As a leader of a church, the weight comes on you and your team to inspire people to move forward in their relationship with God. You want to see them living their faith outside the four walls of the church. You want them to engage with the people they have been sent to and bring them into a Christian community.

 

 

However, leading them to do exactly that takes some work and planning. This blog post aims to give you some ideas of how you can encourage people in your church to engage with non-believers.

You don’t have to be a church leader to apply these principles. As a church member, you can also influence the people you serve with—your small group, your family, and friends—to go out into the world and reach people for Jesus.

 

 

  • Do it yourself and talk about it.

 

People want leaders who act on what they speak. You can’t afford to stand a platform and encourage your congregation to be brave and speak to people about Jesus and you not do it. You will very quickly lose your credibility. Do it yourself. Set an example. Pave the way forward. Share your successes, your failures, your awkward and funny encounters. This will make you approachable and the people you lead will be encouraged by your example and vulnerability. This will also communicate to them: “If I can do it, you can do it too!”

 

  • Have believers share about doing this during church services. 

 

There is so much power in testimonies. They stir up faith. Hearing about someone coming to Jesus brings joy in the hearts of believers and encourages them to keep witnessing to people and to look forward to the day when those people come to Jesus. Keeping testimonies about believers witnessing to nonbelievers constant in your church life will keep the topic of evangelism and witnessing at the forefront of your congregation’s minds.

 

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  • Help them understand that they don’t need to share the gospel outline in their first conversation with someone.

 

The gospel is not a ‘presentation’ that you make. Rather, you want to have gospel conversations with people. Train your people in how to ask questions that can lead to meaningful conversations around God and the gospel. Encourage them that those they speak with will gradually come to a real understanding of God’s grace in the gospel over time and multiple conversations. Realising that they don’t have to force everything into one conversation and demand an on-the-spot decision helps believers to relax and enjoy the process of being a witness, trusting that God will take conversations where he wants them to go.

 

When people who attend EvangelismSHIFT grasp this principle, we often hear how they are set free from performance anxiety and how they feel encouraged to build relationships with people and allow the Holy Spirit to use them to lead people to Jesus in a way that is natural and not staged.

 

  • Help them see that people take steps towards faith in Jesus.

 

Being born again is an event that happens all at once at the moment of faith. But conversion is a journey. There is a point in time when a person begins moving towards God. Many different factors keep them taking steps along this journey until they are ready to put their trust in Christ. Our responsibility as believers, whenever we come in contact with people is to move them closer to Jesus. That’s what you need to communicate to your congregation. This will empower them to go out into their world and bring people one step closer to Jesus. It might be the final step when they commit their life to Jesus, or the first step when they first get to know a real Christian.

 

Have you found these tips useful? Which one is your favourite and why? Leave a comment down below. We would love to hear from you.

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10 Responses

  1. We have the “4 spiritual laws” doctrinal tool for evangelism. Now we have “connect 4” practical tips to follow. Thanks.

    Point 4 is key to remember that normally it needs to be a natural conversion progression before the supernatural salvation event may occur. Play your part even if you don’t see end result and pray that someone else like-minded will.

  2. Certianly spending time with God and looking for what He wants to do and where He leads is something that takes prayerfully working through.
    God certianly leads us through our journey and it seems like in the beginning stages we are only witnessing to Christians as we seem to get a lot of agreement and acknowledgement of relationship with God and knowing Him. It is not all tough.

    Then it appears we are led with persecution in all directions and feel assurance that God is acknowledging our growth. We start looking for what is about to happen knowing what it must be like to be a woman experiencing birth pains. Then God provides a person to share and encourage and hug and you sense God is doing something here. There are the nuts that seem to hard to crack and our attempts seem abyssmal and self-oreinted.
    I do not know what is happening but it is growing and the movement is growing and He is changing me. Changing me how – to be relational.
    Certianly feeling greater love. It is great to get hugs from sharing Jesus.
    Certainly found emotion well up today as looked at John 10 and the blind man standing in front of Jesus and him looking and recognising Jesus completely for the first time as God’s love in full bloom was administered to a man who did not ask. God reached out through Jesus and healed a man born blind creating vision and enabling a blind man to see His creation and ultimately to see and know Him.
    God and Jesus are wanting to do this through each of us.
    To speak the truth that I know, to seek Him in prayer with the foreknowledge of other people’s attitudes it is God who has closed their eyes.

    Prayer – Lord as we go will you open people’s eyes to see you, help us to be responsive to you. We need you Lord every hour. Help us Jesus. Amen

    • Thank you Gemmel for your comment. It’s great to see what God is doing in your life. Keep sharing the Gospel with people and keep loving on people.

  3. I wish to learn more how to ask friends, questions that lead to meaningful conversations around God and the gospel, and encouraging them to feel at ease and not trying to force them to accept Christ as their God and Saviour.
    Is there any program that I can follow on line to “Evangelism shift”.
    Thank you & God bless,
    Daisy.

    • Hi Daisy, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, we do not have an online version of the EvangelismSHIFT course. However, we will continue to publish blog posts that will address topics such as evangelism and what it means to live as a witness for Jesus. We will also try to add your questions to our planned topics to cover! Keep an eye on the blog we have articles coming out each week.

    • Hey Daisy The greatest program is drawing near to God. His love letter to you is to be shared one bit at a time. Prayer” Lord help me and show me want yo uwnat me to sahre today”. I stumble along with this but God shows us how wonderful it is to fully trust in Him. When we struggle with answers to prayer and we are truly seeking Him watch for those wonderful moments. For me it was as simple as someone said ” I used to do that” Answer ‘ Oh! what made you stop?”. What came out of that was a witnessing opportunity and an answer to my prayer struggle on an associated matter for somebody else. One of those Whoa! Amazing Grace moments. Read the Gospel of John and put yourself in the shoes of a disciple as they journey with Jesus. BSF is doing that this year near you. Gemmel

      • Sorry hit send button just as I realised something had changed. Forgive the spelling errors. Our prayer to Jesus ” Show me what you want me to share” and there should have been a Pllllleeeassse.

  4. Hi team. The HUB baptist church has community space for homeless or people with low- income.. We are working with them by helping to everyone in needs and people come to us. What is wonderful that sometimes I have a good conversation with them about Jesus. But I still have needs and more knowledge how to talk to people. I thank you for your site because it helps me to grow up in a way of knowledge. Also the English language is my 2nd language and I believe everything is for the Glory of God.

    • Hi Elena, thank you for your comment. We are so pleased that you find our website useful for training you up in how to speak to people who don’t know Christ yet. I am also so excited for what the Hub Baptist church is doing to help those who are homeless. May God bless you and empower you to show his love to those around you. Also keep coming back here we post new blog posts every week 🙂

  5. We certianly do not want to stop looking how God wants to work. The key is asking Him. This is amazing. Spend time with God and just ask Him. There is a G7 app. Certianly I want to get together in a group to get going with this as this is stopping me. If you have a couple of members of your family willing to go through then just do it. You can find it on Play store. A good starting point is “What is God looking for?” What does the Bible say?

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