Evangelism Tips Transcript

So I’ve noticed over the years as I do evangelism training that there’s usually two major barriers that people have that keep them from going out there and sharing the gospel. Not in any particular order but one is usually the “I’m too shy/I’m too embarrassed” and the other is what if the person asks me a question I don’t know the answer to, or I don’t know how to answer?

Well, let me help you out with these two huge barriers. That first one, you’re too shy to talk about the gospel, you’re too embarrassed to do it – I’m not going to throw a bunch of scriptures at you and tell you that it’s God’s command that you do it. Here’s an easy way to get over the shyness.

Number 1: You pray about it. If you’re genuinely serious about going out and bringing the good news of salvation to other people but you’re actually a little too timid to go out there and do it, pray that God would give you the courage. He wants you to have that. He will supply that for you, I guarantee you. He’s not going to turn you into the most extroverted person if that’s not who you are. That’s the cool thing about evangelism! If done effectively you simply get to be who you are. You just get to passionately teach somebody something about Jesus that you know that they don’t. Just tear down all the walls of what makes it so scary. All you’re doing when you’re evangelizing is you’re telling somebody something about God that you know that maybe they don’t. If they already know it, it’s review time. If they don’t know it, you just taught them something. What they do with that knowledge, what they do if they make a decision or not, that has nothing to do with you! That has everything to do with them and the Lord. You are the person that gets to present the truth.

Another thing I like telling people when they think about being too shy, maybe not necessarily with a stranger or street evangelism, but why it is that they don’t talk to their own friends and family and people that they’re close to is they think, “well what if I sour a relationship?” “What if by talking about God and by talking about Jesus – I mean I know this person’s background, I know where they’re coming from. They’re never going to want to talk to me again!” I simply hit them with this: You need to care more about what they KNOW ABOUT GOD than what they THINK ABOUT YOU! Let that sink in!

Our role as Christians is to let people know who God is, how amazing He is. If that person decides they don’t want to be friends with us anymore, that’s okay. I care more about their eternal relationship with the Lord than I do about my temporary relationship with them now. Obviously I would prefer them to like me and accept Christ. But you know what? There’s going to be some that accept Christ years later and you never get to talk to him again. When you see him in heaven you’ll be okay with that. There’s going to be others that are going to remain your friend and they’re never going to accept the gospel. That’s way more heartbreaking. What we hope for is those that we get to remain friends with, that become believers, and we get to grow in a closer way. So how do you deal with the shy thing? Care more about what they know about God than what they think about you!

Issue number 2: What if somebody asks me a question that either A: “I don’t have the information to answer,” or B: “I don’t know how to explain it right. I’ve never even heard of that question.” Let me calm you down from the fear of this. If you evangelize and you evangelize often, you’ll find out most questions that people have can fit on your two hands. There’s got to be less than ten questions. Later on maybe I’ll do a top 10, if there even are ten that I can think of, questions that are asked during evangelism. But the reality is there’s usually only a few.

If you’re going to go out there and you’re going to tell people about Jesus, you’ve got to understand somebody’s going to ask you, “if God exists why is there evil in the world?” There’s different ways to ask that question. That one’s going to come at you and you need to know how to answer it. They might ask you, “Why would you believe the Bible instead of believing any other religious texts?” Comparing one religion, in their mind to another. You’re going to have to know how to answer that, that’s okay. They might ask you about the hypocrisy in the church, “well if Christianity is true then how come the worst people I know are going out getting drunk on Saturdays and they’re the first ones in church on Sundays?” Know how to answer that question.

The point that I’m saying is that you’re not going to have thousands of questions thrown at you that you’ll never be prepared! If you’re serious about evangelizing, take some time to search out some of those questions. How do you know which questions to start working on first? Well, start with the ones that you yourself don’t know how to answer, that you’ve asked and have just maybe said “well I just believe it so I’ve got to move on.” Most likely those are going to be the ones that are going to come at you. Those are typically the questions about evil, hypocrisy in the church, things like that.