The "Jesus Tract"

(Update: here's what happened 1st time we tried this out). The average young person (college students included) have fairly low opinions of the church (they think church is religion and religion is bad), Christians (they think we're all hypocrites) and the Bible (most of them, even Christians, believe it is full of errors). Even though those 3 opinions are all wrong, we can get into trouble when we package the gospel as "how the Bible says you can become a Christian." Jesus, on the other hand, has a great reputation. Young people across the board think He's great (they may not know who He really is but they think highly of Him). To add to the confusion, most tracts encourage a "personal relationship with Jesus" but rarely if ever even quote Him. Christians know the Bible is all His Word but the non-believer your talking with hasn't quite gotten there yet. For the past 2 years I've been wondering how to use that high perspective of Jesus to initiate conversations about the gospel from a better starting point, one of His direct words. In stead of saying, "Do you want to know how the Bible says you can become a Christian" (or something to that effect), I want to ask them, "would you like to hear what Jesus says to you personally?" Based on that premise, I put the "Gospel from Jesus' Mouth" up on the blog last summer and it has become our most read post (with almost 3,000 reads). We have also been handing out printed single page versions of this on campus and everyone seems to appreciate it. I finally got a chance to put it into a "tract" form to be used in evangelistic conversations. I haven't even used it yet and would love your feedback. Get the new tract here. This is just a rough draft but I'd love to see how it works in real conversations. Print it 2 sided front and back, then fold, staple and cut along the yellow border. Then, use it just like you'd use the KGP (see the training video below). You could transition to this tool as you'd transition through any of the sound barriers and then just share this and see how it goes. I would LOVE (!!!) to get your feedback on how it goes and anything you think would improve it. Let me know. Thanks!

4 Ways to Reach Different Demographics for Christ!

Here are some ideas for reaching different demographics with the gospel.

1. How to reach young people for Christ.

2. How to share your faith with gay and lesbian friends.

3. 10 Points for Reaching Atheists for Christ.

4. How to reach Mormons for Christ.

9 Random Evangelism Ideas

Here are a few easy, random evangelism ideas:

1. Write a letter to the editor: share the Good News with your whole town!
2. Leave your waitress a generous tip and some Good News.
3. Servant evangelism ideas
4. Reach a Telemarketer for Christ
5. Snowday!
6. Share a Good Book
7. Ask an officer for a ticket.

8. Take a stand
9. Come up with a top 10 prayer list.

12 Conversational Evangelism Ideas

What if you could become an expert in engineering any conversation to bring it around to Christ? Well, you can. Not only will this be a good ability to cultivate but it will also become one of the most exciting things you do. Below we'll list numerous ideas for bringing any conversation around to the gospel. As you begin down the road of conversational evangelism please check out Tactics (a great book by Greg Koukl). It will help you develop a great habit of transitioning conversations to Jesus. Well, check out the conversational evangelism ideas below!

1. How to Transition Any Conversation to the Gospel.

2. How to Meet New People and Share the Gospel with Them.

3. Ask a few good questions.

4. How to share the gospel by asking "how are you?"

5. Have a Follow up Conversation after Sharing with Someone.

6. Ask someone about their weekend.

7. Tell someone how God came through for you.

8. Transition any conversation about the news to the Gospel!

9. Get to the gospel from a conversation about sports!

10. Health complaints = open door for the gospel.

11. Get to the Gospel from a conversation about a movie you've seen recently!

12. How to Share the Gospel in a Conversation About Music.

The Vantage Evangelism Tool

I can't believe I've never done a post describing this great tool. We've posted a few videos but no more info. Sorry. Here it is. We began using this tool some last year and it was a neat new tool. You can get the DVDs produced by CRU here. You can get the individual videos directly from the Global Short Film Network by clicking here. You can get all the training you need for using these short films to initiate evangelistic conversations here. The basic idea is that you can either play these videos off a computer or ipod/ipad/smart phone. The video brings up numerous topics that can be related back to the gospel. It is a great tool for ministry evangelism. Check out the videos below for more!

Life@Large: The gospel as a narrative story

Here is yet another great evangelism tool from CRU!!! I will quote the description of this great new tool straight from the CRU website and link the free download below: 

"As culture drifts further from a Christian worldview, communicating the gospel becomes more challenging. To understand Jesus Christ and what he has done is possible only when one understands the overall plan of the biblical story line. Life@Large is a simple, transferable means of communicating the gospel story line. You might think of Life@Large as the "Four Spiritual Laws" for a postmodern audience.

If you were to tell the Bible's story from beginning to end, how would you do it? Life@Large makes it easy. There are seven themes with a brief paragraph introduction to each:

1) Intimacy: Creation 
2) Betrayal: The Fall and our sin 
3) Anticipation: The Old Testament promise of a deliverer 
4) Pursuit: The life of Christ 
5) Sacrifice: His death and resurrection 
6) Invitation: This age and the opportunity to turn back to God 
7) Reunion: The age to come with judgment and eternal life.

As you can see, the Life@large outline provides a more comprehensive understanding of the gospel message and thus our need for a Savior

The pamphlet is designed to be a multipurpose tool, with a conversational presentation on the inside and a 'read on your own' narrative on the back. Unlike traditional evangelistic tools, Life@Large is not simply a presentation. It is a conversational guide. Success is not defined by making it through the booklet, but by having a significant spiritual conversation." Quoted from CRU's website. 

Get the free download here. Thanks CRU for another great resource!

10 Great Evangelism Tools!

1. The Perspective Cards Evangelism Tool
2. The Lie Detector
3. Share Jesus' words with your friends
4. Christian t-shirts are a great way to share your faith.

5. Soularium

6. The testimony worksheet.

7. Short survey: 30 seconds to change eternity.

8. Using the KGP and 4 Spiritual Laws to share the Good News.

9. Life@Large: The gospel as a narrative story!
10. The Vantage Evangelism Tool.

Get even more ideas here!

The Perspective Cards Evangelism Tool

Yet another great tool from CRU Press!!! I've been hearing about the Perspective Cards for a while so we finally decided to try them out yesterday! We did the "Lie Detector" at one table and the Perspective Cards at the 2nd table. Students were there hearing the gospel pretty much non-stop from 11:30 - 3:30 (and Joseph ended up doing the Soularium after that till 6). The perspective cards ask 1) what is the nature of God, 2) what is human nature, 3) what is life's purpose, 4) who is Jesus and 5) what is the source of truth. For each of those questions there are a number of cards, each with a perspective common today. After the person you are talking with shares their perspective you have the opportunity to share the Biblical perspective on each of those topics. It ends up being a great way to get into deep spiritual conversations and share the Good News in a relatively short period of time. You can (and should) get the Perspective Cards here. I'll be sharing more stories soon but for now, check out the video below and get tons more ideas here!

An unbelievably awesome tool for sharing your faith!!!

This is an unbelievable tool for sharing your faith! Whether you've been witnessing for years or haven't yet, this new tool is sure to be one that will soon become a favorite! The following 7 short steps will open up numerous opportunities for you to share!

Step 1: Go to www.the-innerview.com/guide4.php and click get a link to share at the bottom.

Step 2: On the form that comes up click Facebook note, Quest 2.0 and then fill in your name and e-mail address. This will generate a personalized link for you to share with your friends on facebook. The link will take them to a short 6 question, online spiritual interest survey. You will get their results and it will open up amazing opportunities for you to talk about those results and share with your friends.

Step 3: Copy that link and then log into your facebook account. On the left hand side of the page you will see the "notes" application.

Step 4: Click notes. And then click the write a note tab on the top right of the page.

Step 5: Write a note to your friends telling them you want to invite them to do a short spiritual interest survey. Make this personal and friendly. Tell them you wanted to know a little bit more about their spiritual interests. Paste the link you previously copied somewhere in that note and ask them to click the link and fill out the survey. Thank them for taking 2 minutes to do the survey!

Step 6: Then, in the tags section begin typing the names of all your friends that you'd like to share the gospel with. As you begin typing their name facebook will show you their profile just click it and keep going on to the next friend. Click every non-Christian friend you can think of and they will each get your note and the link to do the survey.

Step 7: After the title, letter (with the link you copied in step 3) and tags are done, click publish.

All of the friends you tagged will now get your note with the invitation to do this short spiritual interest survey. You will then receive an e-mail with their responses and this will open up new opportunities for you to share your faith with tons of friends you haven't been able to share with before.

I can't wait to hear how it goes. Give it a shot and comment on what happens below this post. Have a great day sharing the Good News guys!

P.S. Click here for 47 other easy ways to share your faith and please follow this blog and share it with your friends. If you love sharing your faith but feel like you need some good training in evangelism and discipleship, get our entire Ministry Leadership Training Class online here (you'll find the videos, MP3s and notes).