The best preachers throughout the ages have been equally obsessed by the Gospel. From Martin Luther to Martin Lloyd Jones to George Whitefield to Billy Graham, the message of the cross was the engine that drove each of their sermons to believers and unbelievers alike. Charles Spurgeon was once asked, “What is your style of preaching?” His answer was simple and straightforward, “I take my text and make a beeline for the cross.”
Pastors, take your text and make a beeline for the cross until your church members feel the splinters of its bloodstained wood in their hands. Youth leaders, Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders…do the same. Relentlessly tie the Gospel into your talks until those under your spiritual leadership can share the Gospel without thinking or blinking.
Before I was a full-time evangelist, I was a church planting pastor who gave the Gospel at the end of every sermon I preached. Rich, a member of our church who happened to be a UPS driver, told me that he had the opportunity of leading a person to Christ that week. I asked him what evangelism training class had prepared him to do that. He said, “I haven’t taken a class or read a book on evangelism. But I hear you give the Gospel every week at the end of your sermons, and now I can share the good news of Jesus in my sleep.”
If you make a beeline for the cross in each of your talks those you minister to will be able to do the same thing.
2) Equip them to master the message of the Gospel.
As the leader of a ministry that trains teenagers to relationally and relentlessly evangelize (Dare2share), I get the privilege of equipping young people to master the message of the Gospel all across the United States. I don’t train them to use a method but to master the message of the Gospel. To do that, I have them memorize an acrostic that tells the whole story (a.k.a. “metanarrative”) of the Gospel from Genesis to Revelation. We call it the GOSPEL Journey Message.
