Sermon Tone Analysis

Philosophy of Evangelism

personal strengths in this

Relationship Driven

Long Term Focus

Personally engaged with friends etc.

Willingness to dive deep and ask hard questions

personal weaknesses in this

Don’t have a lot of non christian friends now

do not have a rounded view of evangelism

biblical references

The call of Evangelism in my experience has often been spoken of in terms of sharing the message of the gospel, but not necessarily doing the work of the Gospel.

Jesus was very clear in what the mission was, and just going and sharing seems like only half of the call.

Evangelism should not only be a telling of truths, but an example setting on a journey.

Jesus called people to come and see, and I believe that in our evangelism we should do the same.

Our call to people to meet Jesus should not only be a message in words of the Gospel, which of course is essential

but it is not the only part of the call in evangelism.

Timothy based on an assumption from Pauls letter seems not to be a natural evangelist but is called to do the work of the evangelist.

Evangelism is the

In the western culture of evangelical christendom there may not be something so sought after, and ignored as evangelism.

in my experience, which in terms of evangelism is limited, relationships are the key.

I have often thought that my typical efforts in evangelism have been lacking, due to the nature that my tradition typically speaks about evangelism.

But becuase my philosophy of evangelism starts and finishes in the context of relationships, I beleive that there is opportunity to be evangelistic in all of life.

what I’ve been

The difficulty for someone in ministry full time like myself is we get trapped in christian circles.

Now, I don’t believe that spending time with believers is wrong, in fact I believe that scripture speaks very highly of this, and encourages believers to be together

However, our call as believers is to go and make disciples and while much of what I have been taught and heard about evangelism is spoken primarly about preaching I believe that there is process to evangelism.

I’ve been in situations where a “street preacher”, or other christian people are openly speaking about christ in public squares, and taking their opportunity to share their faith.

In a lot of these circumstances I have often walked away wondering if what they were doing was actually doing any good.

I have often struggled with this since I know what is written in

And because of this statement, I have struggled with my view of evangelism and the “best” method.

Obviously God can do whatever it is that he wants, and I truly believe that openly preaching the word will never be useless, however, I have found many of these circumstances I spoke of earlier have caused more harm to the cause of the Gospel than not.

I have come to think this way, and believe this wholeheartedly, and was impacted by a message I heard nearly 10 years ago about evangelism.

I’ve struggled with it as I said, but one statement always has come back to me whenever I think about this issue.

The idea is that because God created men and women, and by their created nature, being created in God’s image they are worthy of dignity, respect and love, so I must not ever look at someone as a target for the Gospel, but instead see their inherent value as a person, loved by God, and created for purpose.

So thats why simply I believe that evangelism happens best in a trusting relationship.

A relationship that I am committed in, and trusting God to allow for the gospel to be spoken and lived through me.

I have not always been so intentional about this, but I think that is the primary issue.

How intentional will I be?

Jesus was obviously intentional about where he was going and what he was doing.

In Jesus tells his disciples that they are to cross over to the other side of the lake, because other people needed to hear.

He wasn’t just concerned with one place, or one group, but was purposeful in where he wanted to go, and who he wanted to minister to.

So this is the example that I will use in describing my personal evangelistic approach.

I go to the same restaurants, and try and sit in the same places in hopes of having the same server.

This has actually been a very successful strategy in trying to meet people far from God.

So in being consistently present with specific people, and prayerfully submitting these conversations and opportunities to the Lord, as I get to know our server (in this instance her name is Kali) I’m able to share the Love of Jesus, and the truth about God as she sees my love my wife, and son in front of her, as I ask questions of her and invest truth in her life, which has led to questions of how my wife and I love each other differently than other couples she serves.

It has also led to invitations for her and her family to come to church functions, soft invites to community outreach events in which the purpose is to allow people to have a positive experience of church, christians, pastors and the like.

with that example what I’m trying to express is that evangelistically I’m not specifically targeting people to share the gospel with, but loving people well enough, getting to know them well enough, and be with them consistently enough that the way I speak, act, encourage, and ask questions would lead them to want to know why I’m different.

I want to be known as a person who people can tell has been with Jesus, in the same way that in acts the disicples were spoken of, that people could tell, “these men had been with Jesus”.

And in this way, I want to live so differently and attractively that I am able to take advantage of every opportunity that God gives me to be loving, to share why I’m different, and to express the only reason that I can really love someone.

just like talks about, having an answer for the hope that you have.