CAN I GET A WITNESS?

 

(“He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30 NKJV)

Dear Readers:

Last week we discussed Evangelism Session #1 by Dr. Barry Jones, a Dallas Theological Seminary professor. I entitled the post “God’s Great Rescue Mission”. It focused on the “Missio Dei”, which means God’s purpose, in which God chooses, calls, and sends us on His rescue mission to save lost souls.

This week in lesson #2 Dr. Jones talked about our “divine mission” to witness to the non-believing world, and what the word “witness” means. He said as a qualifier, “It’s always necessary to use words.” But the first step in using words is to earn the right to use those words by “living out the truth of the gospel” so that people can see our changed and different lives of “justice and peace”.

Dr. Jones also said the essence of the Bible is God’s unfolding drama in which in the end we play an integral role as witnesses. He said the term “witness” is a narrower category under the term “mission”. And “evangelism” is a narrower category under the term “witness”.

Dr. Jones referenced a book entitled “The Rise of Christianity” by Rodney Stark. The book subtitle reads, “How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World In A Few Centuries”. At first I thought he was talking about the Jesus Movement that was related to the hippie movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Instead he was talking about the early church discussed in the book of Acts.

One key to this movement was the fact that it was in stark contrast to the prevailing Greek and Roman cultures. One example was that the early church movement treated women very well, unlike the Greek and Roman cultures. As a result many women were saved, and played a large role in the growth of the church. He said another key was the fact that the Greek and Roman cultures distanced themselves from anyone that had diseases like the plague, but the early church, in contrast, embraced and helped people with diseases, and many people got saved as a result.

Dr. Jones stated that there is some dissension between two camps of thought related to how we should witness. One side thinks that humanitarian efforts should be the primary means to share the gospel, and they may, or may not minimize the need for verbal sharing. The other side feels that verbal sharing should be the primary means to share the gospel, and they may, or may not minimize the need for humanitarian efforts. Dr. Jones strongly said that the church needs both.

Lastly, Dr. Jones pointed out that witnessing isn’t an optional choice for believers based on their preferences. He quoted Acts 1:8 which states, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Note the emphasis on “YOU WILL be my witnesses.” Dr. Jones said choosing to witness, or not to witness isn’t an option, and that Jesus gave an emphatic statement of fact.

Dr. Jones also asked students to give possible ways of verbally witnessing, to open the door for future evangelism. Several examples were: The question, “May I pray for you?”, or “words of encouragement”, or “remembering and commenting to people by name”, or “treating all people in the workplace or elsewhere with dignity and respect”.

I still have a long way to go to understand, and to begin the practice of being a good witness for Jesus that opens doors toward evangelism. How about you?

See you next time,

Arlen

GOD'S GREAT RESCUE MISSION

(“He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30 NKJV)

Dear Readers:

Last week we talked about possible evangelism training resources and options, some that are free, to shed some light on effective ways to win souls for Jesus. We discussed the fact that any Christian can become a “lifelong learner” about evangelism, and we don’t have to enroll in an expensive school to do so.

The title of this week's post is "God’s Great Rescue Mission". It's based on the first training resource I discussed, which was the Dallas Theological Seminary’s Evangelism 102 free online course. This week I did the first lesson out of seven lessons in the course.

In the lesson Dr. Barry Jones laid some course groundwork for his students about the first week, and the coming weeks. Before getting into the heart of the lesson Dr. Jones made some key points that the course was more about “evangelism education” than it was about “evangelism methods”, although he said that some methods were to be discussed in the coming weeks.

He used evangelism word associations to identify the bad rap that evangelism sometimes gets. Some associations were the following: “Used car salesmen”, and “street corner or soapbox preachers”.

Dr. Jones also discussed the fallacy that extroverts have an advantage in evangelism over introverts. He said that we can all participate in evangelism with the personality God has given each of us.

Dr. Jones then stated that evangelism is in most cases a “dialogue”, as opposed to a “monologue”. This means it's usually better if there's a conversation as opposed to one person stating his or her own assertions about the need for the other person to come to God.

Dr. Jones main theme was about the words “mission”, and “missional”. He said that God’s mission is the overarching theme of the entire story of the Bible. He said that God’s mission is the following: “To rescue and renew God’s good, but broken creation.” Later he termed it “God’s Great Rescue Mission”.

Dr. Jones also defined “Theology Proper” which starts with God. God then sent Jesus to die for the sins of the people. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit then sent people in the church as missionaries to the rest of mankind.

Dr. Jones quoted Andrew Kirk, a London theologian, who said: “If the church ceases being missionary (or evangelistic), it has not just failed in one of its tasks, it has ceased being Church.” Those seem like pretty strong words!

One student questioned the stern nature of this quote. Dr. Jones said that he feels like Dr. Kirk may have been using a little hyperbole to get his point across, but feels that the point Dr. Kirk made was true. His point was if the church isn't evangelistic, it essentially ceases being the church performing God's intended mission.

Dr. Jones also said that the missional or evangelistic nature of the church is the primary goal of the church, and churches that have other focuses, even ones that seem good, have it backwards.

He said that focuses such as “worship”, “community or small groups”, and even “discipleship” can be good, but they don’t usually lead us to be missional or evangelistic. But on the other hand being missional or evangelistic usually does lead us to worship, community, and discipleship.

I'm not going to get into all the details of the entire lesson in this post, as it would take too much time. I'm planning to post each week after studying, and hopefully passing, each lesson.

Finally, the point that Dr. Jones reemphasized at the end of this first lesson, was that “God chooses, calls, and sends us”. to participate in "God's Great Rescue Mission".

I want to be part of that rescue mission. How about you?

See you next time,

Arlen

THE NEXT LEVEL

(“He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30 NKJV)

Dear Readers:

Last week we laid out the systematic, fairly uncomplicated Roman Road path to talk to unbelievers about the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week's title is "THE NEXT LEVEL". I want to discuss the possibility of taking soulwinning to the next level by engaging in proven evangelism training.

There are a number of quality online training resources that are free of charge. I think these training opportunities and books can shed some light on effective ways to win souls for Jesus, and help us to take our soulwinning efforts to the next level.

I’ve discussed it numerous times, but I think it bears repeating, that no one, regardless of age, race, gender, or even disabling mental or physical condition, is disqualified from becoming part of an effective soulwinning team.

Many of us just last week finished watching the Olympics. The athletes in the Olympics have been training, and have taken many steps for many years to get to the next level where they were good enough to compete on a worldwide stage.

Many people, including myself, sometimes think that we don’t have the capacity to take soulwinning to the next level, and train to become a part of a team to make a difference in the lives of others. I, however, beg to differ.

I’ve come to the conclusion, even though it was late in my life, that our main job as Christians, along with our employment jobs, is to win souls for Jesus.

How can we do that?

I think we can do it the same way that the athletes in the Olympics reach their next level. By taking steps in practicing long and hard some of the principles taught by Jesus, his disciples, and many others about evangelism.

I’m going to present a two of these opportunities to learn the principles of evangelism so that soulwinning will become second nature, or for that matter first nature to us.

Here they are :

A. Dallas Theological Seminary has a free basic seven session online course called “Evangelism 102”. The course has a number of objectives, but for the sake of time I won't go over all of them.

1. The student will know at least one method to share the Gospel, and begin to integrate it into his/her lifestyle. (Note: Last week we discussed learning the Roman Road method, so we might have a head-start on that objective.)
2. The student will be interested in developing a plan to reach his/her community for Christ. (Note: This has been my goal for many years. We need to remember that an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell are in the balance.)
3. The student will plan and become enthusiastic about sharing his/her faith with non-Christians on a regular basis. (Note: Witnessing to others about Jesus should never be boring or tedious, but it should be our most exciting adventure in life.)
4. The student will be interested in helping another person become better equipped to share the Gospel. (Note: Helping to equip myself and others to win souls for Jesus is the entire purpose of the soulwinnersrus website.)

B. The second course is taught by Greg Laurie of Harvest Church in California. He taught a six session online course in 2017 entitled “Tell Someone”. Objectives for this course are the following:

1. Learn the importance of sharing your faith, and to do it with confidence and tact. (Note: This would go along with the "BLAST" acronym principles Greg Laurie recently shared.)
2. Be encouraged in your walk with Christ. (Note: This could be compared to the Dallas Theological Seminary objective of the enthusiasm that can come from sharing the Gospel.)
3. Overcome obstacles you face in sharing the Gospel message. (Note: The main reason I started the Soulwinnersrus website in the first place was to help myself to overcome the obstacles I was feeling in sharing my faith.)
4. Focus on the challenge how you view those who don’t know Christ. (Note: I've recently been trying to think of people as souls, either saved or unsaved. I hope this approach takes all prejudice out of my interactions with them.)
5. Be inspired to live out the Great Commission. (Note: This objective is self-explanatory.)
6. Become equipped to effectively go and tell someone about Jesus.
7. Use your personal testimony.
8. “Close the deal” with someone who wants to give their life to Christ.

The “Evangelism 102” and “Tell Someone” courses are fairly recent offerings in teaching evangelism. But there are also a couple of old evangelism books that I found helpful. They are "The Soul Winner" by Charles Spurgeon, the well-known 1800's London preacher. And I also personally like “Pentecostal Witnessing” written by Aubrey Maye in 1955.

In conclusion, studying topics, like evangelism will take some time, but I think is time well worth taking.

At the age of almost 68 I realize that most likely my college days are behind me. But I think all of us can move forward toward "the next level" in the excitement of being lifelong learners, especially when it’s learning something as important as soulwinning.

See you next time,
Arlen

CLIMBING THE ROMAN ROAD

 

(“He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30 NKJV)

Dear Readers:

Last week we discussed how to ‘build a bridge’ to reach out to other people, first to try to understand them, then to present, in a meaningful way, the wonderful love of Jesus. We used Greg Laurie’s BLAST acronym and questions I developed into a reference tract to be used by myself, and if desired, by other Christians.

The goal is to begin getting our feet wet in engaging non-Christians to talk about their belief systems, and to begin introducing them to Jesus in a systematic way.

Today, I’m going a bit further to introduce a step I referenced at the end of my last post, and that is using ‘The Roman Road’ approach to reach lost people. I’m not sure when ‘The Roman Road’ to salvation was first developed and used, but I feel it’s an effective, relatively straightforward, and uncomplicated way to introduce people to the gospel.

I developed a Roman Road tract after I got permission from The Tract League to use their Roman Road image any way that I like because they were going out of business. That was a blessing to me.

I then developed the ‘Climbing the Roman Road’ tract, and have been using it, and giving it out to unsaved people for several years now, although in reality I have witnessed to relatively few people, and also have given out the tract to relatively few people. But I want to change that.

I’m not doing this post to try to promote my tracts. They are fairly unprofessionally made. Instead, I’m promoting the effectiveness of using ‘The Roman Road’ SCRIPTURES, to reach lost souls for Jesus.

The full title of the tract I developed is ‘Climbing the Roman Road, The Most Important Climb You’ll Ever Make!’ Below is the front of the tract. I’m not, however, going to get into all the details of the first page. I instead want to focus on The Roman Road image and the Book of Romans Bible scriptures associated with the image.

There are seven Bible scriptures tied to The Roman Road image.

1. The first scripture verse is a fundamental truth that’s vital for a person to understand that everyone has sin in their life. It’s found in Romans 3:23. It states, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The picture on the image representing this verse is a broken heart caused by sin. See the picture in the image.
2. The second scripture verse is a very stark reality. It’s found in the first part of Romans 6:23. It says, “For the wages of sin is death.” This verse is a reminder that at the end of sin is eternal death, which means an eternity in hell. That should be a wakeup call to all people, especially unsaved ones. The picture on the image representing this verse about eternal death is a tombstone.
3. The third scripture verse is one that gives us some hope. It’s the second part of Romans 6:23, and states, “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The picture on the image representing this verse is a wrapped gift package.
4. The fourth scripture verse explains what Jesus did to give us hope. It’s found in Romans 5:8 and says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” This verse tells us that Christ provided a bridge to safely cross the chasm of hell toward an eternity in heaven. The picture on the image representing this verse is the well-known cross about ½ way up the mountain.
5. The fifth scripture verse is the action required to be saved from the wages of sin. It’s found in Romans 10:13 and states, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The picture on the image representing this verse is a man on his knees praying as he's calling on the name of the Lord.
6. The sixth verse, Romans 10:9, further defines the outcome of that action. It reads, “That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” The picture on the image representing this verse is a wonderful restored heart which is no longer broken.
7. The seventh set of two scripture verses crescendo into a profound appeal that's found in Romans 12:1-2. They say, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Not all Roman Road tracts include these final verses. The picture on the image representing these two verses is a #1 symbol at the peak of the mountain with God's name there.

I think becoming familiar with and memorizing the Roman Road to salvation is a great tool to reach out to unsaved people with the gospel, and in conclusion, I think The Roman Road verses tie in very well with the BLAST tract, and I want to utilize them more and more in my quest as a soulwinner. How about you?

See you next time,

Arlen