Life Groups - Friendship Evangelism
Becoming A Missionary ChurchThere's nothing more guaranteed to inject new life into a Life Group than having a new Believer in it. We can work together to ensure this happens on a regular basis. We are all called to be witnesses to Jesus. However, we're each made differently, and so we'll each do this in different ways. Here are three of these ways:
WORD, WORKS & WONDERS.
Words are the seeds of the gospel that we sow day by day. They will rarely become a full gospel presentation. Don't worry about this.
Works are expressions of practical support - a hospital visit, help moving house, etc.
Wonders are simply bringing the power of God to bear on the lives of the people we're praying for, believing that He will change, or work in their situations.
OUR GOAL IS: To win the Lost
But we won't do this without an...
Interim Goal: Keeping us all Mission/Evangelism conscious
Ask yourself the Question: What is successful evangelism?
Then think about what people say when you ask them what they think of God?
So many think Him to be Unloving, Distant, Impersonal, Judging, Sugar-Daddy, Monster.
Ask them then: What do people think about Christians?
Again the answers are often negative: Hypocrites, Weirdoes, Kill-joys, Do-gooders, Irrelevant.
Successful evangelism starts by changing people's perceptions about God and Christians. Or as Laurence Singlehurst put it: "God's OK & we're OK".
Evangelism is a process. It is a process of discovery.
It's like seed that is sown in the ground. It takes time to grow. See P. of the Sower.
The following scale represents the stages unbelievers have to go through to find faith:
-10. No awareness of God
-9. Some awareness of God
-8. Contact with Christians
-7. Interest in Jesus Christ
-6. Decide to investigate Jesus
-5. Grasp the truth about Jesus
-4. Understand the practical implications of this.
-3. Acceptance of Christian truth
-2. Acceptance of the implications
-1. Decision to surrender to Christ
We can help this process:
1. By knowing what we're aiming at.
2. By planning accordingly.
So, here's the strategy:
1. What do we enjoy doing?
One Baptist Church enjoyed a lot of visitors, because it insisted members belonged to something else - a social club of some description! The challenge for us is what we might have to give up to make space to spend time befriending unbelievers. Much more natural if we have an interest in common that we actually enjoy doing.
2. Contact List
Not necessarily friends or family. Could be neighbours, Work Colleagues, "Service" people - Doctor, Milkman, Postman, etc.
Make a list of 5 people you are each in contact with, including friends and neighbours in particular need.
3. Prayer
a) Make sure your heart is right towards them - Usually an issue with family only.
b) Ask God to fill you with compassion for them.
c) Pray that the strongholds of pride, belief systems, and satan's traps and schemes - all of which are binding and enslaving them in satan's power - will be destroyed.
d) Ask the Lord to remove the veil from their eyes.
e) Pray that their wills will be freed to make godly choices.
f) Ask God to put godly people across their path.
g) Ask God to protect them with His angels, & for the Holy Spirit to hover over them.
- It is in praying for people thus that the Lord will show Himself to them.
4. Life Group Socials
Brainstorm for things you can do together.
Help people overcome the idea that a social is "not spiritual", and therefore not something they want to give themselves to.
5. Alpha or Outreach Meal
6. Reaping Event
In the Life Group:
We want to encourage accountability, but not in a heavy way. It's more about encouraging one another to keep on in prayer, and praying with each other about those on our lists.
Look out for testimonies of answered prayer, and progress that has been made.
Ask questions:
• How have we reached out to people?
• Whom have we spoken to?
• Whom have we done good to?
• Where did God intervene in our relating to people around us?
• Where have we seen the Kingdom of God breaking through?
• What is happening in the world around us?
Make a list of the one or two most open people from each member, and keep the list to hand to pray for one another's friends. (Keep the list manageable)
- In Luke 5, fishing was a family business. So how can we together draw in your friends?
- How can we help them to come near to the fire of God's presence and the conviction of His truth?
- Use Alpha, and other Outreach Events. (Any other ideas?)
- We want to see them not only brought to faith, but integrated into the Life Group and the wider Church.
"You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed." [John Bunyan]
Pray for our communication of the Gospel:
Acts 4:29-31 "And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bondservants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus." And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.
The Cone Nebula - NGC 2264
Distance from Earth = 2,500 light years
Cone Diameter = 2.3 light years
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Psalm 19:1