Evangelism Is Scary

Hi, this is Steve Saint with a thought for you on a frequently dreaded topic.

Evangelism is a scary undertaking for most of us. But it's something all of us can do if we find a method that fits us.

Our church, many years ago, started a program called Evangelism Explosion. You may have heard it. I thought it was a pretty lousy idea. It involved learning a canned presentation of the gospel. Wow, I thought, "Who would ever want to listen to a canned promotion of religion like a life insurance pitch or something like that?

But, Ginny and I decided to do it. We went and started learning the pitch. In fact, I still know the outline: "Grace, Man, God, Christ, Faith."

Grace: Heaven is a free gift. You can't earn or deserve it.

Man: is sinful and can't save himself.

God: is love, but He's also just and won't allow the guilty to go unpunished

Christ: who He is, what He did.

And Faith: what it isn't and what it is.

Well, I got to a couple of classes before Ginny could make it because we had four small children. One day a probation officer asked Ginny and me if we would go and talk to a young woman who was headed to jail for kiting bad checks.

When we met with her I started using Evangelism Explosion's presentation of the gospel. On our way home, Ginny said, "Steve, that was the clearest and most coherent presentation of the gospel I've ever heard. How did you come up with that?"

I said, that's the Evangelism Explosion presentation.

It was unbelievable that we could share the gospel in just a few minutes with a canned presentation, that just starts by saying, "Can I ask you a personal question? God forbid, but if you were to die tonight do you know for sure that you would go to heaven....

No one has ever said "No" when I have asked if I could ask.

Europe Refugee Training Trips

This fall, a team from ITEC will be traveling to Europe to train refugees that are Christ followers.

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