When we train people in the or a ‘way’ to share their faith it can communicate that if you don’t do it right it won’t work or may lead people astray. When you lay the foundation of freedom to listen and follow Jesus’ whispers in your heart, then methods can be added and viewed as a tools to be used when lead by the Spirit.
This is getting long for a blog post so I’ll end it here. We have not even touched on what success in evangelism looks like or what our role and God’s role are in evangelism or even how to know we are hearing from God. Let’s tackle those topics another day.
You can listen to a bit more about my thoughts on evangelism by clicking HERE.
“If your church was putting together a digital evangelism training (sharing God online), what would need to be part of the "rules" to do it?”
Here is my response...
“Rule 1 Listen to Jesus & repeat what He says (Eph. 6:19-20).The more we train in evang. the less people evang.” @edwaken
My tweet was retweeted and a conversation began between myself and two guys I’ve never met in person. I love social media. Much can be lost in translation when you only have 140 characters to communicate profound ideas. I’m certain I totally missed what @seventy8prod was asking. In our 140 character conversations, I committed myself to writing a blog post to explain my understanding of the role of training in evangelism.
Defining Evangelism
Evangelism: simply stated, evangelism is sharing good news. Most Christians would say that they do not have the gift of evangelism or that they are not evangelists. When I hear this I strongly disagree with them. Everyone does evangelism for many things in their life. When we get excited about a good restaurant, we begin to tell people we know about the food, the service, the menu and the staff of this new restaurant. We might even write a short a review or rate this restaurant on various restaurant review sites. In essence, we become an evangelist (sharing the good news) about our new restaurant find. Evangelism is nothing more than telling people about the good news of life in Jesus. Every believer is to be an evangelizer for the good news of Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:19-20, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, Col. 4:5-6 etc).
Methods
Everyone has methods when it comes to evangelism. The question is should we be teaching methods and/or training people in evangelistic methodologies? I would say that it is fine to teach or train people in evangelistic methods...BUT...only if they first understand Jesus’ methods. Once this is understood, you may find you don’t need or want to teach other methods. Let me as briefly as possible unpack what I mean.
Paul had a method of going into synagogues to preach but that doesn’t mean that this method should be imitated or transferred. In today’s world, imitating Paul’s method would be equivalent to going into Kingdom Halls or Mormon Stakes upon entering a city to begin a dialogue. It may work for some, but it should not be prescribed as the ‘must use’ method or the method endorsed by the apostle Paul.
The world's systems needs methods to produce products or to perfect techniques. Spiritual tasks take on a different set of needs that have more to do with dependence, trust and weakness rather than control, consistency and production. When the disciples or a church try to apply enterprising techniques, we lose the flavor and excitement of the adventure and mystery that is meant to be experienced by following the Holy Spirit.
Jesus went about proclaiming the Kingdom of God (Luke 4:18) but he seemed to do it differently all the time. His approach with his disciples was different than he used with Nicodemus (John 3) or with the rich young ruler (Matt. 19), the woman at the well (John 4) or even the man born blind (John 9).
Here is what I believe Jesus’ secret was. He adjusted the message (the approach) to every person based upon what He heard from the Father (John 5:19-20). We then learn from the pen of Paul, that this is exactly what we are to be doing as well (1 Cor. 2:10-16, Eph. 6:18-19). In fact, Jesus taught his disciples that when we find ourselves in situations where the good news of Jesus can be shared, that God will actually give us the exact right words at the exact right time to have God’s exact right response for that interaction (Matt 10:18-20, Mark 13:9-11, Luke 21:12-15, Eph. 6:18-19).
No one has to train people how to share positive news about their good restaurant experience. It flows from their mouth naturally when the opportunity presents itself. Imagine actually engineering a course on how to tell people about good restaurant experiences. We really don’t need such a course.
As people begin to understand the Biblical promises about sharing faith in Jesus (see verses cited above), I believe there is less need to train people. As people believe that Jesus will actually give them the right words at the right time to meet the need of the hearer, it will bring freedom to their souls and cause their ear to be more in tune with what Jesus will be saying to them. When this basic principle is embraced, training people with the right order of truths to get a person to make a decision (training how to share your faith) begins to pale.
Training Often Equals Less Sharing
While I am not against training people with methods to share truth about Jesus, when we begin with this sort of training we often handcuff them (unintentionally) to the method(s) we present. These methods will always be artificial for most people. While most methods offer solid truth of the Gospel and are well intended to get people motivated and equipped to share Jesus with others, they are simply too complicated. Experience teaches us that most will abandon the method at some point. Even evangelistic systems that claim to be simple are often too complicated for many. When we train people in the or a ‘way’ to share their faith it can communicate that if you don’t do it right it won’t work or may lead people astray. When you lay the foundation of freedom to listen and follow Jesus’ whispers in your heart, then methods can be added and viewed as a tools to be used when lead by the Spirit.
This is getting long for a blog post so I’ll end it here. We have not even touched on what success in evangelism looks like or what our role and God’s role are in evangelism or even how to know we are hearing from God. Let’s tackle those topics another day.
You can listen to a bit more about my thoughts on evangelism by clicking HERE.
I would love to hear what you think. Leave a comment below and let's have a dialogue.
Hey, it is Jeremy (or @seventy8prod) and first, let me say a very well written article. So glad you took this idea from twitter to your blog. Very detailed and you explained yourself well.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I agree everyone that is a Christian is an evangelist for the faith. No choice in the matter. At the same time, our techniques should only be done after we fully understand and become passionate about our relationship with Jesus and not before. Even better, I agree that there is no one solid way to do evangelism as a "technique" because we make the other person a "sale number" and instead Jesus wants the heart of the person. Therefore, we have to be relational...
That being said, I would disagree with the training part in that I think that people need to know their story, Jesus' story, and what it is people need to hear to come to know Jesus. No, you cannot teach specifically, but mentoring, discipleship, and "training" can be done to better your evangelism. Do not assume that training means "less personal" because the training I have received actually has helped my own relationship with Christ as well as understanding those who need to still hear the Gospel.
That being said, we have talked about evangelism and with the basic medium of talking directly to people, my question was "is there a way to do digital evangelism and train people well?" The basic tenets of evangelism (relationships, their story, the Gospel) all stay the same but the medium that you are communicating through (face to face versus Twitter) is different and many people will not do it well.
So my question is, is there anything we can do to digitally evangelize or do it better?
Jeremy, thanks for responding to my thoughts. We agree on many things. There are some things that I would like to flush out a bit more.
DeleteYou said, "..our techniques should only be done after we fully understand & become passionate about our relationship with Jesus & not before..because we make the other person a "sale number" & instead Jesus wants the heart of the person. Therefore, we have to be relational.." I understand this to say that people need good theology/understanding before using evangelistic techniques & that we should aim at the heart not the head (sale number). I certainly agree about the heart issue! But Jesus sent people before they were ready as a normal practice. He sent the 12 to preach & cast out demons immediately upon his choice of them (Mk 3:13-15). He sent the demonized man from Mark 5 back to a hostile region with these instructions, "..tell them what I have done for you & how I had mercy on you." (see the results in Mk 5:20 & Mk 7:31ff). We could look at the woman at the well (Jn 4), the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8), the new believers in Thess(1 Thess. 1:5-10) etc. In my opinion, we train people beyond their obedience. We have equated maturity w/ knowledge instead of obedience.
I do agree that making disciples is key. Jesus never commanded us to plant churches, He said that He is the church planter (I will build my church). He has commanded us to make disciples (Mt. 28:19-20). As we grow in our relationship w/ Jesus our ability to hear from the Spirit and speak what says increases or matures & thus we become 'better' evangelizers. Living life w/ others (discipleship) is vital.
Let me say again that I am not against training people w/ methods in evangelism. This training should be reserved for later, after they understand the principles of listening to the Spirit (mysterious) & take some risks to prove His ability to guide them & give them words (adventures). If we begin with learning their own story & how it fits with Jesus' story so they can learn "...what it is people need to hear to come to know Jesus", we immediately teach them the foundation that their command of the information or approach is more important than simply speaking what Jesus promises to give them (Mt. 10:18-20, Mk 13:9-11). Jesus may give a person words that sound offensive or to use an approach that would be deemed insensitive, but, if Jesus knows this is the approach a particular person needs, shouldn't we use it? Jesus was often offensive to people He spoke to & yet we would never think He made a mistake in His evangelism.
I hope I have at least outlined the basics that trusting Jesus' promises regarding evangelism is more important than trusting our approaches. Teach Jesus' promises, practice them, then teach approaches as the need arises. Jesus' approaches will be perfect for the listener as we hear His voice & obey it. He is more interested in a person's salvation than we are & He is the only one who can actually replace a heart.
The way to train people well in digital evangelism is consistent with my thoughts above. Begin by teaching them the Biblical truth that Jesus will give them the words (if only 140 characters :-) to say at the right moment. Although I strongly agree with you that the gospel has always flown best on the wings of relationships (Acts 10, Cornelius), it is not always so (Mk 5, the demoniac). We must be more sensitive to the Spirit's leading than our own strategies. We must be willing to be foolish at times because we trust the one who created all souls & knows their needs (1 Co. 2:10-16).
If you didn't have time to look up the references I cited in the original blog post, I hope you will. Also, the podcast linked in the original post will provide more. The foundational questions about digital evangelism & how to train people is vital. The answers you embrace will guide you all the way down the road. Thanks for the interaction up to this point.
Good reminder, Ed, and very refreshing. I know when I focus on "how" I'm going to share the good news, it's stressful. Will they respond? Will they think negative thoughts about me? Will I do it right?
ReplyDeleteOver the past year or so, I've really realized the point you're making, Ed. So far, I've had a couple particularly exciting times to share the gospel with someone God put in my path and he gave me the words. In neither case did the person respond in faith, but I was still exciting to see God's present these people to me and give me the heartfelt desire to share the good news with them. One of the people was my sister. Her daughter was in a serious car accident and she emailed all her family members about it. I saw it as a unique serious time in which to talk about the life and death, how fragile life is and what happens after death. Her still being Catholic, I told her how my thinking has changed on those issues since I used to be Catholic but now am not. I talked about the difference between trusting in Christ to take away all of a believer's sin versus the Catholic viewpoint of having to do penance or go through purgatory. It naturally flowed from me... to share the good news. I wasn't stuck to a certain script or method.
The other time that was exciting... I became friends on facebook with the mother of a close childhood friend that I had. I specifically requested to become "friends" with her because I wanted to send her a message of thanks for all they did for me growing up. They are a very wealthy family and had taken me on a couple trips with them, afforded me many unique opportunities, and were always very kind. I told her to pass along my thanks to her husband, who was always jovial but hard-working and it was his job that created the money to pay for many of the things we did together. Her response was so sweet. I had made her and her husband's day. Her husband was currently at the end of a very long battle with cancer. He literally died a couple weeks later. What a blessing for me to be able to express my thanks to him before he died... I hadn't talked to them for almost 20 years! But more than that, I was able to reply again to her and tell her he good news that has changed my life since I knew her. Her family is also Catholic, so much of what I said was what had changed in my thinking about how to have our sins washed away... not including any works of our own. Again, I wrote about Christ's complete work on the cross and trusting in that; having faith. I asked her to please pass along my message to her husband. I send her my condolences when he died a couple weeks later.
Both of these examples are just clearly things I could not have fabricated. God did it, I just acted in obedience to sharing the good news with people who I saw as possibly being in a position to accept it. Of course, I also share the good news to people when they seem disinterested, but these two examples were great in that they were spontaneous. I think that is part of the "adventure" that Ed may be referring to. Evangelizing in this way is an adventure. It's exciting.
Amy
Thanks, Ed. I always appreciate your thoughts. This would make a fun conversation between several of our pastors. I have stolen a couple of your "thoughts out there" for my message this morning. Wish I had more time to let these thoughts simmer but the meal is to be served soon.
ReplyDeleteOne additional thought that helped me . . . the story of God's call to Moses to go to Pharoah... to Moses' objection of not being eloquent God asked him who made his mouth... then promised to be with his mouth. Is that a promise I can claim for my mouth in 2013? I sure hope so.
ReplyDeleteRoy, I believe we can rely on this promise you refer to in Exodus. God promised the same thing to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1 and He said the same thing to His disciples and thus to us (Matt. 10, Mk 13, Luke 21, Eph 6)...He will give us the right words at the right time. God is consistent and He wants us to be successful in speaking about His Gospel every time. That said, take a look at Acts 7:22 and see the truth about Moses in the midst of his excuses.
ReplyDelete