A few Sunday’s ago I attended a large church and listened to an excellent and challenging message calling the people to be ready to ‘seize the moment’ and be prepared to share the gospel when the Lord brings the opportunity. I loved the sermon! But the conclusion actually frustrated me. The pastor said, “are you prepared to move a person from Twilight the movie to Jesus the Savior?” He also said, “Are you prepared to take a person from where they are into an understanding that Jesus loves them and wants to be their Savior?” The problem (what literally upset me) was that the pastor had the people saying “no” in their hearts – they aren’t prepared but want to be . . . and he did not give an opportunity during his conclusion for people to say, ‘help me pastor!’ ‘Train me, pastor!’ ‘Coach me, pastor!’
This was a fabulous opportunity for this church to collect literally hundreds of names and email address’s/phone #’s of people who would like to be coached so they COULD BE PREPARED!!! In fact, my friend Jim Quayle, and I overheard the man sitting directly behind us ask the person next to him how he could prepare himself! I went away from this service more passionate than ever about the calling God has given me!
The responsibility of the pastor and church leadership is to encourage, equip, train, motivate, bless and even anoint every believer in the church to go to their own ‘congregations’ (workplace, neighborhood, school, family, friendship group) with the message of the gospel. The church must build up the people’s confidence in their specific ‘missional-living’ ministry by teaching and coaching them: to know the Bible verses to use while sharing God’s plan of salvation; to know how to share their own salvation testimony with passion; to learn the major part the Holy Spirit plays in giving courage and success in witnessing; to learn special witnessing tools that will enable them to be focused and confident; to understand the power of praying for the lost and covering each day with prayer.
Just because your people don’t like to ‘evangelize’ doesn’t mean they can’t share their faith. Do you have any thoughts about what I have written? Let’s have a discussion.
EvangeCoach Ministries 