Jesus’ Guide to Organic Evangelism

In this blog I’ll address the second Big Idea that can change the way we do church.

 

Big Idea Two: Evangelism is a process, not an event. As I examined both the Scripture and my own experience, I stum

bled on a fact largely ignored

by modern evangelistic methods: evangelism is not an event, but a journey that takes place over a course of time as a person makes a multitude of small, incremental decisions leading to faith in Jesus.

If I had intelligently read passages like Matthew 13 and 1 Corinthians 1, I would have seen this, but I took my cues from men and women who seemed to be ahead of me spiritually, and so I accepted their idea that evangelism is all about telling the message. In John 4, Jesus makes it clear that the “harvest” (a person coming to Christ) is dependent on the “cultivation” of the soil (preparation of the heart). What this means is that each time a Christian has an encounter with a non-Christian—whether we talk specifically about Christ or not—we are either drawing or repelling a person to Christ. Of course, God wants us to intentionally seek to draw them by both our words and actions. But most people today will need to develop a trusting relationship with the gospel messenger, before they accept the message. In fact, on average, nine to sixteen individuals help cultivate the soil of the heart and plant seeds of truth before a person finally decides to trust Christ. That’s why I define evangelism as not just telling the gospel message, but helping a person take the next step toward a relationship with Christ. This is not to reduce the importance of the message in any way. It needs to be told “clear and simple.” But the seed of truth needs to fall into a heart well cultivated in order for growth to occur.

So where do we find hearts that need cultivating and where can we be most successful in this organic type of evangelism? For most of us it is in the workplace. It is here as colleagues, clients, and customers discover whether the gospel is credible by watching us—words and actions. What would happen if churches equipped people to live the good news at work as well as tell the good news? What would happen if pastors began to realize that the words, thoughts, values, and actions of their congregation Monday through Saturday were more important to the Kingdom of God than what was said and done on Sunday? It would certainly change the way we do church.

These four Big Ideas are found in Going Public with your Faith

Thanks to Rae Allen for the image.

The Most Strategic Place for Kingdom Influence

In this blog I’ll address the first Big Idea that can change the way we do church.

Big Idea One: The workplace is the most strategic place of Kingdom influence for most Christians. Contrary to popular perception, you don’t need to quit your job and move to a Third World country in order to make a significant contribution to the Kingdom of God and help fulfill the Great Commission. God has called most of His people to workplace vocations meeting a variety of human needs emotional, physical, and spiritual and wants to use them there for His Kingdom purposes.

I cite numerous examples of men and women who are pursuing Kingdom purposes in the “secular” workplace, but my favorite is Steve Bigari. I wrote about him in my April 20, 2007 blog. But I just met another man this week, who convinced his Fortune 500 company to sponsor a Christian Diversity group within the company. Of course this opened up the gate for a host of other faiths to begin groups as well, but I’m pretty confident in biblical faith in the free marketplace of ideas. One of the reasons that the company allowed this to happen was because they trusted this individual. They had seen the quality of his work and the quality of his character lived out before their eyes for twenty years. This individual knows he is called to his work and is making a significant Kingdom difference in his workplace. Because of the size of his company, he actually has a bigger audience that his pastors (of a very large church). He told me, “A person can hide in my church. But I can’t hide at work. People see who I am. They see everyday whether my faith makes a difference in my life of not.”

We don’t need more churches. We need more churches committed to equip men and women to take their faith to work!

These four Big Ideas are discussed in detail in Going Public with Your Faith. To order a copy click here.

Four Big Ideas That Can Change the Way We Do Church

My proposition is simple: when we forget the importance of the workplace in God’s plans, the cause of Christ suffers. We believe that this is both biblically and historically true. However, all over the world men and women are beginning to understand how tactically significant the workplace is to God’s Kingdom plans. When the church calls its people to focus inward (on the church organization), it shrinks. On the other hand, when the church launches people into the world and honors their calling to the workplace, the church grows. We think that it’s time for men and women in the workplace to fulfill their destiny as the leaders that God called them to be.

That’s why Walt Larimore and I wrote Going Public with Your Faith. In this ground breaking book, we propose four radical ideas that could change the way people think about work and evangelism.

Big Idea One: The workplace is the most strategic place of Kingdom influence for most Christians.

Big Idea Two: Evangelism is a process, not an event.

Big Idea Three: Our job in evangelism is to discover where God is already at work in people’s lives and join him there.

Big Idea Four: Being a person of spiritual influence is every Christian’s calling, not just the responsibility of a gifted few.

In the next few blogs I’ll speak to each idea breifly.

These four Big Ideas are discussed in detail in Going Public with Your Faith. To order a copy click here.

5 Comments »

1. Amen! I look forward to this series, and may have to add this book to my reading list. Thanks!Dan King
   http://managementbyGod.com

   Comment by Dan King — January 4, 2008 @ 11:08 am

2. Dan, I think you’ll like Going Public unless you are a gifted evangelist–they sometime balk at these concepts. God has gifted some people to get right to the specifics of the message (about 12% of the church according to Barna have the gift of evangelism). That leaves the rest of us to figure out how we are to share our faith. Fortunately the Bible is not silent. John 4:35-38, Matthew 13 and other passages all teach that evangelism is s process. Going Public is not just about being biblical, it’s also about what’s appropriate in a given situation, specifically the workplace. And here is the big principle here: If we want people to pay attention to our faith, we first better pay attention to our work.Comment by Bill Peel — January 4, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
3. I agree with Dan. This is a great book, and it will be good to have this promo. I was looking at the video curriculum and I wondered if you had posted any preview clips on YouTube. That might be a good thing for bloggers to embed…Comment by Mark Goodyear — January 8, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
4. Great thoughts Bill. Thanks.Comment by Daniel D — January 10, 2008 @ 4:59 pm
5. I just wanted to point out again that I appreciate you doing this series! It has been good to follow!I also wanted to let you know that I have selected you to get the Thinking Blogger Award.
   Thanks! Keep up the great work!
   Dan

   Comment by Dan King — February 5, 2008 @ 2:45 pm