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    Evangelism Unprocessed
    Evangelism Unprocessed
    Evangelism Unprocessed
    Ebook123 pages1 hour

    Evangelism Unprocessed

    By Michael Stine

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    About this ebook

    Evangelism is not just intended for the gifted evangelists but is meant for every Christian. Unfortunately it has been reduced to a process or series of steps too often. Evangelism Unprocessed looks at what the Bible has to say about evangelism and uses that foundation to make evangelism able to be done by anyone.

    This book explores Jesus' parable of the four soils and discusses the different types of people that one will encounter while evangelizing. Because there are numerous types of people, there must be different approaches to meet the needs of these people. For this reason evangelism needs to move away from the standard processes that it has been reduced to.

    This third edition has been updated slightly since its original publication in 2005 and includes two additional appendices to further supplement one's study.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael Stine
    Release dateOct 17, 2014
    ISBN9781311707307
    Evangelism Unprocessed
    Author

    Michael Stine

    Michael Stine is first and foremost a pastor who loves preaching the Word of God. In addition to this he has run a series of websites since 1999. Collectively the websites make up Spreading Light Ministries and the main site can be found at www.spreadinglight.com. In 2011 Mike also began teaching online with a Christian university and he teaches mostly New Testament courses.Mike holds multiple degrees in Bible related areas. He has a B.S. in Bible from Lancaster Bible College where he also majored in Christian education. At Liberty University he obtained a Master of Arts in Religion with an emphasis in theology. He then returned a few years later to obtain a Masters of Religious Education.Mike was married in July 2009 to his wife Merissa. They met in 2006 while Mike was an interim pastor at her church. They live with their two dogs and three cats.

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      Book preview

      Evangelism Unprocessed - Michael Stine

      Evangelism Unprocessed

      Michael Stine

      ~~~

      Smashwords Edition

      Evangelism Unprocessed

      Third Edition

      Copyright © 2005, 2013, 2014

      Michael Stine

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Christian e-Publisher

      Serving the Lord, Serving Christian authors

      www.christianepublisher.com

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to everyone who believes that evangelism is important but who isn’t a natural evangelist. For anyone who has ever been frustrated that their evangelism efforts are not as fruitful as all of the other evangelists who write books on the topic. This book is for all of you.

      Contents

      Preface

      1 – A Call to Action

      2 – Building a Foundation

      3 – Building Walls, Tearing Down Walls

      4 – Four Soils

      5 – Earning the Right to be Heard

      6 – Preparing the Soil

      7 – I Planted, Apollos Watered

      8 – Making Disciples

      9 – Your Story and Others

      Appendix A

      Appendix B

      Appendix C

      Appendix D

      About the Author

      Preface

      I wrote the first edition of this book in 2005. Then I was a young pastor not too far removed from Bible college. I wasn’t and still am not a gifted evangelist, so the main question I had to ask myself was whether I had anything to contribute to the conversation about evangelism. Back then I decided that I could contribute something and after reviewing this book almost a decade later, I’m pleased to say that I still believe all that’s written here. So, I’ve updated this version slightly and made a couple of additions at the end of the book in Appendices C & D.

      I believe that there is something new I can add to the conversation on evangelism that you won’t find in other books. For all of our books on church multiplication, becoming contagious Christians, and being missionaries at work, we have been very unsuccessful at reaching the lost for Christ. Church attendance is down in the United States and in many parts of the world. Only in a small number of countries do we see actual church growth.

      I have done a lot of reading on the subject of evangelism and have been given some great ideas. This book is a combination of some of these ideas as well as some of my own. More so, this book is about moving away from evangelism by process and understanding that no single process is going to work in all circumstances. That’s where the title Evangelism Unprocessed comes from. I hope that by the end of this book you recognize that evangelism is best to not be treated like a formula but instead as something that will be new and exciting with each different person.

      Too often evangelism has been treated like a 7 or 12 step process – do these things and you’ll convert all of your friends and neighbors into wonderful Christians. The truth is there have been some great points made about evangelism but the final process often only works in a particular setting. (Some of the biggest churches in America have an attendance three times as large as the town I live in. They draw from a large crowd in large cities. The same method will not see similar results in my small town.)

      There are three things wrong these processes as I see it. First, they are intimidating. We can read these books and get all fired up about reaching others for Christ until the first time we try to get out and follow the process. Then we can’t remember one of the steps or we get them out of order. We become frozen, afraid that doing evangelism improperly is worse than doing nothing at all. The next time the opportunity to share the gospel arises we keep quiet because the process is too hard.

      The second problem with processes is that they are sold to us as the solution to all of our evangelistic problems. We are given numerous success stories about how well this process worked. When we try to go and do the same thing, we fail and we get very discouraged. We believe that either we are poor evangelists or that we can’t follow a simple process. What isn’t factored into many of these processes and success stories is that what works in Chicago and Los Angeles might not, and probably doesn’t, work in a city of 50,000 let alone a town of 5,000 or a village of 500.

      Finally, a lot of these processes aren’t biblically based. That doesn’t mean that they are bad or wrong, but I prefer to stick with principles that I know to be absolute truth. Instead of telling stories of how this process worked for me or someone I know, I would much sooner tell you the story from scripture of how this principle was used and how it worked.

      All of this led me to feel the need to write on evangelism. The goal of this book is to unpack all of the processes that we call evangelism. Instead of steps to follow, this book contains principles for evangelism. Some may work for you. Others probably won’t. It will all depend on your situation. What this book will do is cause you to rethink your view of evangelism and hopefully turn you away from processes and instead focus you on building relationships with non-Christians.

      Hopefully one thing that comes through to you as you read this book is that I’m not an evangelist. I am a pastor first and foremost. The gift of evangelism is a great gift but few people are gifted evangelists. Just because we’re not gifted evangelists does not excuse us from doing evangelism though. Speaking as someone who is not a gifted evangelist, I can tell you that we’re all in the same boat together. The same things that frighten you about sharing your faith probably frighten me about as much.

      Finally, at the end of the book you’ll find four appendices. You might be tempted to treat these as extra information that is not really part of the book. However, I think these are important additions to the book, they just didn’t fit into the narrative that I wrote. So they’re stuck in the back. Nevertheless, I believe that it is worth your time to not just glance at them but actually read through them. You can either wait until you finish the rest of the book or you can take a look at them when they are referenced in earlier chapters.

      Thanks for reading and may God bless you as you strive to reach the lost!

      Pastor Mike

      Chapter One – A Call to Action

      The following story is based on a sermon by missionary Del Tarr who served fourteen years in West Africa with another mission agency. His story points out the price some people pay to sow the seed of the gospel in hard soil.

      I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year's food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.

      October and November...these are beautiful months. The granaries are full -- the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday's Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.

      December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal.

      Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals

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