3 Tools to Grow Evangelism in Your Church

I’ll be real with you. My church isn’t the strongest church out there in evangelism. However, we are growing in this area. We are more evangelistic this year than we were last year. So, what I want to share with you in this post is not me, the evangelism expert, telling you how to do this. Rather, this is about sharing a couple of tools that have helped move the needle a bit in our church. And, I believe these tools can help move the needle in your church as well. 

15 Second Testimony

It’s very likely that you’ve heard of the 15-Second Testimony. Maybe this is a tool that your church already uses. If you are unfamiliar, a simple internet search of “15 Second Testimony” will give you a bazillion options for learning about it. Here’s one I found: 15 second testimony. 

The beauty of the 15 second testimony is that it is so simple. Anyone can use it. Here’s one from my life, 

There was a time in my life when I lacked purpose. I was lost and drifting. Then, I met Jesus. Now, I experience an incredible sense of purpose. Do you have a story like that? 

It’s so simple and real. Anyone can write one. And, each person has multiple 15 second testimonies. I could talk about purpose, anxiety, shame, being a chameleon, or identity. 

A 15 second testimony is meant to provide an open door into a spiritual conversation. The gospel has not been shared, but when you share your 15 second testimony, you provide an opportunity for a person to give you permission to share the Gospel with them. 

Here’s how the 15 second testimony helped our church grow in evangelism. We trained almost all of our volunteers in the 15 second testimony—small group leaders, hospitality volunteers, kids ministry, student ministry…almost all of our volunteers. We helped them write their stories, and we provided opportunities to practice. 

What would happen if you did the same? What if most of the people in your church were equipped with the 15 second testimony? It’s very likely that more spiritual conversations would take place in your community. And, I believe you would begin to see more people come to faith in Christ. 

3 Circles 

The great thing about the 15 Second Testimony is that it helps a normal person turn a normal conversation into a spiritual conversation. However, it doesn’t help you share the gospel with someone. Also, most people in your church probably feel pretty intimidated about sharing the gospel. 

There’s another tool called the 3 Circles that has helped us with this. Again, this tool is incredibly popular and you may already know about it or even use it in your church. The beauty of this tool is that anyone can learn it. It’s simple and clear. Here’s a great video that teaches you how to share the 3 circles. 

Like the 15 Second Testimony, we attempted to train as many of our volunteers in this tool as we could. We also held a training event at one of our campuses where we trained several hundred more people on the 3 Circles tool. 

If you were to adopt the 15 second testimony and the 3 circles, and train as many people in your church on these tools, you would help your people naturally turn a regular conversation into a spiritual conversation as well as equip them to share the Gospel with someone in their life. I believe this would help your church grow in evangelism. 

There’s just one thing missing.  

Focus

I have a confession. I am that guy who gets excited about shiny new things and sometimes doesn’t follow through on stuff. I am a project starter and not a great project finisher. Not proud…just keeping it real.

Isn’t this how evangelism often works in churches? You do an event and evangelism is hot for a few weeks or months but then fades. Or, you do a sermon series on evangelism and the church is all about it for a few weeks and then back to normal. This is the most significant challenge with evangelism. How do you keep sharing the gospel on the front burner?  

My senior pastor is friends with Kevin Harney, who leads a ministry called Organic Outreach. Kevin has also written several books on discipleship and evangelism, such as Organic Disciples. The best thing about the Organic Outreach system is that it is proven to keep evangelism front and center in your church. 

Here’s how Organic Outreach impacted our leadership team. Kevin’s strategy for transformation around evangelism calls for focus around evangelism at every level of the church, and it’s very simple. You begin each meeting with each person answering a couple of evangelism oriented questions. Questions like, 

• What 3 people are you praying for an opportunity to share Jesus with?
• Who did you share Jesus with this week?
• Were you able to introduce the Gospel into a conversation this week? 

The purpose of this exercise is to keep evangelism forefront. If you don’t keep evangelism forefront every week, the energy will dissipate because evangelism is hard, it feels awkward, and the truth is that most of the time, we’d rather do something else. 

So, if you really want to see evangelism grow in your church, it begins with a heart shift in senior leadership that trickles down into the hearts of all leaders and eventually into the entire church. You have to keep evangelism at the forefront every single week. 

I’m not saying that you have to implement Organic Outreach in your church in order for evangelism to grow and stay growing. In fact, we didn’t. We chose to use elements of the system for a season. However, Organic Outreach is a proven tool and it might be worthwhile for your church to explore. 

Wrap Up 

If there was one thing your church could grow in during this season that would tremendously help the health of your church and move you toward the mission of the Church, it would be growing in evangelism. I hope these three tools help your church grow in evangelism. Thanks for reading.