from worldwide challenge,
the crusade magazine.
it's jess'. hahah. but ive held it hostage for about a week because i like this article so much.
no scanner, so here goes:
LOST
Reaching out to someone who needs Christ starts in our own hearts.
by Michael Brown with Becky Hill
Sept / Oct 2005
Evangelism is 90 percent about becoming the right person and only 10 percent about knowing what to say. It's not about what you do; it's about the kind of person you are.
This became clear to me a few years ago when our Campus Crusade for Christ chapter at Bowling Green State University in Ohio decided to make some changes in the way we reached out to our campus.
As a staff team, we became persuaded that a vibrant ministry must flow from real compassion and strong affection for the people we were reaching. It must flow from sincere love, in the most powerful sense of the word. But we realized that we had been training students in evangelism before they had a heart of compassion. We were trying to get them to do something they simply didn't want to do.
[ at this point i'm hooked... i came to that very same realization last week praying pleading begging what to do about some of my girls... ]
Matthew 9:36 tells us how Jesus viewed the lost: "Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd."
[ this sums up my heart for people, well most of the time anyway -- if i really stop to think about it and the spirit grips my heart. it's the same that jesus felt for me. ]
Jesus realized they were unable to help themselves or to remedy their situation. He felt compassion. How often, when thinking about the lost, do we find ourselves with emotions other than compassion, like judgment, disgust, annoyance and even pride?
At Bowling Green, we needed to first admit we were not moved for the lost like God is moved. We needed to admit, "I'm racist. I'm judgmental. I'm hard-hearted. I'm aloof."
[ ha! i have been all these things. and if i'm really honest with myself, all of them in just the last few days. ]
When first a staff member with Campus Crusade, I worked at the University of Kansas, and my ministry assignment was to focus on Ellsworth Hall. To get to this particular residence hall each day, I had to walk by Hashinger Hall, another dorm on campus. You could smell marijuana coming from the windows, and some of the guys had their fingernails painted black. It was a seriously countercultural kind of place. As I would walk by the sights and sounds of that "other wrold," I kept my eyes glued to the sidewalk.
Then I started to think, If Jesus were to show up on campus, where would he go? Not Ellsworth, where everyone dressed like me and acted the same. He would probably show up at Hashinger Hall.
So I began to interact with the Hashinger students. I created a questionnaire, asking questions like "What is the most annoying thing about Christians?" and "If there was one thing you could change about Christianity, what would it be?" I quickly discovered that most of the students' barriers to becoming Christians were not about God; their problem was with cultural Christianity.
I began to realize that I needed to see people as God sees them. This required a fresh surrendering to God, admitting I was sometimes self-absorbed. I needed to come to grips with my own insecurities, letting God change me from the inside out. Before I could effectively reach the lost, God needed first to reach into my heart.
Jesus said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12). Jesus died on the cross not to help Christians get better, but to save the lost.
If your phone rang right now and you learned that someone you love - your best friend, your brother or your child - has come up missing, what would you do? Everything would stop. Priorities and plans would instantly be altered. We would go - because somebody we cared about is lost, and everything must be done to find them. Now. Because we care.
Every day we meet people who are spiritually lost, but we don't respond to them with even half this emotion or ugency.
[ there was a certain kind of release here. its true. for me, i havent had much of a best friend or a brother or a child, heh for ever... but if i substitute my oldest friends, my sister and her friends who i've watched grow up... my breath catches. i have to learn how to breathe all over again.
now check this out: ]
Here's a lesson I've learned the hard way. I always speak about what I most care about. I always do what I most want to do. I always find time to eat, I never miss watching The West Wing, and I spend time with my wife and kids. If my heart is moved for something, I will do it, and I will always do it.
If Christ is our heart's passion, His name will simply fall off our lips. Could it be that we don't reach out to lost people not because of time, training or missed opportunity, but simply because we don't care enough?
[ and here's what i think he's nailed it. i find excuses. when i cant find them, i make up some of my own. but for he who has traded his riches for our poverty: "for you know the grace of our lord jesus christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." (2cor89) paul continues: "in this matter i give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. so now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have." (1011) and, in luke 12:
"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."
Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"
The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
and, james 4:16: anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. ]
At Bowling Green, when we realized students didn't have a heart of compassion, we switched things around. We taught students to build friendships and get up close with the lost. We asked every student leader in the movement to become a student leader somewhere else on the campus. We began to immerse ourselves into the university culture and build relationships in places like the social-justice groups, the gay community and the student government. As a result, the Christian students gained hearts of compassion and came back begging for more evangelism and ministry training.
We also redesigned our weekly meeting, making ti more for the spiritually curious than for Christians. Today, the student-body president and vice presidenet come, along with emmbers of more than 100 different student organizations and cultures from across campus - many being individuals who would consider themselves agnostic and atheist. The university administration considers us one of the most diverse groups on campus.
We began by learning how to relate to people, understanding where they are coming from - their backgrounds, their relationships, their choices.
It starts with asking good questions. For example, try talking to every person you encounter. Say hello, then see how far you can go, if it's natural. Practice interacting with people; when they talk to you about anything, draw them out. Take them deeper.
As we ask questions, we will find common ground in all the ares where we agree. Then we share our lives. In this postmodern era, there is nothing more powerful and meaningful than investing relational energy and opening up your life.
Evangelism is as much a process as it is an event. In his book Finding Common Ground Tim Downs says, "To cultivate the soil takes time... I have a conversation here... I ask a pointed question there. I break a stereotype along the way. Withe veryone I meet, I am cultivating the soil and improving the climate for spiritual growth."
A few months ago, after our weekly meeting, the president of a fraternity came up to me. Several of us with Campus Crusade had been hanging out with this guy for two years, and he'd always been a self-proclaimed agnostic. Then he came up to me and said, "I'm ready." At first, I wasn't even sure what he was talking about. He wanted to become a Christian, and we prayed with him that night.
Being real and being intentional about evangelism is a hard road to travel. But it's either that or stay where we are and quietly pass from this life to the next, without ever really living. Once your heart has been broken for that one lost friend, once you have cried over the helplessness and desperation of someone you get really close to, you can't shake that sense of feeling God's heart.
My being evangelistic is not about feeling spiritual, significant or successful. It is always about what the lost need to know and understand. It is about their transformation, not mine. It is about the gospel message, not my fancy illustrations. It is about Christ, not me.
/ / /
TO TELL THE TRUTH
How to explain the gospel clearly and concisely.
by Chris Lawrence
Sept / Oct 2005
On the glacial green waters of the Flathead River I floated with a stranger. His name was Barry, and my job was to lead him safely through the precarious rapids. I was a whitewater raft guide in northwestern Montana.
I paddled in a sporty yellow kayak while Barry trailed me awkardly in a Funyak - an inflatable kayak for beginners. The eight-mile float on the edge of Glacier National Park has several major rapids, with appropriate names like Bonecrusher and Jaws, but it also allows kayakers some extended calm stretches. The float was a perfect venue for me to talk with Barry.
He had quit his job on the East Coast and sped his red Corvette across the country on a midlife-crisis trek. Montana was one stop on his journey.
It was easy to see that Barry was searching for something he hadn't found yet. I wanted to talk to him about Jesus - to tell him how to have a relationship with God. But I struggled with the words.
In the same way, many believers, though well-versed in Christian lingo, struggle to communicate clearly with people about the most important message.
The essence of the gospel is profoundly simple. If I could live that day on the river with Barry again, here's what I would have told him:
God loves us and created us to live a full, amazing life through having a relationship with Him. But there is a problem. Because of sin, we can't have a relationship with God. The Book of Romans puts it this way: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23).
What does the word sin mean? "Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude or nature," says Wayne Grudem in Systematic Theology. "Sin not only includes individual acts such as stealing or lying or committing murder, but also attitudes that are contrary to the attitudes God requires of us."
Sin dates back to Adam and Eve. God created the world out of nothing. He filled it with humans and made it beautiful. It was paradise. But those humans chose to go their own way - ignoring God's law - and we have been running up a "sin debt" ever since.
As of May 2005, the United States has accrued a debt of $7.7 trillion. While the government may never get around to paying this off, in theory it is possible to do so. However, we can never pay off our debt of sin on our own. God is just and demands paymenet; without it we are eternally separated from Him.
But there is hope. The gospel literally means "good news." The reason the news is so good is because we can have a personal relationship with the God of the universe. It sounds absurd, but it's true: He has provided a way to get us out of our sin debt. And to us it's free.
God sent His Son, Jesus, to the earth to live a perfect life, and then die and be crucified. Because He loves us, Jesus paid the penalty for the sin of mankind by dying on the cross. "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while were yet sinners, Christ died for us," says Romans 5:8.
With that powerful act ont he cross, Jesus cleared our debt, which allows us to have a relationship with Him. It is the only escape from the fatal mess we are in.
Back to Barry. Between one of the rapids, I would have invited him to ask some questions about what I waas saying, though trying not to allow things to steer too far off track. Then I would sum it all up and give him an opportunity to respond.
The gospel is, in a word, forgiveness. And through this forgiveness we can have a relationship with the eternal God, the one whom author A.W. Tozer called a "shoreless ocean."
Understanding this message of forgiveness is not enough. To begin a relationship with God, you must respond to His invitation. I would have made sure Barry understood this important step.
Perhaps by the end of the conversation, Barry would have been ready to surrender his life to God, or maybe not. As a communicator of the message, I am not responsible for the hearer's response. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, and I need to leave those results up to Him. Either way, Barry would have heard the gospel, and God would have been glorified.
But that's not what happened that day on the river. I helped Barry navigate through the waters safely, and then he left without hearing the gospel. I can still see him speding off in his sleek Corvette.
Since that day, I've had dozens more Barry-like encounters - at car dealerships, dentist's offices or on soccer teams. As I've learend to communicate the gospel more clearly, I am trying to seize such opportunities, rather than let them disappear in the distance.
/ / /
FAMILY TIES
Talking about Jesus with the people we love most doesn't have to be intimidating.
by Jennifer Abegg
Sept / Oct 2005
Stephanie's dad was a practicing agnostic and proud of it. He believed that any ultimate reality - such as God - is unknown and probably unknowable, feeding that belief with books. He also read books that sought to disprove Christianity, like Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian.
Stephanie, who had accepted Christ in hgih school four years prior, prayed that God would provide opportunities to tell her dad about Jesus and that he would become a Christian someday. It seemed as likely as Harvard accepting a high-school dropout. However, Stephanie was undaunted by her dad's distaste for Christianity. She believed that God could do anything. The only child phoned her father and invited him to meet her for a weekly coffee date. They'd meet and talk about life, and they'd discuss their differing views.
Though most of our familiy members may not seem as antagonistic toward Christ as Stephanie's dad, sometimes we shrink back from telling the truth about Him. But families are a built-in place for us to represent the truth of Christ and invite someone to be a Christian.
"The Lord has sovereignly placed us in the families we are in," says Vince Johnson, a Campus Crusade for Christ staff member. "Somebody needs to tell them about Jesus, and I believe we have a stewardship because we are in the family as a believer. We have a responsibility to tell them."
Pastor Rocky Fong, of Evangelical Community Church in Hong Kong, writes, "People tend to ask the pastor to do it for them, especially when their [family members] are sick in the hospital facing critical illnesses. Based on my own observations, parents are first 'converted' by their children before they formally accept the invitation of an evangelist or teacher."
Yet sometimes it's intimidating. Our families often know us best. They usually have known us before we have accepted Christ, and they've seen us afterward. They know "what we're really like." But there are ways to talk about Christ witht hsoe we love that are possible and practical.
Where To Begin
Prayer is the start. We need to pray and ask God to soften their hearts and provide opportunities. When John lamb returned home after serving in the military, where he was introduced to Christ, he told his brother and sister-in-law about his newfound love for Jesus.
"John," said his brother over dinner, "you look the same and your voice is the same, but I don't know who you are."
"That's because the man you knew before no longer exists," John replied, "I have been made new."
John explained the change. But his brother wasn't ready to accept Christ. Actually, John prayed for him for 20 years before his brother understood the gospel and became a Christian.
Everyday People
Another important element in sharing Christ with family members is to incorporate Him into day-to-day life.
"Evangelism isn't just someting you 'do' - out there - and then get back to normal living," writes Rebecca Manley Pippert in Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World. "Evangelism involves taking people seriously, getting across to their island of concerns and needs, and then sharing Christ as Lord in the context of our natural living situations."
We usually know our family members' needs and concerns better than anyone else's because of our unique position in the family. When we talk with our siblings, parents, children and aunts about deep things and what's important to us, we can talk about Jesus the way we would if we were talking to our Christian friends. We talk about everything else that's important to us; why not talk about Christ the same way?
Easy For You To Say
It can be difficult putting that advice into practice. Rather than just being natural in our conversations, we might only initiate conversations around spiritual things - never about school, friends or anything else we care about. I can think of times in my Christian life when I brought up these natural subjects, only to steer the conversation quickly to Christ. This relentless agenda can leave our relatives feelign less like a loved one and more like a project.
OnMission magazine reminds adult Christians with unbelieving relatives: "Treat them as courteously as you do your friends. Dialogue with them. Get to know some of their friends. Share their enthusiasm for hobbies. Learn to be their friend" (November/December 2001, "Tips For Sharing Your Faith During The Holiday Season").
Books can also help when used appropriately. Stephanie offered to read her dad's copy of Why I Am Not a Christian if her dad would read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. She later gave him Letters From A Skeptic, a book that includes real letters between an unbelieving dad to his son, by Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd.
About five years ago, Stephanie's dad called her on the phone. Maybe, he wondered, God was knowable after all. He had searched God out with the help of his daughter, and now he was seriously thinking about giving his life to Christ. A week later he did.
Currently, he's planning to become a full-time missionary. Stephanie knows God can do anything.
/ / /
FATHER KNOWS BEST
Talking to God about someone's needs can bring a chance to talk about God.
by Angie Bring
Sept / Oct 2005
Nancy Wilson knows a fresh and simple way to bring God into almost any conversation. It requires no training, works anywhere and is almost always well received by non-Christians. At a pharmacy counter at a neighborhood grocery store in Florida, Nancy met Rebecca, who appeared depressed as she filled the Campus Crusade for Christ staff member's prescription.
Nancy asked, "How are you?" The woman in her late 20s answered that she was distressed about her daughter's problems. Nancy gently asked, "Can I pray for you?" Right there in the store, Nancy prayed for Rebecca's need of the moment.
Instead of promising to pray later, many Christians offer to pray right away, immediately engaging people in spiritual conversations. "I've never had someone say no," says Nancy.
Before You Say A Word
Offering to pray for Rebecca wasn't a stretch for Nancy - she enjoys talking to people about God because she has a vibrant relationship with Him. You probably won't bring your sixth-grade best friend's name into a conversation today unless you think about and talk with her frequently; the same goes with God. Bringing God into a conversation will be a foreign idea unless He's regularly on your mind.
The idea of praying for others comes as an overflow of your relationship with God. Since focusing on self is our default setting, it's important to ask God to allow you to see and love others like He does. For instance, yesterday's polite conversations were likely peppered with lukewarm replies of "I'm fine." Have you wondered if the lives behind these responses really are fine? Ask a follow-up question to someone's rote reply, then respond to a need revealed.
Feeling less than Superman-bold about initiating prayer with someone is normal. God designed it that way - so that we might depend not upon our abilities, but rather upon Him.
The apostle Paul struggled against angst too. He wrote, "I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).
It's a relief to remember that God provides our courage. Our role is simply to look for opportunities to bring people before His throne as we talk with them.
Offering Hope
Ed Silvoso, author of Prayer Evangelism, sees restaurant meals as easy openings to spiritual conversations. He talked about it recently on The Lighthouse Report, a Campus Crusade radio program. Ed often says to the food server, "You know, when you bring out our food we're going to thank God for it, and I wondered if there's anything we could pray for you." He says he hasn't been turned down once.
Larry and Rose Ihle tried that approach at a Chili's [ hahah Chilji's ] in Minnesota. After praying with their waitress, they also explained how she could begin a personal relationship with Jesus. The waitress responded eagerly, and the three of them prayed again. The waitress later returned to their table with the restaurant cook, asking the Ihles to pray for her too. Smiling, Larry said, "You should pray for her." Turning to the cook, the new Christian prayed for her friend less than an hour after inviting Jesus into her own life.
What Will They Think?
People long to be loved, to have someone rooting for them and to experience hope firsthand. Nonbelievers rarely recognize the greatest need for hope in their lives - eternal salvation. However, they're very aware of those needs in their lives they feel are most important, and they welcome prayer.
Surprisingly, they don't expect that your prayer will assure them the answer they want. "They don't demand that those prayers be answered," continues Ed Silvoso. "They are grateful that in a moment of palpable need, someone will volunteer to talk to the Supreme Being about their problems."
Seizing The Moment
Offering to pray for another person on the spot lets them know you're sincere about their need, but keep it short. Be careful - don't cloak a sermon under the guise of prayer.
Praying with someone about a current need in his or her life ushers hope directly into the moment. That hope is found in Jesus, the only One who can meet their needs - whether temporal or eternal.
For Richard Bledsoe, a pastor in Boulder, Colo., prayer also marked the start of a friendship. When Richard first met Tom Koby, chief of police, he asked him about a need in his job that no man or woman could help him solve. Tom discussed the annual Colorado - Nebraska football game - notoriously a time of trouble for the police. Richard prayed for peace, and Tom humorously reported afterward that game day had been appalingly boring. A friendship began between the two men that led to Tom's decision to follow Jesus three years later.
And it all started with a simple question: "Can I pray for you?"
it's jess'. hahah. but ive held it hostage for about a week because i like this article so much.
no scanner, so here goes:
LOST
Reaching out to someone who needs Christ starts in our own hearts.
by Michael Brown with Becky Hill
Sept / Oct 2005
Evangelism is 90 percent about becoming the right person and only 10 percent about knowing what to say. It's not about what you do; it's about the kind of person you are.
This became clear to me a few years ago when our Campus Crusade for Christ chapter at Bowling Green State University in Ohio decided to make some changes in the way we reached out to our campus.
As a staff team, we became persuaded that a vibrant ministry must flow from real compassion and strong affection for the people we were reaching. It must flow from sincere love, in the most powerful sense of the word. But we realized that we had been training students in evangelism before they had a heart of compassion. We were trying to get them to do something they simply didn't want to do.
[ at this point i'm hooked... i came to that very same realization last week praying pleading begging what to do about some of my girls... ]
Matthew 9:36 tells us how Jesus viewed the lost: "Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd."
[ this sums up my heart for people, well most of the time anyway -- if i really stop to think about it and the spirit grips my heart. it's the same that jesus felt for me. ]
Jesus realized they were unable to help themselves or to remedy their situation. He felt compassion. How often, when thinking about the lost, do we find ourselves with emotions other than compassion, like judgment, disgust, annoyance and even pride?
At Bowling Green, we needed to first admit we were not moved for the lost like God is moved. We needed to admit, "I'm racist. I'm judgmental. I'm hard-hearted. I'm aloof."
[ ha! i have been all these things. and if i'm really honest with myself, all of them in just the last few days. ]
When first a staff member with Campus Crusade, I worked at the University of Kansas, and my ministry assignment was to focus on Ellsworth Hall. To get to this particular residence hall each day, I had to walk by Hashinger Hall, another dorm on campus. You could smell marijuana coming from the windows, and some of the guys had their fingernails painted black. It was a seriously countercultural kind of place. As I would walk by the sights and sounds of that "other wrold," I kept my eyes glued to the sidewalk.
Then I started to think, If Jesus were to show up on campus, where would he go? Not Ellsworth, where everyone dressed like me and acted the same. He would probably show up at Hashinger Hall.
So I began to interact with the Hashinger students. I created a questionnaire, asking questions like "What is the most annoying thing about Christians?" and "If there was one thing you could change about Christianity, what would it be?" I quickly discovered that most of the students' barriers to becoming Christians were not about God; their problem was with cultural Christianity.
I began to realize that I needed to see people as God sees them. This required a fresh surrendering to God, admitting I was sometimes self-absorbed. I needed to come to grips with my own insecurities, letting God change me from the inside out. Before I could effectively reach the lost, God needed first to reach into my heart.
Jesus said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12). Jesus died on the cross not to help Christians get better, but to save the lost.
If your phone rang right now and you learned that someone you love - your best friend, your brother or your child - has come up missing, what would you do? Everything would stop. Priorities and plans would instantly be altered. We would go - because somebody we cared about is lost, and everything must be done to find them. Now. Because we care.
Every day we meet people who are spiritually lost, but we don't respond to them with even half this emotion or ugency.
[ there was a certain kind of release here. its true. for me, i havent had much of a best friend or a brother or a child, heh for ever... but if i substitute my oldest friends, my sister and her friends who i've watched grow up... my breath catches. i have to learn how to breathe all over again.
now check this out: ]
Here's a lesson I've learned the hard way. I always speak about what I most care about. I always do what I most want to do. I always find time to eat, I never miss watching The West Wing, and I spend time with my wife and kids. If my heart is moved for something, I will do it, and I will always do it.
If Christ is our heart's passion, His name will simply fall off our lips. Could it be that we don't reach out to lost people not because of time, training or missed opportunity, but simply because we don't care enough?
[ and here's what i think he's nailed it. i find excuses. when i cant find them, i make up some of my own. but for he who has traded his riches for our poverty: "for you know the grace of our lord jesus christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." (2cor89) paul continues: "in this matter i give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. so now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have." (1011) and, in luke 12:
"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."
Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"
The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
and, james 4:16: anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. ]
At Bowling Green, when we realized students didn't have a heart of compassion, we switched things around. We taught students to build friendships and get up close with the lost. We asked every student leader in the movement to become a student leader somewhere else on the campus. We began to immerse ourselves into the university culture and build relationships in places like the social-justice groups, the gay community and the student government. As a result, the Christian students gained hearts of compassion and came back begging for more evangelism and ministry training.
We also redesigned our weekly meeting, making ti more for the spiritually curious than for Christians. Today, the student-body president and vice presidenet come, along with emmbers of more than 100 different student organizations and cultures from across campus - many being individuals who would consider themselves agnostic and atheist. The university administration considers us one of the most diverse groups on campus.
We began by learning how to relate to people, understanding where they are coming from - their backgrounds, their relationships, their choices.
It starts with asking good questions. For example, try talking to every person you encounter. Say hello, then see how far you can go, if it's natural. Practice interacting with people; when they talk to you about anything, draw them out. Take them deeper.
As we ask questions, we will find common ground in all the ares where we agree. Then we share our lives. In this postmodern era, there is nothing more powerful and meaningful than investing relational energy and opening up your life.
Evangelism is as much a process as it is an event. In his book Finding Common Ground Tim Downs says, "To cultivate the soil takes time... I have a conversation here... I ask a pointed question there. I break a stereotype along the way. Withe veryone I meet, I am cultivating the soil and improving the climate for spiritual growth."
A few months ago, after our weekly meeting, the president of a fraternity came up to me. Several of us with Campus Crusade had been hanging out with this guy for two years, and he'd always been a self-proclaimed agnostic. Then he came up to me and said, "I'm ready." At first, I wasn't even sure what he was talking about. He wanted to become a Christian, and we prayed with him that night.
Being real and being intentional about evangelism is a hard road to travel. But it's either that or stay where we are and quietly pass from this life to the next, without ever really living. Once your heart has been broken for that one lost friend, once you have cried over the helplessness and desperation of someone you get really close to, you can't shake that sense of feeling God's heart.
My being evangelistic is not about feeling spiritual, significant or successful. It is always about what the lost need to know and understand. It is about their transformation, not mine. It is about the gospel message, not my fancy illustrations. It is about Christ, not me.
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TO TELL THE TRUTH
How to explain the gospel clearly and concisely.
by Chris Lawrence
Sept / Oct 2005
On the glacial green waters of the Flathead River I floated with a stranger. His name was Barry, and my job was to lead him safely through the precarious rapids. I was a whitewater raft guide in northwestern Montana.
I paddled in a sporty yellow kayak while Barry trailed me awkardly in a Funyak - an inflatable kayak for beginners. The eight-mile float on the edge of Glacier National Park has several major rapids, with appropriate names like Bonecrusher and Jaws, but it also allows kayakers some extended calm stretches. The float was a perfect venue for me to talk with Barry.
He had quit his job on the East Coast and sped his red Corvette across the country on a midlife-crisis trek. Montana was one stop on his journey.
It was easy to see that Barry was searching for something he hadn't found yet. I wanted to talk to him about Jesus - to tell him how to have a relationship with God. But I struggled with the words.
In the same way, many believers, though well-versed in Christian lingo, struggle to communicate clearly with people about the most important message.
The essence of the gospel is profoundly simple. If I could live that day on the river with Barry again, here's what I would have told him:
God loves us and created us to live a full, amazing life through having a relationship with Him. But there is a problem. Because of sin, we can't have a relationship with God. The Book of Romans puts it this way: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23).
What does the word sin mean? "Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude or nature," says Wayne Grudem in Systematic Theology. "Sin not only includes individual acts such as stealing or lying or committing murder, but also attitudes that are contrary to the attitudes God requires of us."
Sin dates back to Adam and Eve. God created the world out of nothing. He filled it with humans and made it beautiful. It was paradise. But those humans chose to go their own way - ignoring God's law - and we have been running up a "sin debt" ever since.
As of May 2005, the United States has accrued a debt of $7.7 trillion. While the government may never get around to paying this off, in theory it is possible to do so. However, we can never pay off our debt of sin on our own. God is just and demands paymenet; without it we are eternally separated from Him.
But there is hope. The gospel literally means "good news." The reason the news is so good is because we can have a personal relationship with the God of the universe. It sounds absurd, but it's true: He has provided a way to get us out of our sin debt. And to us it's free.
God sent His Son, Jesus, to the earth to live a perfect life, and then die and be crucified. Because He loves us, Jesus paid the penalty for the sin of mankind by dying on the cross. "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while were yet sinners, Christ died for us," says Romans 5:8.
With that powerful act ont he cross, Jesus cleared our debt, which allows us to have a relationship with Him. It is the only escape from the fatal mess we are in.
Back to Barry. Between one of the rapids, I would have invited him to ask some questions about what I waas saying, though trying not to allow things to steer too far off track. Then I would sum it all up and give him an opportunity to respond.
The gospel is, in a word, forgiveness. And through this forgiveness we can have a relationship with the eternal God, the one whom author A.W. Tozer called a "shoreless ocean."
Understanding this message of forgiveness is not enough. To begin a relationship with God, you must respond to His invitation. I would have made sure Barry understood this important step.
Perhaps by the end of the conversation, Barry would have been ready to surrender his life to God, or maybe not. As a communicator of the message, I am not responsible for the hearer's response. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, and I need to leave those results up to Him. Either way, Barry would have heard the gospel, and God would have been glorified.
But that's not what happened that day on the river. I helped Barry navigate through the waters safely, and then he left without hearing the gospel. I can still see him speding off in his sleek Corvette.
Since that day, I've had dozens more Barry-like encounters - at car dealerships, dentist's offices or on soccer teams. As I've learend to communicate the gospel more clearly, I am trying to seize such opportunities, rather than let them disappear in the distance.
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FAMILY TIES
Talking about Jesus with the people we love most doesn't have to be intimidating.
by Jennifer Abegg
Sept / Oct 2005
Stephanie's dad was a practicing agnostic and proud of it. He believed that any ultimate reality - such as God - is unknown and probably unknowable, feeding that belief with books. He also read books that sought to disprove Christianity, like Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian.
Stephanie, who had accepted Christ in hgih school four years prior, prayed that God would provide opportunities to tell her dad about Jesus and that he would become a Christian someday. It seemed as likely as Harvard accepting a high-school dropout. However, Stephanie was undaunted by her dad's distaste for Christianity. She believed that God could do anything. The only child phoned her father and invited him to meet her for a weekly coffee date. They'd meet and talk about life, and they'd discuss their differing views.
Though most of our familiy members may not seem as antagonistic toward Christ as Stephanie's dad, sometimes we shrink back from telling the truth about Him. But families are a built-in place for us to represent the truth of Christ and invite someone to be a Christian.
"The Lord has sovereignly placed us in the families we are in," says Vince Johnson, a Campus Crusade for Christ staff member. "Somebody needs to tell them about Jesus, and I believe we have a stewardship because we are in the family as a believer. We have a responsibility to tell them."
Pastor Rocky Fong, of Evangelical Community Church in Hong Kong, writes, "People tend to ask the pastor to do it for them, especially when their [family members] are sick in the hospital facing critical illnesses. Based on my own observations, parents are first 'converted' by their children before they formally accept the invitation of an evangelist or teacher."
Yet sometimes it's intimidating. Our families often know us best. They usually have known us before we have accepted Christ, and they've seen us afterward. They know "what we're really like." But there are ways to talk about Christ witht hsoe we love that are possible and practical.
Where To Begin
Prayer is the start. We need to pray and ask God to soften their hearts and provide opportunities. When John lamb returned home after serving in the military, where he was introduced to Christ, he told his brother and sister-in-law about his newfound love for Jesus.
"John," said his brother over dinner, "you look the same and your voice is the same, but I don't know who you are."
"That's because the man you knew before no longer exists," John replied, "I have been made new."
John explained the change. But his brother wasn't ready to accept Christ. Actually, John prayed for him for 20 years before his brother understood the gospel and became a Christian.
Everyday People
Another important element in sharing Christ with family members is to incorporate Him into day-to-day life.
"Evangelism isn't just someting you 'do' - out there - and then get back to normal living," writes Rebecca Manley Pippert in Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World. "Evangelism involves taking people seriously, getting across to their island of concerns and needs, and then sharing Christ as Lord in the context of our natural living situations."
We usually know our family members' needs and concerns better than anyone else's because of our unique position in the family. When we talk with our siblings, parents, children and aunts about deep things and what's important to us, we can talk about Jesus the way we would if we were talking to our Christian friends. We talk about everything else that's important to us; why not talk about Christ the same way?
Easy For You To Say
It can be difficult putting that advice into practice. Rather than just being natural in our conversations, we might only initiate conversations around spiritual things - never about school, friends or anything else we care about. I can think of times in my Christian life when I brought up these natural subjects, only to steer the conversation quickly to Christ. This relentless agenda can leave our relatives feelign less like a loved one and more like a project.
OnMission magazine reminds adult Christians with unbelieving relatives: "Treat them as courteously as you do your friends. Dialogue with them. Get to know some of their friends. Share their enthusiasm for hobbies. Learn to be their friend" (November/December 2001, "Tips For Sharing Your Faith During The Holiday Season").
Books can also help when used appropriately. Stephanie offered to read her dad's copy of Why I Am Not a Christian if her dad would read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. She later gave him Letters From A Skeptic, a book that includes real letters between an unbelieving dad to his son, by Gregory A. Boyd and Edward K. Boyd.
About five years ago, Stephanie's dad called her on the phone. Maybe, he wondered, God was knowable after all. He had searched God out with the help of his daughter, and now he was seriously thinking about giving his life to Christ. A week later he did.
Currently, he's planning to become a full-time missionary. Stephanie knows God can do anything.
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FATHER KNOWS BEST
Talking to God about someone's needs can bring a chance to talk about God.
by Angie Bring
Sept / Oct 2005
Nancy Wilson knows a fresh and simple way to bring God into almost any conversation. It requires no training, works anywhere and is almost always well received by non-Christians. At a pharmacy counter at a neighborhood grocery store in Florida, Nancy met Rebecca, who appeared depressed as she filled the Campus Crusade for Christ staff member's prescription.
Nancy asked, "How are you?" The woman in her late 20s answered that she was distressed about her daughter's problems. Nancy gently asked, "Can I pray for you?" Right there in the store, Nancy prayed for Rebecca's need of the moment.
Instead of promising to pray later, many Christians offer to pray right away, immediately engaging people in spiritual conversations. "I've never had someone say no," says Nancy.
Before You Say A Word
Offering to pray for Rebecca wasn't a stretch for Nancy - she enjoys talking to people about God because she has a vibrant relationship with Him. You probably won't bring your sixth-grade best friend's name into a conversation today unless you think about and talk with her frequently; the same goes with God. Bringing God into a conversation will be a foreign idea unless He's regularly on your mind.
The idea of praying for others comes as an overflow of your relationship with God. Since focusing on self is our default setting, it's important to ask God to allow you to see and love others like He does. For instance, yesterday's polite conversations were likely peppered with lukewarm replies of "I'm fine." Have you wondered if the lives behind these responses really are fine? Ask a follow-up question to someone's rote reply, then respond to a need revealed.
Feeling less than Superman-bold about initiating prayer with someone is normal. God designed it that way - so that we might depend not upon our abilities, but rather upon Him.
The apostle Paul struggled against angst too. He wrote, "I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).
It's a relief to remember that God provides our courage. Our role is simply to look for opportunities to bring people before His throne as we talk with them.
Offering Hope
Ed Silvoso, author of Prayer Evangelism, sees restaurant meals as easy openings to spiritual conversations. He talked about it recently on The Lighthouse Report, a Campus Crusade radio program. Ed often says to the food server, "You know, when you bring out our food we're going to thank God for it, and I wondered if there's anything we could pray for you." He says he hasn't been turned down once.
Larry and Rose Ihle tried that approach at a Chili's [ hahah Chilji's ] in Minnesota. After praying with their waitress, they also explained how she could begin a personal relationship with Jesus. The waitress responded eagerly, and the three of them prayed again. The waitress later returned to their table with the restaurant cook, asking the Ihles to pray for her too. Smiling, Larry said, "You should pray for her." Turning to the cook, the new Christian prayed for her friend less than an hour after inviting Jesus into her own life.
What Will They Think?
People long to be loved, to have someone rooting for them and to experience hope firsthand. Nonbelievers rarely recognize the greatest need for hope in their lives - eternal salvation. However, they're very aware of those needs in their lives they feel are most important, and they welcome prayer.
Surprisingly, they don't expect that your prayer will assure them the answer they want. "They don't demand that those prayers be answered," continues Ed Silvoso. "They are grateful that in a moment of palpable need, someone will volunteer to talk to the Supreme Being about their problems."
Seizing The Moment
Offering to pray for another person on the spot lets them know you're sincere about their need, but keep it short. Be careful - don't cloak a sermon under the guise of prayer.
Praying with someone about a current need in his or her life ushers hope directly into the moment. That hope is found in Jesus, the only One who can meet their needs - whether temporal or eternal.
For Richard Bledsoe, a pastor in Boulder, Colo., prayer also marked the start of a friendship. When Richard first met Tom Koby, chief of police, he asked him about a need in his job that no man or woman could help him solve. Tom discussed the annual Colorado - Nebraska football game - notoriously a time of trouble for the police. Richard prayed for peace, and Tom humorously reported afterward that game day had been appalingly boring. A friendship began between the two men that led to Tom's decision to follow Jesus three years later.
And it all started with a simple question: "Can I pray for you?"
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3:45:00 PM
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