3. How to evangelize: Be probing
Butterfield describes the contents of the letter as questions that intrigued her:
It had some questions that no one had ever asked me in my life. He asked whether I had considered the canonicity of the Bible—that it contained every genre that we taught at the university. ‘Canonicity’ and ‘genre’ were literary terms I was familiar with. There were also questions about my well-being. They were genuine. And then there were questions about what I believed about God, and what I thought He thought about all this.
Good evangelism almost always starts with good, genuine questions. Just look at the life of Jesus!
Will Metzger, in his book Tell the Truth, describes three layers of questions:
1. Common interest questions
2. Value questions (hopes, dreams, aspirations)
3. Belief questions.
We need to ask good questions on all three levels to evangelize to the whole person.
4. How to evangelize: Be prayerful
When Rosaria first set foot in church, she was impressed that the people of the church were on their knees for her:
What struck me is that what this church had been doing was praying for me faithfully. These are now my friends, and they shared with me that it was easier for them to be disgusted with a person like me than to pray for me…
The church went from being a cleaned up, homeschooling kind of church to being a church with a lot of broken people.
If conversion is regeneration, none of our words can sufficiently do the job. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to break through.
When was the last time lost souls made their way into the prayer bulletin at your church?
