Praying
Prayer Strategies – Praying for a friend or neighbor is a first step towards a gospel conversation. Whatever evangelistic strategy your church employs, consider prayer as the starting point for a verbal witness.
Prayer Cards (or a digital equivalent) to help believers register their commitment to pray for people far from God.
BlessEveryHome.com – BlessEveryHome.com is a free and confidential tool to pray for, care for and share the gospel with people who live in your neighborhood. The online tool maps your home and other homes in your area so you can get to know your neighbors by name and begin to build relationships with them. Use your personal dashboard to track your progress with each neighbor. Receive optional daily reminder emails with a prayer prompt and 5 neighbors to pray for that day.
Churches can use BlessEveryHome.com to mobilize members for a neighborhood-based praying, caring and sharing effort. Regional and state associations can also assist their churches with this set of online tools. If you represent a church or an association of churches, after you sign up for a personal account, you can add an additional church or associational administrator role to your account. Bless Every Home is a ministry service of the Mapping Center for Evangelism and Church Growth.
Soul-Winning Commitment Day – Soul-Winning Commitment Day is set on a specific Sunday each year, but a church can select any day of the year to have an annual evangelism emphasis. Use the day to initiate a “praying for the unchurched” emphasis or ask believers to make a commitment to selected evangelistic activities.
Equipping
ONE Focus – ONE Focus is a comprehensive evangelism initiative for churches. Resources are free and include videos, manuals, coaching notes, planning tools, coaching calls and a private Facebook group to learn from other churches. Sign up at the ONE Focus web site and you will be assigned a coach who will help you take next steps.
The ONE Focus program includes four phases: Pre-Launch, Launch, Mission and Recovery. Pre-Launch lays the foundation by getting leaders involved, establishing a prayer emphasis, creating a timeline and setting goals. Launch transfers the vision of ONE Focus to the entire church and asking for a commitment. Mission connects your church with an outreach strategy where discipleship and evangelism merge. Recovery builds in accountability, urgency, celebration and evaluation.
Who’s Your One? – Implement Who’s Your One? in your church with three easy steps. Get started with Step 1: Step-by-step timelines and ideas make it easy to get started. Mobilize your church with Step 2: Reach and resource your congregation with an easy-to-implement suite of tools. Share your story with Step 3: Celebrate the ways you’ve seen God move in and through your congregation as they intentionally pray and share the gospel.
Who’s Your One? Implementation Guide
1×3 Initiative – One person 0utreach initiatives include an intentional witness training plan and build sustained churchwide DNA and evangelism focus. The objective is mobilizing as many believers as possible to live a lifestyle of sharing.
The 1×3 Outreach Initiative is a sample initiative that asks for 3 commitments:
- 1 Story – Learn to share your 1 story.
- 1 Verse – Memorize 1 verse to share the gospel.
- 1 Person – Identify and share with your 1 person.
Conversational Evangelism – Authors David and Norman Geisler share an engaging, conversational approach to evangelism as they address:
- What makes old models of witnessing ineffective in today’s culture
- Why evangelism must start with relational pre-evangelism
- How to ask questions, listen attentively and understand what someone believes
- Ways to identify the real barriers to belief in order to build a bridge to truth
- How to keep dialogue going with different personality types
- Class Outline #1 – Class Syllabus and Introduction | Evangelism & Culture
- Class Outline #2 – Chapter 1 – “The Need for Pre-Evangelism in a Postmodern World” | Chapter 2 – “Introduction to Conversational Evangelism”
- Class Outline #3 – Chapter 3 – “Learning the Role of the Musician” | Chapter 3 – “Learning the Role of the Artist”
- Class Outline #4 – Chapter 5 – “Learning the Role of the Archaelogist” | Chapter 6 – “Learning the Role of the Builder”
- Class Outline #5 – Chapter 7 – “The Art of Asking Questions of People with Different Worldviews” | Chapter 8 – “The Art of Answering Questions While Moving Forward”
- Class Outline #6 – Chapter 9 – “Countering Common Misconceptions that Affect Evangelism”
Evangelism Explosion – Both Everyday Evangelism (Ev2) and classic Evangelism Explosion (EE) lead believers share their faith using prayer, on-the-job training and multiplication. By learning small parts of the Gospel each week, including Bible verses and illustrations, people incrementally grasp a Gospel tool that becomes a lifelong mission. EE also partners believers with experienced trainers in real life witnessing situations.
NAMB Evangelism Resources – The North American Mission Board provides resources to share Christ, whatever the setting. The online toolbox includes apologetics, God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS), LoveLoud, evangelistic events, personal evangelism and follow-up resources.
The Art of Neighboring – Use Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon’s book The Art of Neighboring to cast vision for building relationships and sharing your faith. The 12 chapters of the book can be organized for group study and the book is an easy 200-page read. Some churches use it as a churchwide beyond-the-walls emphasis through small groups and worship services. Ask the question: Do church members know how to build relationships with unchurched people? Perhaps an emphasis like this can be a first step in your relational evangelism efforts.
Messaging
Baptism Videos – Film every baptism and record testimonies of the people your church baptizes. Record stories about people who share their faith to celebrate the win: a lifestyle of sharing. Celebrate life change in the people who have come to faith in Christ by showing periodic baptism videos in weekend services.
Attractional Events
Backyard Kids Clubs – Consider neighborhood-based backyard kids clubs in lieu of a traditional Vacation Bible School to move church members, vision and outreach outside the walls and into the community. Consider unreached areas in your community and mobilize church members in those neighborhoods for ongoing outreach efforts.
Block Parties (NAMB) – An evangelistic block party is an open-air event that incorporates food, music, kids’ games, prizes and other elements to build a relationship climate in which the gospel can be shared. NAMB’s Block Party Manual provides a complete guide to help your church plan and execute a successful event.
Friend Day – Friend Day is one of the most popular high-attendance day campaigns. Order resources at ChurchGrowth.org.
Outreach Night – Outreach Night can be organized as an inreach and outreach tool with prayer, phone call, note-writing and home visit stations. Weekly touches can be scheduled so that new prospects rotate through various stations over an eight-week period. Recruit groups to staff the stations weekly or monthly and track the number of contacts made to keep everyone accountable.
High Impact Events (NAMB) – Special events are one of the most effective means of reaching individuals who otherwise would never come to your church. In the new manual, “High Impact Events: People Reaching People,” NAMB’s Evangelization Group has compiled templates for 24 such events, ranging from dinner theater, to sports clinics or holiday parties.
Information/Connection Cards – Information cards or tear-off panels are a key way to connect with first-time guests. Consider whether the information you ask for is important enough to place on the card. Guests enjoy leaving comments and are more likely to give less rather than more information. For better response rates, create unique information cards for special events and ask everyone to fill them out.
Invite Tickets – Use business-card or other size cards to resource church members’ inviting and sharing efforts. Create “ticket” cards for events with sowing or reaping evangelism potential. Promote events as an “invite-your-friend” opportunity for believers purposefully building relationships with unchurched neighbors and friends.
TrueLife.org – TrueLife.org combines the helpful knowledge of university and seminary professors with the web to answer life’s most challenging questions. Answers are presented free of charge in an online video format by qualified experts in the fields of biblical studies, theology, history, philosophy, ethics and science. Churches that subscribe to the service receive TrueLife evangelism cards, an implementation plan, a custom church profile on the TrueLife web site, study guides and leader guides, a video player for the church’s web site and a comprehensive start-up kit.
TrueLife Invite Day – Distribute TrueLife cards widely among church members and plan a specific Sunday as TrueLife Invite Day. Ask believers to hand out TrueLife cards to people they know and ask them to give a personal invitation to morning worship and a small group. Train the church to use the card and the TrueLife.org web site as a resource for answering questions and objections about Christianity.
