The core dynamic of evangelism is investing and inviting. Let’s start off with the invest part. Investing in someone is simply about building a relationship: getting to know them, spending time with them, entering into community with them.
Only within the confines of a relationship will there be the trust to be authentic and to have conversations about what matters most in life. You already have these relationships built into your life. You have friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers. You’ve got people you interact with through your kids at school or with sports teams.
But if you’re going to make an impact on them for the cause of Christ, you’ve got to be intentional about those relationships. You’ve got to serve those relationships. You’ve got to invest in them as someone who is on mission for them and their life.
You’re going to pray like mad for them. You’re going to pray for your time with them. You’re going to pray for openings to talk about spiritual things, opportunities to let them get to know you and how Christ has intersected the deepest needs of your life.
And those openings will come.
The fact that you’re a Christ follower will come out. You’ll have chances to peel back the layers and tell your story: what you were like before Christ and what life has been like after. The ways you ran from God and chased after anything and everything else, and then what it was like when you finally came home.
You can tell them the difference your relationship with Christ has made in your marriage. The difference it’s made in the lives of your kids and your parenting.
Then comes the invite part.
Along the way, they’ll have good, fair, honest, and reasonable questions. They may want to explore, and they may be intrigued by your life. They may see something in your life (and I hope that they do) that they don’t have themselves. That’s where the invite part comes in.
Invite them to come and see, come and hear, come and explore.
This tandem of investing and inviting is at the heart of the mission. It always has been.
Do you know how Jesus not only gathered his first followers, but how the whole Christian movement burst onto the world scene? This is from John’s biography of Jesus in the Bible:
The next day John [the Baptist] was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
“Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
