In the last missions blog, “4 Steps to Displaying Christ in our Community,” I highlighted our responsibility in reaching people with the gospel by:
Identify
Invest
Introduce
Invite
I ran acorss Tim Keller’s top evangelical practices that I thought was very similar and would be helpful for us as we seek to share Christ.
- Let people around you know you are a Christian (in a natural, unforced way)
- Ask friends about their faith – and just listen!
- Listen to your friends problems – maybe offer to pray for them
- Share your problems with others – testify to how your faith helps you
- Give them a book to read
- Share your story
- Answer objections and questions
- Invite them to a church event
- Offer to read the Bible with them
- Take them to an explore course
What Keller also advises is that we (generally) start with stages 1- 4. If people are interested and want to talk more, you can move them to stages 5-7. If they’re still interested, go on to stages 8-10. Sometimes people will want to go straight to stage 10, but often people start from way back and need some time to think and discuss things in a non-pressured way. We often think that only stages 8-10 count and invest all our energy there. Tim Keller suggests that to get people at stages 8,9, and 10, you have to put the work in at stages1- 4. Sometimes you’ll have to keep going round the loop multiple times.
Just a few final thoughts to note from both these lists:
- It involves us loving people and extending compassion.
- It involves us prioritizing our time with people.
- It involves us being transparent and really listening to others.