Video Transcript: Personal Outreach and Evangelism

welcome back. We're into another session of developing great commission  skills. We're still in that final skill of leaving a gospel footprint. And our subject for today is personal outreach and evangelism, personal outreach and evangelism.  Now here's the deal. As a pastor, the effective Great Commission pastor or  leader must practice what is preached significantly engaging in personal  outreach and evangelism through personal involvement in the community. Now I want to lean into that message from Jesus that directed from Jesus as the  Father has sent me, so I am sending you. Well, what did Jesus do? Well, Jesus  went into the villages. He went into the countryside. He went into the  marketplace. It seems like you always find Jesus out in the harvest, because  what you can't harvest, you can't gather the harvest unless you're in the harvest. So as pastors and leaders, we've personally got to be in the harvest. Again, we  have to practice what we preach. We can't ask people to be doing things that  we're not doing ourselves. Now here's a couple of definitions. We've mentioned  this before, but it's worth mentioning again. Outreach has to do with building  sustainable relationships with people in the harvest. We're going to come  alongside them. We're going to invest in their lives. We're going to be arms  length away, because, more than likely, as God begins to draw them toward  faith, something's going to happen in their lives that's going to wake them up  spiritually and if we're standing right beside them, walking through life with them, it's very good chance that they're going to turn to us. So that's why we do  outreach to build sustainable relationships with the prospect somewhere down  the line of being able to engage in evangelism. Well, what is evangelism?  Evangelism is when we clearly articulate the message of the gospel. Now,  evangelism is much stronger when it grows out of outreach. So these two work  together. We do outreach to build sustainable relationships, to embed ourselves  into other people's lives, waiting for the opportunity, looking for the opportunity,  praying for the opportunity, to then move to evangelism, where we can share the faith, where we can introduce them to Jesus Christ. So here's the question, are  you doing that? Are you building sustainable relationships? Are you always on  the lookout within those relationships for the opportunity to share the gospel.  Now, when it comes to personal outreach and evangelism, there are certain  barriers to the practice of personal outreach and evangelism, and I hear certain  ones of these repeated again and again. So I put together a list of five of these  barriers that I frequently hear from people as I talk to them about these things.  The first one being well, evangelism is not is not my gift, not my spiritual gift as if because I'm not a gifted evangelist, then I am freed from that responsibility. God  is not depending on me to do that kind of thing. Well, here's the deal. Yeah, it is  true. Some people have a true spiritual gift of evangelism, but all of us are called to evangelize. Gifted or not, you know, God is going to do the heavy lifting. The  Holy Spirit is the one that's going to regenerate. We're not going to make those  things happen, but if we put ourselves out there, then God will work through us, 

even though we may not be gifted. Now, one thing I find interesting is that you  know, Timothy is the one in the Bible that people point to frequently, as you  know the master Shepherd, the sensitive, the empathetic Timothy. You know,  he's not the firebrand that Paul or Peter are. He's the classic Shepherd,  caretaker of the flock. And yet, you know, Paul says, Paul says to Timothy to do  the work of an evangelist in his letter, second letter to Timothy, he instructs  Timothy to do the work of an evangelist. Well, I would say, from my vantage  point, Timothy did not really have the gift of evangelism, but Paul still  encouraged, exhorted him to do the work of an evangelist. Well, all of us need to do the work of an evangelist, whether we have the spiritual gift of evangelism or  not. We are children of God. We are followers of Christ. We've been  commanded to go and make disciples, and so we need to go and make  disciples. Secondly, with all that I had to do as a pastor, maybe as a leader in  some that's working in some very demanding profession outside of the church, I  don't have time to invest in building sustainable relationships. Well, that's  unfortunate, but you know, back in skill four, we spent six sessions talking about  managing ministry time. The truth is, you do have time. You just have not taken  the time to figure it out if your life does not allow you the time to invest in other  people with the intent of sharing your faith, then you've got to recalibrate your  time. So I would invite you to go back to managing ministry time skill number  four, and review the ideas there and find ways to create space in your time  frames where you can, in fact, be with people, invest in people, and have the  opportunity, perhaps, to share your faith. Number three, my congregation has  high expectations regarding my ministry to them. I don't think they would be  willing or understand if I compromised on that in favor of ministry to the  community. Well, I guess I'd have to start by asking the question, what's wrong  with this picture? Jesus made it very clear that gathering the harvest is a priority, if not the priority. And so if you as the pastor or key leader in a church, are  serving in a church where the culture has created a scenario where the  congregation is all about themselves and wants you to pour yourself into them at the expense of going and making disciples. You've got to begin to shift that  culture. You've got to begin to teach and train and develop people spiritually so  that they can grow to maturity, which would mean that they're what Romans 12  present your bodies as living sacrifices. You see, the church is not there to just  do what the congregation wants. The church is there to gather the harvest  through the congregation, through the congregation. Okay, now let's move on to  number four, personal outreach and evangelism are not why I signed up for  ministry. Let me tell you a little story back when I was in seminar, wait a moment, back up, back when I was in ministry in California, prior to that particular church  plant. I had been a professional musician by trade, and I spent my professional  life at the piano in all sorts of context, concerts, nightclubs, recording studios,  and the more serious I got about my faith, the more conflict I was feeling with my

particular profession, and I felt that God was calling me into into ministry, but I  didn't quite know what to do with that. Well, an opportunity was. Presented to  me to to connect with a church planter, move to Southern California, start a  church where I would be handling the music and arts aspects of ministry. But as  you might know, when you're planting a church, the things that need to be done  go far beyond what your particular job description is. So I found myself doing  many other things. I did a lot of our communications that went out to the  community. I did a lot of work with with teaching Bible Studies, discipling people, even some very light counseling here and there. And as my ministry began to  expand, I remember beginning to think that there was more to what God had for  me than just being at the piano and just working with our artists in our church.  And I remember very specifically one day I was in the office with our church  planter, and he was informing me that something had had transpired that was  going to require him to be away from our church for three consecutive Sundays.  Now, at that point, we were about two and a half years into our church plant, and we had grown very quickly with many, many people coming to Christ by way of  profession of faith, and we had been very careful about who was in the pulpit.  We wanted to make sure that anyone who was speaking to our congregation  that they understood what our vision was and what our approach to ministry  was, and very, very few people had preached other than our planter. Well, this  was going to be three Sundays in a row, and he was concerned about finding  the right person or people, and so he was discussing that with me, and all I can  say is, all of a sudden, I felt myself saying to him, I'd like to preach. Now, I had  never thought about preaching before, but it just, it just bubbled up in the middle  of that conversation. Looking back, I think it was the Holy Spirit prompting me to  recognize that my call to ministry was expanding, and I did have this desire to  preach the Word, to step into that pulpit and open the Word of God and share  that with people. Well, he looked at me in a strange way at first, and then he  stopped, and he thought that could work. That makes sense. The next thing you  know, I was preaching my very first sermon. Soon thereafter, I began to make  preparations for perhaps going to seminary and getting my master of divinity  degree, learning, theology, Bible, sermon, preparation, all of those things that go into being a preacher teacher. And I saw that as a calling. Now I think that lots of us who go into pastoral ministry have a calling of a similar nature, where that  that preaching element is first and foremost. And so you know, why did we sign  up for that ministry? Well, we signed up that ministry because we want to be  preachers. We want to be teachers, but there's so much more to ministry than  just the preaching and the teaching, and we've got to be careful that regardless  of what prompted us to sign up for ministry, we cannot shirk the responsibility of  going and making disciples, as Paul said to Timothy, do the work of an  evangelist. So we've got to expand now. I want to share something else from  Paul from Romans 10. Let me read this passage to you. It says this, For 

everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How will they call on  him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of  whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone  preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written?  How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. Now, I have  heard this passage preached many, many times, and you know, there's a  progression that's going on here. How can they believe if they haven't heard?  How can they hear without a preacher? How can they preach unless they're  sent see, there's a there's a there's a climb up the ladder here. But many times  when I've heard this passage preached, the person preaching, the preacher  doesn't get to the top rung of the ladder and stops with the preaching. And the  preacher will say something like this, you know, how are they to call on Him if  they haven't believed? How are they to believe if they've never heard? And how  can they hear without someone preaching? And then the whole message is on  the value of preaching. Now, certainly preaching is valuable, but this text is not  about the preaching. It's about the sending. How are they to preach unless they  are sent, sent where, sent into the harvest with the good news. How beautiful  are the feet of those who preach the good news? Once again, think about the  gospel footprint. Well, what is that business of the feet of those Well, if you can  imagine in bygone centuries, when important events like, say, a military conflict  was taking place and a battle ensued, they didn't have the kinds of  communications that we had today, so they actually had runners who would be  messengers that would run from the battlefield and bring the news back home  so the people could know, did we? Did we? Were we victorious? Were we  defeated? And you can imagine running across that terrain, your feet get pretty  beat up. And so feet are anything but beautiful, but the feet that bring good news are seen as beautiful. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? Well, how beautiful are the feet of those who make gospel footprints? So  regardless of what your original calling to ministry might have been, however  exclusive, it might have seemed, your call to ministry has to include going and  making disciples, leaving gospel footprints in the harvest, And then finally,  personal outreach and evangelism are way outside of my comfort zone. I can't  tell you how many times I've heard that. Well, you know, it's not really in my  comfort zone. I'm not comfortable talking about people to people about these  things. Well, here's the deal, those who rise above that challenge often do so by  simply being uncomfortable. It's like, well, I'm uncomfortable doing this, but I'm  going to do it anyway. I'm just going to deal with my discomfort. But you know  what? I have a friend, a colleague, who's been in ministry for lots and lots of  years, and he is the most dynamic, personal evangelist I have ever been  around. If you're going out with this guy, if you're going to lunch, or you're going  to any kind of thing out in public, You better brace yourself, because he's going  to be sharing the gospel. Now, I'm not recommending that all of us be that bold 

and wild and crazy with how we share faith, but he he makes an interesting  point. He says, You know what, if your comfort zone won't allow you to feel good about sharing the gospel, then you need a new comfort zone. So his approach  to being uncomfortable in sharing the gospel is not to just overcome your  discomfort and live with it, but to actually change your comfort zone by the grace of God. Call upon God to do a work in you that changes that comfort zone. Get  over that difficulty. Force yourself, push yourself move forward and move into a  new comfort zone. Build a comfort zone that is quite comfortable with talking  about these matters of God with folks who are outside of the faith. Now that  brings me to kind of a comical place that I'd like to share with you. I'm talking  here about a book by Brian Tracy, who's kind of a motivational speaker. The  book is called Eat That Frog, and supposedly, this title has emerged out of a  statement attributed to Mark Twain that says this, eat a live frog first thing in the  morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. Well, you  know, if sharing the gospel, if sharing the gospel is like eating a live frog to you,  all right, deal with it, but push yourself. Go through it. Buckle down. Work  through it. Pray through it, move through it, so that you can create a new  comfort zone. Now, how exactly are we going to do this? How are we going to  change the comfort zone? Well, here's a couple of ideas. Number one, we're  going to pray about it. We're going to pray like crazy that God would ease our  discomfort, to help us to become more relaxed, more settled, more forward  looking, actually, highly desiring to be in those conversations. Pray for God to  change the way you think, the way you feel, the way you act when it comes to  personal outreach and evangelism. Secondly, practice, practice, practice. You  know the old joke, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Well, there's nothing like practice repetition. You know, athletes, when they're  learning a new skill, they talk about, I need more reps. I need more reps  because I've got to get this skill to the point that I'm feeling very natural, very  comfortable, that it's automatic. I don't have to think about it. Well, that's where  we need to get with sharing our faith. So we need to practice, practice, practice.  And another thing that can be helpful is to partner with someone. You know, if  you're a pastor, connect with another pastor. Leaders. Connect with leaders. You know, have a group, one or two, two or three, other people that are partnering  with you. Where you're you're you're meeting this challenge together, and so  you're encouraging each other, you're praying together, you're sharing what's  going on in your conversations. You're getting feedback, you're celebrating wins, and you are finding comfort for when things got difficult. You're learning from the  experience of others. They are learning from you. So I think that these three  elements can really go a long way to changing that comfort zone, or that  discomfort zone, prayer, practice and partnership, okay now, for opportunities,  for personal outreach, to work, there are two categories that I want to touch on  Before we before we wrap up. First of all, there's direct engagement. And 

secondly, there's indirect engagement. Direct engagement would be outreach  and evangelism that you are actually doing yourself. You are engaged in  evangelism yourself. You are making establishing sustainable relationships  personally with people. You are sharing your faith personally with people that  would be direct direct engagement. Now there's also, for those of us that are in  leadership positions, we can have indirect engagement, and that would be those times when we're helping to train others. We're working with others in  developing these skills. And so we are not directly impacting people in the  harvest, the folks that we are working with are directly engaging. We are  indirectly engaging by working with them and training them and helping them to  gain facility in building relationships and sharing faith. But once again, we have  to be able to do this ourselves. We have to practice what we preach. We have to if we're going to send others into the harvest, we need to send ourselves into the harvest. And so, you know, when pastors and leaders are in the harvest and  they're training others who go out into the harvest, this is how we up the ante.  This is how we go from very meager engagement to larger and larger and larger engagement in the community. So one final thing before we close, I want to talk  about closing the gap, the gap between where we are and where we want to be. If you if you do a self evaluation in terms of your skill at building relationships,  your skill at sharing your faith, your engagement in building sustainable  relationships, your engagement in sharing your faith, and you realize, gosh, I'm  really not doing that, or I'm not doing it very often, or I'm not doing it very well,  but you project out into The future, and you envision yourself as someone who  very often and very effectively builds relationships, very often and very  effectively shares your faith, you realize that there's a gap between where I am  and where I want to Be. Well, don't just hope that things get better. Wishful  thinking doesn't get the job done. Done. Really think through strategically. What  are the steps that I need to take in order to move from where I am to where I  want to be, in terms of connecting with people, building relationships, in terms of being able to get into gospel conversations and be able to share my faith. Now,  typically, those steps are not complicated, but they do require discipline. So  make a plan work the plan, and I believe the plan will work. So that wraps up our video on personal outreach and evangelism next time we will be looking at  corporate outreach and evangelism. So between now and then, I simply pray  that God would bless your efforts with your studies, that God would bless your  ministries, that God would bless your your families, that next time when we get  together, you'll be ready to dive into corporate outreach and evangelism. God  bless Amen