Are You Still Spreading the Gospel?

Permai Snapshot

Issue 47 November 2021

Are You Still Spreading the Gospel?

By: Dorcas Ng

Translated by: Yip Kin Fai

"How can I spread the gospel when I am not good at speaking to others?" This is a common stereotype about spreading the gospel. They believe that evangelism requires good biblical knowledge and eloquence, or at least a considerable expressive skills and the ability to speak fluently. Such thinking has deterred many Christians from spreading the gospel. They perceive that evangelism is the responsibility of church pastors, evangelists, coworkers, or care group leaders.

Recently, a spiritual elder from Taiwan shared with me a set of tools which was developed by the Switzerland Campus Crusade for Christ, to help Christians test their evangelistic style. This set of tools can help Christians understand the ways in which they tend to share the gospel. It lists out seven styles of evangelism as follows:

Testimonial Prefer to share openly and frankly with others on what God has done in his/her life.

Invitational Like to invite people to participate in Christian activities, such as large-scale evangelistic events, gospel camps, Sunday Worship, care groups, Christmas celebrations, etc.

Intellectual Like to exchange ideas with people either individually or in groups, and discuss in-depth topics related to Christianity and faith.

Service Like to help others in action, such as taking the initiative to help people move into a new house, help neighbours take care of their children, help students with learning difficulties or people who are depressed.

Direct Approach others, directly and out of love, to tell them that God loves them, and Jesus has accomplished salvation for them.

Relational Able to establish long-lasting relationships with others and easily share their beliefs with them.

Prayer Like to pray for the needs of others, hoping to see them experience God through prayers.

From this set of tools, we can see that even if you are not eloquent, you can still do a good job in evangelism. Among the seven evangelistic styles, the invitational, service, relational, and prayer styles do not require good eloquence and profound knowledge. On the contrary, the above-mentioned evangelistic styles only require a heart that loves God and others. The gospel is not only spoken through the mouth, but more often, it is through our lives that testify to the grace of God who has redeemed us from darkness.

Perhaps some might say, “I have shared the gospel with my friends and relatives, but they just refuse to believe. After trying for so many years, I have exhausted every method and I cannot think of any new ideas anymore.”

Don't worry, there are many valuable resources and interesting ideas on the Internet, offering many creative ideas to gradually bring people to God. [Please refer to this website: https://thefour.com/en/reachout/ (English), https://thefour.com/tw/reachout/ (Chinese).

One of the interesting ideas I saw was “Surprise Box”. You can put a mirror in a box and give it to your friend as a present and personalise it with a question “Who’s God’s beloved?’’ on the box. When your friend opens the box and sees his/her own image in the mirror, he/she will usually be surprised. Then, you may look for opportunities to share with him/her the message of God's love for the world.

Some of the ideas mentioned in the above website can be completed individually, while others need to be completed by a team; some of them are activities that can be done in conjunction with Christmas or Easter. The diversity of ideas is sufficient to cater for the needs of Christians with different evangelistic styles. I really encourage you to look-up the above websites.

Finally, I would also like to highlight that a person's belief in the Lord is often achieved through the collective efforts of a few Christians with different evangelistic styles. I also accepted Christ through the same process. At first, a direct approach evangelist came to my home and shared with me "The Four Spiritual Laws", which gave me a preliminary understanding of the gospel. A few years later, through a relational and testimonial evangelist, I saw God's wonderful work in her life, which triggered me to learn more about this faith. Finally, through the sharing of a speaker (intellectual evangelist) and invitation at a gospel camp, I decided to accept Jesus as my personal Saviour.

The Alpha team of Permai Church is a team that integrates different evangelistic styles to serve together.

Some take charge for planning, inviting, being moderators in the frontline, leading icebreaking, leading group discussions, while some silently support behind the scenes by praying, designing posters, and providing technical support.

We are not alone in the evangelism journey. We can encourage and cooperate with other Christians so that more non-believers can come to know Jesus.

Are you still spreading the gospel?

Note 1:

The evangelism test mentioned in the article cannot be shared publicly due to copyright issues. If anyone wishes to take this test to understand your evangelistic style, you may contact the author at the email address below, and she will send the test to you privately for personal use.

Email: ngkimcharn@gmail.com

Note 2:

There are also other evangelistic style tests on the Internet, most of them are in English. The link below is one of the more comprehensive ones. Readers who are interested may refer to: https://in-him.com/styles-worksheet.pdf

About the Author:

Dorcas Ng, married and blessed with a teenage son.

"I love to be with children. I learned a lot from their simplicity and faith. It helps me reflect that I also need to purely trust the Almighty God and let go of my worries to Him." Editor: Ocean Chan ▪ Proofreaders: Deborah Chow, Choo Ting Hou ▪ Designer: Joan Cheong Please send articles & feedback to: permaisnapshot@gmail.com Interested to join the editorial team? Scan the ministry QR code or speak to us at 016-3374560