Putting it into Action

Recently I was asked to do a series of teachings on how to share your faith at Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities. Eight weeks of classes on Sunday nights. Of course, I was eager to accept that invitation and began preparing immediately. I was encouraged to see a lot of faces in the room on the first night, especially considering that we were meeting on a Sunday evening in the middle of summer.

One of the most important things I knew I could offer the class was real "hands-on" experience on the streets. Heaven forbid that we would just meet every week for eight weeks and discuss how to witness and never put it into practice. So I emphasised the point at the beginning that we would not only be learning in class, but that we would also be getting real training on the streets as well.

The first of these real-life street evangelism sessions was tonight at Wal-Mart. In case you didn't know, it is the national corporate policy of Wal-Mart that any non-profit organization may apply and be approved for solicitations at the front doors, up to 14 days per year. So, I went to a local Wal-Mart and got on schedule to set up a prayer/Bible/tract table at the front entrances. Tonight, I took the class to the store for what would be for many of them their first evangelism experience. We had about half the class make it for the trip, which made about 11 or 12 of us.

We split up into three teams. I had a table with Bibles and tracts at each of the two entrances, where we usually had 3-4 people handing out tracts to the customers. The rest would be out in the parking lot near the three exits/entrances, where they were holding big signs that read "Free Money!!". We had a dollar bill paper-clipped to a gospel tract that we gave to anyone who would take them. The plan was to rotate people through both the free money giveaway and the tracting at the doors, so that everyone would be able to experience both.

To be honest, I didn't expect things to go near as well as they did. I surmised that we might be able to give away 400-500 tracts on a Sunday night in two hours. Boy, what an underestimation! We gave out at least 1,700 tracts, possibly 2,000. Every person on the team was able to get into a witnessing encounter with someone who asked what we were doing this for. Several of those discussions lasted up to 20 minutes or more. Praise the Lord! People were stopping at the doors with questions and prayer requests, and out in the parking lot, there were many people who were completely disarmed by our generosity and came back ready with an open heart to hear the gospel. I don't know how things could have gone any better than they did tonight, especially for those who were putting evangelism into practice for the very first time.

Almost every Christian will agree that evangelism is an important and often neglected part of being a believer, and most would say they have the desire to go out and be the witness that God intends for them to be. The hardest part is just getting out there the first time. Once people see how easy and fun it is to evangelize, they will be asking when it is time to go again! It was a huge blessing to see everyone having a great time serving the Lord and others tonight. I am sure they were encouraged to find it was not nearly as difficult as our imaginations might tell us.

What about you? Are you afraid to make evangelism a regular part of your life because you are uneasy or nervous? Step out into the waters, murky though they may seem, and you will find that the Holy Spirit will fill your mouth and give you a boldness you have never known. You may walk timidly into it with fear, but you will leave dancing and clicking your heels with joy, knowing that you have just been used by the Lord in ways that may only be measured in eternity.

Bad Evangelistic Phrases

Todd Friel: 13 Evangelistic Phrases That Produce False Conversions

I came across this on the internet, an article written by Todd Friel called 13 Evangelistic Phrases That Produce False Conversions. This is great stuff, filled with truth. Enjoy.

Churches divide over carpet color, building additions and budgets. In the meantime, our fellow church members are going to hell by the boat load.

A.W. Tozer said, “It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they have not been saved.”

D. James Kennedy said, “The vast majority of people who are members of churches in America today are not Christians. I say that without the slightest contradiction. I base it on empirical evidence of twenty-four years of examining thousands of people.”

Friend, we argue over so many petty things. May I suggest we have lost sight of the most important debate of all, “What is salvation?” My theology teaches that salvation happens when a man repents and places his trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).

I would like to present thirteen ways that we have re-defined how a person becomes a true convert. Have we done this intentionally? Certainly not. We have simply created lingo that has a grain of truth in Scripture, but it is so open to interpretation that the un-converted understand it in ways that lead to false conversions.

1. Make Jesus your Lord and Savior. We cannot make Jesus our Lord and Savior, He is our Lord and Savior. We are living in rebellion to Him and He commands us to repent and trust Him.

2. Ask Jesus into your heart. Does Jesus come into our hearts? Yes He does. The question is, “How does He get in there?” It is not by simply asking Him in; it is by repentance and faith.

3. Just believe in Jesus. The demons believe and they tremble. We must repent and trust.

4. You have a God-shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it. We have far more than a hole that needs to be filled so we can feel complete; we have a wretched, deceitful, sinful heart that needs cleansing. Repentance and faith applies the blood of the lamb for that cleansing.

5. Accept Jesus. Whoa. We need to accept Jesus? This is entirely backward. We need Jesus to accept us–and He will, if we repent and trust.

6. Make a decision for Jesus. Decisional regeneration puts man in the driver’s seat of salvation. When we repent and trust, Jesus decides to save us. That puts Him in the driver’s seat…where He demands.

7. It is easy to believe. While the formula of repentance and faith sounds simple, a complete surrendering of self in repentance is anything but easy. It’s hard.

8. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The only promises for the convert are trials, temptation and persecution. If that is how you define a wonderful life, fine. Otherwise we must command all men everywhere to repent and trust.

9. Come to Jesus just as you are. We should come to Jesus just as the sinners we are, but He also expects a broken heart and contrite spirit demonstrated in repentance and faith.

10. Come to Jesus and you will receive forgiveness of sins and ________________ (fill in the blank with money, health, a healed marriage). Jesus didn’t promise healed marriages; in fact He promised broken homes because we would divide when one member repents and trusts.

11. Come to Jesus and experience love, joy, peace. Do we get the fruit of the Spirit upon conversion? Yes. But if we come seeking the gifts and not the giver, we will receive neither. Instead, we must repent and trust.

12. Jesus is the missing piece. Um, no, the God of the universe is not the missing piece, He demands that He is the center of our lives when we repent and trust.

13. Jesus is better than fame and fortune. That is an understatement, and frankly, it is insulting. Saying Jesus is better than money is like saying that a steak dinner is better than eating a dung hill. He defies comparison and we trivialize the Son of God. Instead, we should be pleading with all men everywhere to repent and trust.

If I showed up at your door with a can of grapefruit juice and a roll of paper towels and offered to change your oil, you would say, “No thanks.” If we wouldn’t let someone mess with our car using the wrong method, why do we allow the Gospel to be presented so ambiguously?

Would you let a doctor operate on your child who was “sort of” accurate? The salvation of men is far more important than an appendix.

I beg you to consider how you share the Gospel. You and I know what we are talking about when we use these phrases, but do the unregenerate? Is it possible that we have so many backsliders today because they never slid forward in the first place? Is it because they were never told that they must repent and trust?

If we are willing to debate shag verse plush in the fellowship hall, shouldn’t we be more concerned about an issue that has eternal consequences?

Breaking the Ice

One of the hardest things to do in personal witnessing is getting the subject of spiritual things up. How do we go from, "Nice day, isn't it?" to "Have you been born again?" It is probably the #1 reason many people do not share their faith. They just don't know how to get started.
I know how frustrating it can be to have the desire to approach someone, but chicken out because I just couldn't find the right way to open it up. I imagine all sorts of different scenarios in my mind while trying to come up with the best opening line. If I say this, then he might say that, then I could respond with...
The biggest fear is saying something that turns him/her off and turns the whole thing into a disaster and embarrassment. That is why I love to use good gospel tracts. If you get your hands on a good tract, it can open the door up for you and transition a pleasant conversation into a witnessing opportunity smoothly. Once the ice is broken, you are off and running with the gospel.
Today, a dear brother named Shawn and I hit the streets and employed this effective technique. We primarily used the curved illusion tract (pictured) to have a little fun with people before we began to share the gospel with them. We also used some fake money tracts, which are always a great hit, and had a lot of wonderful encounters with men and women where we were able to get into long conversations.
The tracts that people enjoy are great because it helps you earn the right to witness to them. It is awkward to approach people and immediately begin opening up spiritual things to them, and some even find it offensive. We need to make some sort of connection with them first and smoothly go from one subject to the next. The curved illusion is a great example. There are other great tracts you can use that are fun and easy to use at www.livingwaters.com