I recently read Irresistible Evangelism by Steve Sjogren, Dave Ping, and Doug Pollock's take on evangelism. I found this read to be a lot better than the typical evangelism books. I get so tired of cookie cutter routines that don't take into account that people have feelings and brains so they are not always easily manipulated by tricky ways to present the Gospel message to them.
This book breaks people up into four different areas and gives multiple ways to share the message. They talk about servant evangelism which is going out and loving people that you may not even know by giving them free stuff like soda cans, a free car wash, or mulching their lawns. When people ask why your response should be "I think Jesus would have done this if he were still alive today." People have been so jaded by Christian pushing their views on them to have someone do something nice without an expectation of conversion is amazing.
Next they talk about developing friendships with unbelievers. The thought is that through friendship you can model Christ love to people. As they become more comfortable you can share about your trials and triumphs and listen to theirs.
Then he goes on to talk about Active Wondering this was a little knew to me. they have outlined many different questions that you can ask people to know them better and to get them to think about how God can make an impact in their lives. It's great to see a list of questions that does not included "if you were to die today would you go to heaven or hell?"
Finally, the authors discuss the final step of sharing the Gospel with unbelievers that allow for them to understand conversion from old self to new self.
I found this book to be a good read and very practical in the different ways that we can share Christ's love with people. I didn't care for the Golf analogy they use for each step because it seemed to get away from their point of not making people objects. The thought of hitting people reminds me of Bible thumpers. The other thing I didn't like much was the usage of the word PreChristians to describe unbelievers. This seemed condescending to me as well.
Overall, I appreciated This book and would recommend it to anyone seeking better ways to share Christ with others. Which leads me to a question and that is how do you actively share the Gospel with people?
2 comments:
thanks for sharing Lance. Sharing our faith is so complex sometimes because you want to do good rather than be harmful yet sometimes when we dont take the time to truly understand and know the people we are sharing Christ with, we end up doing more damage. Im glad to see you thinking about this since many seminarians forgot all about evangelism.
Hope you and your wife are well! Send her my love.
Thanks Prentice. I feel seminary made sharing our faith way too complex. Now that I have been done for two years I am finally getting rid of those voices like MMT in the back of head. The best part is that as an Outreach Minister I am forced to continually think about how I can share and teach others to share.
Anyways, We miss you I'm glad you're you still hanging out with the fellas. Be blessed my brother.
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