Evangelism :: Sunday School Leaders

I believe in evangelism training. It’s personal for me. For years I struggled to share my faith and was frustrated with the lack of results. Then a pastor trained me in personal evangelism (using Evangelism Explosion) and it made all the difference how often I shared my faith and how effective I was.

As I served churches, I found the same to be true. When we mobilized persons to share their faith through personal evangelism training, we saw many people come to faith in Jesus. I found that that evangelism training leads to a growing church with a growing Sunday School. Let me mention some resources I’ve found useful to disciple persons in personal evangelism.

FAITH Evangelism Strategy (LifeWay Christian Resources, www.lifeway.com/faith)

FAITH uses a memorized gospel presentation and on-the-job training with an experienced team leader and two learners. It requires commitment, but produces persons who are serious about sharing their faith. Someone has said that evangelism is more caught than taught. I’ve found that to be true; evangelism training that includes on-the-job training makes the difference. FAITH not only strengthens evangelism, it builds Sunday School. It is designed to tie evangelism training closely to Sunday School outreach and ministry. We used FAITH in a church of 500 with good results; one semester we saw at least one profession of faith among our teams each week.

The NET (North American Mission Board, www.namb.net/thenet)

The NET is built around using one’s personal testimony with selected Scriptures. It is simpler than FAITH, but still provides on-the-job training with a trained mentor and two apprentices. We used the NET in a smaller church (about 50) and saw a greater percentage of conversions (converts per member) than in the larger church mentioned above.

Becoming a Contagious Christian (Willow Creek, www.contagiouschristian.com)

This is basic evangelism training for every member. It doesn’t require going out and sharing one’s faith. It doesn’t require memorization. There are a number of basic evangelism training resources, but this is my favorite. I’ve found you can use this to equip all your members with tools for personal evangelism and identify those who are ready to take the next step through on-the-job evangelism training.

Growth that makes a difference for eternity is conversion growth. Do you want to grow your church and class by conversion? Use evangelism training.
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Bob Wood serves the Baptist State Convention of Michigan assisting churches to fulfill their potential in making disciples.

I serve as Interim Pastor for a medium size church in Northeast Mississippi. This is a rural, deep south, traditional Southern Baptist church on the outskirts of a mid-size Mississippi town of about 25,000. But within two miles of the church, demographics revealed there are more than two thousand unchurched families. There is also a concentration of single Moms with two or more children.

A couple of our ladies took it upon themselves to prayer drive the roads and streets in this two mile radius. They soon became so burdened they stopped their car in one neighborhood and began going door to door prayer walking, meeting people. They discovered several families at home with multiple needs. They also discovered a willingness of folks to open up and share needs. They were burdened for the spiritual well-being of their children, but did not know what to do for them. When the ladies from our church asked them if they would be willing for someone to have a Bible study with them and/or with their children, they responded positively.

It was not very long before these two ladies shared this with a Wednesday night Bible study/Prayer Meeting and asked permission to pick these children up for Bible Study and help enlist leaders for the new Bible study groups. Another lady got a burden for the Moms to have a Bible study as well.

Results:

One team picks the children up on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights for children activities and Bible Study.
Another group of ladies have been enlisted to teach two new classes for these children.
Another group of ladies have volunteered to teach the Mothers of the children at a time convenient for these working Moms.

Three new classes came as a result of a prayer burden of two ladies driving the streets around the church, because they had been told there were hundreds of unreached people within two miles of their church.

It is amazing what happens when we put feet to our prayers followed by steps of faith. God will always reward our faith.

Kiely Young
Mississippi