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3 Practical Evangelism Strength Training Tips

“But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5

Although I am not a bodybuilder I come from a family filled with them. Three of my uncles and some of my cousins have won bodybuilding and powerlifting competitions. But even the ones who didn’t win competitions still loved to work out. My upbringing was filled with barbells, flexed biceps and well-viewed mirrors (“Mirror mirror on the wall who has the best pecs of them all?”…not me!)

Even though I was the puny one growing up I learned a lot about strength training from watching and listening to my family’s endless discussions about the best workout routines, types of equipment, bicep-bursting supplements and bodybuilding poses.

I worked out and worked out as a teenager but it didn’t seem to help. It felt like I came from a different, more wussy genetic strand than my knuckle-busting family of brutes. Once, out of frustration, I asked my cousin Eric how I could get big (he could bench 500+ pounds) and he told me this, “I’ve gotten as big as I’m gonna get. What you do is way more important.”

What did I do? I shared my faith. If there were people around me I would share Jesus with them. If people weren’t around me I’d go find some.

You see, I’m not a body-builder or fitness guru but I am an evangelist…have been since I started sharing my faith at the age of eleven. Now, through Dare 2 Share, I get the privilege of training tens of thousands of teenagers and youth leaders across the country to share the good news of Jesus in a relational way.

It occured to me that, if you think of strength training in terms of evangelism, many youth leaders (and Christians in general for that matter) need to be put on a workout routine. Most are not natural evangelists so they need a straight up work out plan to get strong in this area of weakness.

Timothy fell into this category of Christian. He was a great discipler and pastor type but he was not a gifted evangelist. That’s why Paul challenged him in his final letter to “do the work of an evangelist.”

Most youth leaders I know are more Timothy than Paul when it comes to their gifting. They, like young Timothy, love on people well, pour into them patiently and serve them relentlessly. Without Timothy’s we would have a lot of converts but very few disciples! But when these natural disciplers start working out in the area of evangelism they become not-so-tiny Timmies who take those they lead both deep (into discipleship) and wide (into evangelism!)

If you are a youth leader who leans toward Timothy here are 3 practical ways to get ripped and shredded in the hard core workout routine of evangelism…