Recommended Reading on Personal Evangelism

Our vision for 2017 is to incorporate both Corporate and Personal Evangelism in our outreach. This means that both the church and its members are committed to reaching into our community with the gospel. It is my experience that most Christians are much more comfortable engaging in corporate outreach as opposed to personal evangelism. The latter can be frightening. Therefore, I want to highlight a number of helpful resources on personal evangelism that may guide us this year.


How to Give Away Your Faith by Paul E. Little

This is one of the most accessible and easy to use guide. Little walks the reader through the ins and outs of personal evangelism. If you invest in only one resource, this is perhaps the best. It is both biblical and practical and was required reading for all seminary students at SBTS.


The Art of Personal Evangelism: Sharing Jesus in a Changing Culture by Will McRaney

This work is growing in popularity and may even be rivaling Little's volume highlighted above. It is more detailed and not as accessible but is just as helpful especially when it comes to understanding our cultural context.


The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

This is a helpful introductory work on evangelism. Dever walks the reader through what the gospel is, why we should share the gospel, and how to practically do it.


The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman

This is another classic read by all seminary students at SBTS. Coleman's approach is to study how Jesus trained the disciples and then sent them out into the world to do the same. It is a short but powerful book.


Life On Mission: Joining the Everyday Mission of God by Dustin Willis and Aaron Coe

The "Life on Mission" track introduced us to the 3 Circles which is a simple way to explain the gospel. The idea is that it can be written on a restaurant napkin. It is the method I have used at EFBC to explain and explore the gospel with those ready to receive it. In this volume, the authors walk the reader primarily through the importance of living evangelistic lives, i.e., lives on mission.


For more:
Recommended Reading on Idolatry

January 8, 2017 | John 4:1-42

Here is the sermon from Sunday evening where we discussed a practical guide to personal evangelism. At the end of the day, we cannot find success at personal evangelism unless we do personal evangelism.

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), ³ He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. ⁴ And He had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So He *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; ⁶ and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
 
⁷ There *came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. ⁹ Therefore the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” ¹¹ She *said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? ¹² You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” ¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman *said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” ¹⁶ He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” ¹⁹ The woman *said to Him, ^"Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

²⁷ At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” ³⁰ They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” ³⁴ Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. ³⁶ Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

³⁹ From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of His word; ⁴² and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Audio

Scroggins Demonstrating the 3 Circles

Here is the video we showed last Wednesday featuring my former dean at Boyce College, Dr. Jimmy Scroggins, walking us through the three circles. I encourage you to watch it often and learn how to articulate the gospel with it.

3 Circles - Life Conversation Guide from North American Mission Board on Vimeo.

Ronnie Floyd on the 3 Circles

Here is a sermon preached by former SBC president Ronnie Floyd on the 3 Circles which we discussed last night in Bible study.

Ronnie Floyd 3 Circles from North American Mission Board on Vimeo.

Life on Mission Trailer

Tonight we are starting a new series I'm really excited about. It is no secret that most Christians are hesitant to share the gospel with someone because they lack the confidence in sharing the gospel. So for the next few weeks, I want us to walk through a very simple way of sharing the gospel - the good news of Jesus - that each of us can utilize. I encourage everyone to come out and join us in this vital study.

Here is the trailer for our study:

Life On Mission Bible Study Trailer from North American Mission Board on Vimeo.