Reaching parts of the community others can’t - part 2 

In my last blog, I shared about how social action seems to enable connection to people who are not at a place where they would be interested in Alpha or equivalent courses and how churches are seeing growth from these initiatives. 

At some point, Christians need to be able to tell the gospel to people they are connecting with the gospel. It should not be up to the church leader or an evangelist at an event. The gospel is not something we come to church to hear, it is something we go from church to do and say.

How can we all be equipped to talk about faith matters naturally and honestly?

In this blog, I've focused on evangelism training resources that churches can run themselves. There are many training courses that people can go on but that is impractical for a congregation-wide approach. There are also offers from evangelists to come and train your people - I've not covered these.

Here are a couple of courses that could help (I'm sure there are more - apologies to those not listed):

The Natural Evangelism Course

This small group six-session course from J.John is a result of J.John’s own experience of preparing hundreds of churches for mission on six continents. It provides a simple, yet insightful training programme for all churches wanting to encourage and equip their members towards more effective friendship evangelism. The Natural Evangelism Course provides churches with a ready-made training programme to help members engage actively in evangelism; providing insights, activities and talking points to help individuals understand how to share their faith and become more confident and effective in connecting with people of the twenty-first century.

Covering the ‘Why’ of evangelism as well as defining the correct message of the Good News and the meaning of friendship evangelism, the course advises Christians on how to tell their story, how to demonstrate the good news in their lives and actions and how they can be empowered for evangelism.

Talking Jesus

In 2015, more than 40 key leaders of denominations and networks, as well as key influencers from across the spectrum of the English church came together. For 24 hours, they prayed and talked. They shared our heart for mission. They reflected on an initial piece of research on adults in England undertaken by the Barna research group. The results of this first piece of research were shocking. The adult Talking Jesus report was released in September 2015. And since then, Christians and church leaders across the country have been unpacking the findings together, reflecting on the challenges and opportunities for sharing Jesus today.

One of the key facts found in the 2015 research was that conversations with Christians are one of the most important influences in bringing people to faith. Christians are not always confident in putting their faith into words. So the Talking Jesus Course was created to inspire Christians to share their faith naturally and relevantly. Take a look at The Talking Jesus course and toolkit.
 

Hope the above help you and the church as they meet people in their community and workplaces.