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Why don't you share your faith with others more often? Many people give the following answers
- Fear of what others will think of me
- Fear of not knowing what to say
- It makes me feel uncomfortable
- No time, too busy!
- Everyone I know is a Christian already
- I just don't want to
The Bible tells us that when a person becomes a Christian, their sins are forgiven and they are made "citizens of heaven". God gives them a desire to serve Him and to change their lives to be more like Christ's. One of the things a Christian desires to do is to tell others about Jesus Christ. In fact, this should be the primary mission of every church!
It is because of this that Open Bible offers an evangelism training course. It has been found in many churches that a classroom only approach to evangelism does not effectively equip most believers to share their faith. Following Jesus' example, we use a combination of classroom instruction and "in-the-field" training. First, in the classroom and at home a complete outline of the Gospel is discussed and learned. The student studies the Gospel in depth and learns it by heart. Then, students team up in groups of three with one person who has already been trained in evangelism. These groups visit families of visitors to our church, families of children in our school, and families of children in our Wednesday night club ministries. During the course of these visits, the group leader seeks to share with these families the plan of salvation, or if they are already Christians, to discuss it. The other two team members watch and learn, and gradually learn to lead a visit by themselves.
Our evangelism courses are offered at Open Bible for 12 weeks during the summer months. We meet for one hour for classroom instruction during our normal Sunday School time. We use the "Evangelism Explosion" course materials developed by Coral Ridge Ministries for our classroom instruction. Each class consists of a time of instruction and a practice time, done in groups of 2 or 3. In addition to this we require 2 to 3 hours of memorization and reading outside of class each week and one evening each week for visitation. Although training occurs in visits, we recognize that most evangelism occurs between friends a little bit at a time. The training course takes this into account. The course gives the student an intense familiarity with the Gospel message to make it easier to answer friends' questions about Salvation and the Gospel message.
If a person does their homework and attends the classes, they will finish the course knowing how to successfully present the Gospel message of Salvation. Visits will take the student out of their "comfort zone" and help to overcome their fear factor. Most people come away from this course with changed priorities and a desire to "make time" to share their faith!
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