Principles for embedding Bible sharing – Part 2
In this two-part series, The Word One to One’s Director of Evangelism, John MacKinnon, shares seven helpful principles for embedding one to one Bible sharing into a local church’s culture of evangelism.
Small things make a big difference – both in life and especially in ministry. Time and time again, we have heard stories of how God is working powerfully through everyday believers who do the seemingly small act of using The Word One to One to share His Word with others.
The Word One to One is effective in producing a double-yield of discipleship and evangelism in the life of your church – and we have been assessing seven principles for embedding one to one Bible sharing into your church’s current culture of evangelism.
In Part 1, we looked at three principles that are essential to the process of embedding The Word One to One in your church’s regular culture of evangelism – and in Part 2, we will explore four more that will help us do this.
4: Cultivate
One of the values of decluttering is that it creates space for each of us to cultivate friendships with those God has put in our lives. This could be our family, our friends, our neighbours, acquaintances, colleagues, or even a stranger. However, the aim of spending time with them is not simply to deepen the friendship, but to sow with confidence the seed of the gospel in their hearts and, in God’s suitable time, reap a harvest for his glory.
I have seen people engaging in friendship evangelism, where they have joined a local sports club or interest group but, as they developed friendships, they failed to do any evangelism.
We want to encourage people to lovingly connect with the unbelievers in their lives, to listen to them, to get to know them and in gentle and winsome ways to be looking for the opportunity to share our hope in Jesus.
It is truly remarkable how often we are so preoccupied that we do not notice the people that cross our paths every day, people that potentially God might use us to have an influence in their lives for His glory.
Cultivating is about noticing people, befriending people, showing kindness to people, engaging in conversation with people and, where possible, showing hospitality to them.
Think about Jesus with Zacchaeus in Luke 19, or with the woman at the well in John 4. In the letter to the Hebrews, we are warned not to ‘neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware’ (13:2). In response to the question ‘which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus replied ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind: and then added the second is like it ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matthew 23:34–40).
Three great questions to challenge ourselves to repeatedly ask of non-Christians we are cultivating relationship with are:
Would you like to come for dinner? Lunch? Coffee?
Would you like to come to church?
Would you like to look at The Word One to One with me?
My home church is challenging its people this year to Pray, Host, Invite and Follow.
That means: to be praying for some of the people who they have a relationship with and don’t know Jesus; to host them in their homes, or for a dinner or coffee; to invite them to some evangelistic event; and to follow this up by seeking to read The Word One to One with them or attend something like a Hope Explored or Christianity Explored course.
We find these courses are very complementary to all that we are doing in The Word One to One, and as we cultivate a relationship with a friend and invite them to read the Word with us, they are often open to attending an explorer-style course. It is also the case that after attending this type of course, people are often looking for more – and an invitation to read The Word One to One is a wonderful follow up.
These are fantastic sowing and reaping ministries, and in order to maximise their potential, it is essential for us to cultivate friendships with the people God has put in our lives, so that we might share the good news of Jesus with them.
Reflection:
Take a few moments to think about one or two people you would like to cultivate your friendship with. Then, make some plans to meet up with them for dinner, lunch or coffee.
5: Equip
Rico Tice often says, ‘evangelism is a subset of faithfulness,’ and we can strengthen our faithfulness as we experience helpful discipleship events that equip us for service.
Discipleship is an equipping activity, and we gain confidence in sharing the gospel and in being an effective Bible Sharer in the formal classroom, through regular practice and in the context of accountable support.
When we think about the principle of equipping, we are tapping into that rich reservoir we acknowledged earlier as we thought about the master plan of Jesus and the modelling of Paul. However, we are also thinking about increasing the effectiveness of our witness as a fruit of training, practice, and mutual encouragement.
It is our desire at The Word One to One to not only deliver a high-quality resource, but also to feed into ‘resourcing that resource’, so that those using it are constantly encouraged and equipped.
We do this through key deliverables:
In-person training events – delivered at churches, conferences, and training colleges
Digital training suite – Three online modules with helpful video training, demonstrations and supporting training manual
Webinars aimed at church leaders – thinking about embedding using the Word One to One into our local church culture of evangelism
Webinars to equip and encourage Bible Sharers – regular provision of online training in how to use the material, how to get started, and keep going.
Online Community Catch-up events where Bible Sharers can mutually share and encourage one another
“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing”
The Word One to One website is set up to provide Bible Sharers with everything they need to share God’s word, including the opportunity to have free access to the resources in a PDF download format, episode walkthroughs and incredibly encouraging stories from other Bible Sharers.
The double-yield of The Word One to One is that not only is it being fruitful in the salvation of souls, but as believers read the Word with unbelievers, the believer themselves grow in their faith. This discipleship growth through faithful evangelistic Bible sharing also results in generating a disciple making disciple understanding in those who are new to the faith.
This resourced resource designed for equipping the people of God in Bible sharing is easily integrated into and can add health to the local church culture of evangelism. It is our hope going forward that we can review, revise, and refresh them going forward. Let me encourage you to engage with us in using this resource to this end.
Action:
If you are a church leader, ensure that your regular discipleship programme incorporates some regular personal evangelism training for church members.
6: Inspire
There is something immensely powerful that happens in the body of Christ when we share the accounts of our wins and losses, our successes and failures, because as we do so, all of us grow.
We looked earlier at Acts 4:31. Here, we see the fruit of the mutual sharing that had taken place, it was truly inspirational:
“And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness”
We need to share with others at every opportunity and in very natural ways our experiences of sharing the gospel or reading the Bible with others. The mutual encouragement and accountability this brings is a health giver to the culture of evangelism in our churches.
Recently, we have developed a new practice in our own church at baptisms. We have always invited the person being baptised in our credo Baptist context to give an account of their testimony. However, as a matter of good practice we have recently started to hear the testimony of the person/persons that God has used to bring the person to a place of repentance and faith.
The encouragement this brings to other believers is remarkable. Often it is this that will open their eyes to the wonder of the way in which God delights to use ordinary everyday people in the ordinary everyday scenarios to bring people to salvation through their ordinary everyday efforts to communicate the gospel. This is something we should celebrate.
Additionally, I always encourage folks to tell others when they are doing The Word One to One with someone or planning to invite someone to an event in the church. This not only brings extra prayer support, but it also can often be a catalyst to others pray and ask others themselves. As we seek to strengthen the culture of evangelism it is often good to have someone share in a regular service who they are sharing the Bible with, and this is often the inspiration or prompt that someone else needs to get started and or to keep going.
We often quote the words of Jesus in Luke 5:10: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents”. We often smile at the absence of joy in the life of the church over the same event. However, healthy celebration, which gives God the glory for all that He is doing and for the fact that He uses the likes of you and I, is a wonderful encouragement and often a catalyst to others.
Another area where we can encourage this type of inspiration is to have great evangelistic resources like The Word One to One visually displayed in prominent positions and readily available for our church members to pick up and use. It is remarkable how often great resources can remain hidden on a shelf simply because we have not been creative in our displaying them.
Action
Find resources to help you introduce your church family to The Word One to One.
Ensure that you regularly celebrate evangelism and evangelistic activity if the regular gatherings of the church.
7: Sustain
When I became a Christian, it was not long before those in the church I attended taught me the importance of two disciplines: Bible reading and prayer. I am very thankful for those who taught me with great diligence the importance of reading your Bible every day!
However, I cannot recall anyone teaching me that sharing my faith, reading the Bible with others evangelistically, or getting involved in doing evangelism was also a discipline central to maturing in the Christian faith and growing in godliness. I did have people who took me on mission trips, who encouraged me to share my testimony, but no one taught me this as a discipline for my life.
In truth, among the numerous disciplines of the Christian life, evangelism is the most neglected and often not recognised as one of the disciplines at all.
Interestingly, we know from Scripture that evangelism is expected of believers – for example, the Great Commission (Matthew 28) or the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ exhortation to be salt and light (Matthew 5) – and we also know from Acts 1:8 that we are empowered for this purpose.
It has been my experience that one of the best ways to sustain my growth in Christ has been time in the Scriptures, time in prayer and to spend intentional time in sharing Jesus with others.
Interestingly, to grow in these disciplines, I need to make the time to do them. C.H Spurgeon said:
“If I never won souls I would sigh until I did. I would break my heart over them if I could not break their hearts. Though I can understand the possibility of an earnest Sower never reaping, I cannot understand the possibility of an earnest Sower being content not to reap. I cannot comprehend any one of you Christian people trying to win souls and not having results and being satisfied without results.”
Our principal aim at The Word One to One is to resource everyday believers in the local church to grow in confidence in making Jesus known by sharing His Word with others.
When we learn to view this as a discipline, we discover the sustainable way in which evangelism can become as much a part of our lifestyle as prayer and personal study already are for us as believers.
Most people who do not pray, don’t pray because they don’t make plans to pray; most people who don’t read God’s Word, don’t read God’s Word because they don’t plan to read it; most people who don’t evangelise, don’t evangelise because they don’t make any plans to evangelise.
Reflection
Let us make plans to share God’s Word with others by scheduling time as we would our quiet time for making it one of the regular disciplines we engage in as we seek to grow in godliness.
Download and print the whole article, including Parts 1 and 2, below.
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