‘We need to organise our diaries around the fact that people without Christ go to hell ’
Rico Tice , Associate minister at All Souls , Langham Place and founder of Christianity Explored
Bishop Frank Retief in Cape Town asks his clergy to organise their diaries around the following mission statement: ‘People without Christ go to hell’. He says to his clergy: ‘Please organise your time around that truth.’ Do you?
There is often no other way to win people’s trust than by giving them our most precious commodity – time. Before ordination I used to work at Hewlett Packard, a computer company, and I can so clearly remember the change in a relationship with a colleague when we played golf together at the weekend. He knew then that I really wanted to know him because I had given up my own time, not office time, to be with him.
I think a useful tip here is to tithe your time to witness. Perhaps one lunch in ten or one weekend in ten is given to quality time with non-Christian friends. But the key is block out time, block out the diary. Spending time shows that we care. As Bill Hybels has written: ‘They don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care.’
‘The best thing we can do is encourage our young people NOT TO spend so long in church that they forget about their friendships outside of church’
MIKE PILAVACHI, Leader of Soul Survivor and pastor of Soul Survivor Watford
Evangelism has to involve friendship. People listen to people they’ve got a relationship with. Dropping Bible bombs on people is unlikely to work. At the same time we have to proclaim and explain the gospel. The best thing we can do is encourage our young people not to spend so long in church that they forget about their friendships outside of church. All the non-Christians who come to the festivals and give their lives to Jesus have been brought by someone, and we get to see the joy when they rejoice together. It works when people are authentic and genuine and themselves, not thinking they are second-hand car salespeople.
We also encourage them to be a genuine friend, whether their friends come to Christ or not. Andy (Croft) often shares the example of DL Moody, who had a list of 100 friends he longed to become Christians. By the time he died, 96 had given their life to Jesus, and the other three became Christians at his funeral. It was over a lifetime that he was consistent and faithful – so whether someone comes to faith or not it’s important to be a faithful friend.
From the beginning we wanted Soul Survivor to be somewhere people could bring their friends. Back then a third of the timetable was given to evangelism and mission, but no one wanted to do it. Then when we did Soul in the City they all came. The difference was that beforehand they all came and wanted to be worship leaders, because that’s what they saw. Then by doing evangelism they got the passion for it, and we started seeing hundreds of non-believers coming. We didn’t need to say bring your friends, they did it themselves.
‘It’s really poor evangelism to use the word evangelism’
Miriam Swaffield , Student mission developer at Fusion
On a day-to-day level, evangelism is friendship. It’s key that I’m always hanging out with mates who don’t know Jesus. Because I’m in a full-time Christian job I really have to be smart about hanging out with people who don’t know Jesus, because otherwise, between church and work, you’re in trouble.
Basically, evangelism is just sharing your best friend with your friends. That’s my mentality in everything I do – it would actually not be authentic to hang out with people and not talk about Jesus because he’s so core to who I am and how I live. So if he’s my best friend, of course I can’t help but mention him and what he’s like to my other friends. I come most alive when I’m sharing Jesus.
We’re all called to tell people about Jesus, but we also have people who are given the gift of evangelism. And so for me I have to be really aware that this is a God-given gift that has to be used. Ephesians 4 says that the job of an evangelist is to grow the body of Christ up into full maturity - to know more of Jesus. So to be an evangelist means I also have to encourage others, to raise others up to share Jesus. I don’t use the word evangelist or evangelism – it’s rubbish with your mates who don’t know Jesus. It’s really poor evangelism to use the word evangelism.
We need to work out the whole jargon stuff. Most people freak out a little bit because they think sharing the gospel means they have to tell the whole Jesus story, and they’re not entirely sure how they’re going to get that into a five minute conversation on a bus - but they’ll give it a go. Before they know it they’ve gone into reciting lines, probably from the King James. It’s far better to tell stories about how Jesus is real to you, and see what questions they come up with. It’s got to be authentic. We’ve had so much superficial stuff, so much thrown at us that’s manufactured, super-imposed and photo-shopped in this generation that when someone sitting opposite us is regurgitating lines they’ve been taught or selling something that isn’t really true then it doesn’t cut it anymore. Our friends’ radars go off.
‘The Church has lost its audience. They’ve heard all of our rhetoric and words’
Roy Crowne , Executive director of HOPE
The Church has lost its audience. They’ve heard all of our rhetoric and our words.
‘Hope’ came out of the change that had occurred where the most effective churches that were doing evangelism were involved in their community. Previously, we had constantly separated social action and evangelism - engaging in one part of that but feeling that we couldn’t engage in the other. But I think we now understand that the only way to do this is to see that they’re two sides of the same coin. Jesus did the acts of kindness, the engagement with community but he also presented the gospel. The big challenge is that when you do social engagement you can back off from presenting the gospel, and the key is holding the two in tension.
The critical point is where you provide the opportunities for them to make a response. Where do the points of contact move to the next stage? So it’s about offering opportunities for them to move further a process. Many churches engage with Foodbanks, but what do you do with these people after initial contact? What you’ve got to be constantly thinking is how you can appropriately show who Jesus is in that context. We are not just social services; we are committed to a demonstration and proclamation.
‘Most churches don ’t even get out of the starting block when it comes to evangelism because they struggle to engage With those they hope to evangelise . Some churches place greater value on proclamation but often fail to actually meet with or engage with people in an authentic way , while other churches place greater value on the outreach element and then stumble when it comes to proclamation . Reaching people for Jesus is a process , and it works best when we give equal value to every part of the process ; identifying and engaging with those you are trying to reach , laying a foundation of relationship , and sharing and giving an argument for what and why you believe .’
Prince Laryea , leader of youth charity Acts 29
‘Evangelism isn’t working for everyone. What is working is teaching the Bible’
Nate Morgan -Locke , Youth evangelist at Christianity Explored
Evangelism is about proclaiming Christ from the Bible, as that’s where he is revealed. We have to accept that currently evangelism isn’t working for everyone. That’s not to say people aren’t being converted and we’re not seeing some success, but as a general rule, the Church in the UK is managing decline, and we’re not growing as we’d like to be.
What is working is teaching the Bible. I’ve been going around the UK and it’s preaching the gospel, rather than small group work, that is having quite an impact; teenagers who are hearing people preach about Christ are putting their faith in him, which is obviously glorious.
Fundamentally, eternity is not about the questions we have for God, but the questions he has for us. So it’s much more about God saying ‘Here’s my son, what do you make of him? How do you relate to him?’ rather than starting off with people’s questions. We want to take teenagers seriously and not say that the questions they have are unimportant, but the fundamental questions are the ones God has for us.
We often talk about teenagers in very general terms, but the kid looking at you is not a manifestation of an entire generation, they’re an individual who may be an expression of all that stuff, but they’re more than that. There’s a life and a history there.
‘You can do all the right stuff - but if God isn’t working , then it’s just a good event’
Andy Watkins , Head of Youth and Student Alpha
There are lots of different courses doing lots of different things and reaching lots of different people, and you see that in the diversity of the Church, because different people respond in different ways. the talks we’re always referring to the Bible- it’s based on scripture, but we don’t want to make any assumptions; we know people are on a journey. I know that if I pulled out the Bible on the first week and pointed at a verse and made them read it, it might freak them out, but actually after six or seven weeks they get to a point where they are happy for us to open the Bible, and pray, and think those things through.
People have questions. We believe that everyone has a unique question, ranging from ‘will I miss my bus?’ to ‘should I date this girl?’ to ‘is there more to life than this?’. We want to honour the individual and honour their questions so we give space for them. We want to know what people are wrestling with.
We might not know all the answers but we need to listen to those questions because it becomes very one-sided if we just come along and preach ‘this is what you have to believe, this is how you have to live.’ But if we don’t give an opportunity for response then it’s not really relationship and at the end of the day that’s what Christianity is about – it’s about a relationship with God and a relationship with each other.
Rather than overwhelm them with knowledge we want to usher them into the presence of God and allow God to do what God does – he’s the one who changes hearts and draws people to himself – so we just want to create that space. You can put every system in place, wear the right clothes, run the course in the right place, but at the end of the day if God is not working and drawing people to himself we’re just putting on a good event. I don’t want Alpha to be known as a good event. I want it to be known because God is at work.
‘The truth is: we are all evangelists, every single one of us’
Steven Harper, community developer at yesHeis.com
Evangelism is a scary subject. At church, sometimes our pastor will struggle to talk about evangelism because he knows it has a connotation, that there’s some sort of stereotype around what an evangelist is. The truth is, we’re all evangelists, every single one of us. The problem is that because that word carries such a stereotype, people don’t want to say they’re an evangelist or people don’t know what it means.
We all expect an evangelist to be someone who goes and speaks on stage at a big Christian event. We’ve got to break down some of the walls that say ‘you’ve got to be a really good communicator to be an evangelist’. Actually it’s not about that, it’s about relationships, it’s about being who you are, where you are, in your workplace, school, college and with your friends. I agree that we’ve got to be effectively communicating Jesus to people but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to be preaching to our friends the whole time. We’ve got to start showing love and realise that actions as well as words can help us to show our faith. That seems to be the direction evangelism is going at the moment. We try to tell the Church to do the talking part but we have to do the showing part as well – we have to love people.
‘True evangelists spark evangelism in others’
Chip K, Singer, author and television presenter
When I was in The Band With No Name, the questions at the end of sessions that young people would ask were always about science - those of them with scientific minds would always be looking for more evidence. So I thought: ‘What would happen if we started taking a scientist into schools who was also a believer?’ And we’ve had a great response to that. We’ve seen young people asking the questions that they’ve wanted to ask, and then asking more and more questions about stuff like life after death.
Ultimately, authenticity works. People are always watching the way you act off the stage, if anything more than they watch how you act on the stage. As Christians, if we’re not careful we can begin to go into church or youth work mode. But they’re watching you 24/7, they’re watching what you tweet, how you are with your friends, and attaching a meaning to that. One thing I despise is pop artists saying ‘I’m no role model’ – you can’t get out of it that easily.
The Bible says that as teachers we will be judged more harshly. The question is whether people are going to persecute you for what you’re doing right, or something that you should be getting persecuted for. True believers spark belief in others - true evangelists spark evangelism in others.
‘Evangelising through rap music and is vital for me as it ’s sharing Jesus in a way that ’s relevant to today’s culture’
Guvna B, Mobo-Award winning rapper
I think it’s great that I can share my story and spread a message of faith, hope, and positivity outside the four walls of the Church. I’ve witnessed some amazing testimonies. Kids who have come from broken homes, kids who were self-harming, or had many other issues and who have managed to make the best out of a bad situation and live life in a more positive and faithful way. Sowing seeds outside of the Church is a huge passion of mine and I’m praying for God to keep watering them. Sometimes schools don’t allow me to be as blatant as I’d like to be about my faith but the kids normally ask questions which allow me to share my faith with them in greater detail anyway. Evangelising through rap music and school workshops is vital for me as it’s sharing Jesus in a way that’s relevant to today’s culture.
‘We start our work way before the moment of commitment’
Lynsey Johnston , LCET director
We separate our evangelism into two different areas. Firstly, we work with young people on their spiritual development. There are many young people who aren’t spiritually developing in their reflective and self-awareness skills. They often don’t know what the Christian faith could mean for them, as they don’t have the skills to reflect upon it. We believe that the place where people spiritually develop the most is in a relationship with Jesus. Our hope is that as they become more aware of the world around them and their effect on it, they become more aware of God. So we explore their connectedness to what we call the transcendent, and we give them opportunities to reflect upon what that means for them.
The second area of our evangelism is finding specific opportunities for Christian faith development. We’ve separated the two areas so that schools are clear on what we’re doing, but also so that the young people involved with our intentionally Christian work are there on an ‘informed consent’ basis. We want the young people we work with to know that these are our personal Christian stories so that they can reflect upon them. This highlights just how interlinked both areas of our work are, as we believe the young people aren’t able to fully reflect on our Christian experiences without the tools that we’ve equipped them with in spiritual development.
We use Engel’s discipleship scale. It starts way before the moment of commitment. That’s the area we operate in. We believe that by spiritually developing young people, we’re supporting and facilitating them to go on that discipleship journey; that’s why it’s such a key part of our evangelism.
We just tell them the story of Jesus. Not what it means to be a Christian, not about their sin, we just tell them: ‘This is Jesus, this is who he is, this is what he has to say’. We’ve found that just telling the stories about Jesus has had the most profound impact on our young people. It’s slow, and that’s because our young people are thinking about it, but it is having a massive impact.
‘The vehicle of the message has to be as good as the message itself’
Chris Duffett, Founder of The Light Project and former president of the Baptist Union
Evangelism isn’t the Church’s idea - it’s God’s idea. The redemption of the world is his plan and he chooses to use you and me in fulfilling that plan. So I have confidence that when I go to share good news with people that God has gone before me and is with me. I want to see what God is doing and join in with that.
The vehicle that I choose for the message shows the good news of Jesus. In Brad Kellenberg’s book Live to tell he says that the vehicle of the message has to be as good as the message itself. Often the language we use is difficult for people to understand, but people connect with what they’ve seen or experienced.
I love to do things that show people’s worth and value. We set up a red carpet with a couple of people who welcome everyone to walk the red carpet while we applaud and celebrate people. It sounds cheesy but most people want to know why you’d consider them to be special and important.
Last week we bought loads of pot plants and chose five shops to visit and gave them a gift of a pot plant to let them know we were praying for them. Four of those shops were really touched by a simple gesture and wanted to know why we were doing that. If we’d done that without the plants we might have been asked to leave the shop!
It’s not just for people who seemed gifted in evangelism; the vehicle gives people confidence. One of the most introverted people I’ve worked with sits in the pub every Friday morning for an hour or two with a sign that says: ‘I will listen.’ And he’ll admit that he’s terrified but he’s willing to have a go. He just says: I’m here to listen because I’m a Christian and people will just talk. A lot of the falling short nature of the Church is taking a ‘come and hear’ approach when Jesus has said ‘go and tell’. Too often evangelism has just been seen as going up and blathering at people, but it’s actually about the overflow of what we have as followers of Jesus.
‘Some of my best friends aren’t Christians , and I try to talk to them about faith – but they are very reluctant to talk about it . They just don ’t want to listen . They have so many questions they want answers to . The other day they asked me : ‘If God exists , why would he create atheists ?’ I tried to explain about free will but they kept coming back saying that I was wrong , and talking about science and the Big Bang – and that science is real , and that God isn ’t. I definitely know that God exists . The likelihood of all of this happening by chance is impossible , And Jesus was de finitely around – and if you put it all together it makes sense . It makes sense to me .’
Hannah Redfearn, 15
‘Evangelism needs to be intentional for people to come to faith ’
David Hart , leader of the volunteers who run CPAS Ventures
On our camps we have a clear talk scheme and programme through which we proclaim the good news of Jesus. This consists of a daily meeting where there’ll be a talk followed up by a dorm group consisting of six to eight young people and two or three leaders. This is essential to us. The young people hear the gospel proclaimed in a meeting, explore it in a small group, and see it lived out through the lives of their leaders.
Not all residential events are the same and it’s the degree of intentionality that we have which gives us a fantastic track record of people coming to faith and moving on in their relationship with God through the camps.
We run residentials because it enables young people to see that it’s plausible to live the Christian faith; they see that through their peers as well as their leaders. They also see other young people in other places following the Lord, and willing to put their head above the parapet and say that they believe the truth of the gospel. You’re inevitably surprised about who responds to the invitation Christ offers, because you can never tell who will respond positively.
