How can we see a lot more people start following Jesus? Here are some questions that may perhaps be useful for a church leadership or outreach coordination team, in reviewing our fellowship’s evangelism:
HEART-MOTIVATION FOR THE LOST: Are people in our fellowship meeting with God daily, receiving fresh revelations of His glory from His Word, and freshly-claimed filling from His Spirit? If not, how can we help?
How can we help people to know their indispensability (Eph 4:16) – people who may feel it doesn’t matter whether they’re living for God’s mission into the lost world – that that’s someone else’s issue?
How seriously do our people take hell as a likely destination for people like ourselves, people they know? What can we do about that?
EQUIPPING: What’s needed to ensure widespread confidence in sharing our faith? How to provide it?
How long is it since we did a good evangelism training course (https://watch.studygateway.com/becoming-a-contagious-christian for example)? Does something like that need doing again?
Is there more we can do in equipping people to tell the story of their own conversion?
And in helping them know both why they believe, and how to handle the most common questions they encounter (there’s an apologetics training course elsewhere on this site)?
Is there more we can do in equipping people to read the Gospels with their friends?
MAKING CONTACTS: What can we do to develop more first contacts with not-yet-Christians?
BRIDGEBUILDING (growing these contacts into friends who can be invited to eg Christianity Explored or Alpha; for example meals or other activities together): How to do more of this? Especially at homegroup level?
SOWING: Is our introductory course – Christianity Explored, Alpha, etc – working well? What advice can we get in doing it better?
What about evangelistic events in our main services? What can we learn from other churches about making these more effective?
6. WORKING WITH THE WALK-INS: If God is giving us fringe people who may well not actually be Christians yet or, at any rate, not disciples — do we need a team of some of our best people whose job is explicitly to build friendships with them and – tactfully but deliberately – help them move forward?
7. REAPING – getting people `across the line’: Are people in our fellowship ready and able to say to friends `Why don’t you receive Jesus as your Lord today?’ How can we become better at equipping for this?
8. PRAYER: Prayer for specific not-yet-Christian friends: what have been our best experiences of this? How can it be better fostered in our homegroups, especially the sense of essential spiritual battle; and especially since research shows many non-Christians take four years to come through to Christ, so we need to have that vital, step-by-step removing of the obstacles, moving them on prayerfully from phase to phase? What about some nice cards saying something like `I covenant to pray weekly for the following three people or families who Jesus loves and died for`?
(For more of these resources please click on https://petelowmanresources.com/category/church-resources/ .)
