Evangelism - Pre-Evangelism
September 26, 2021 Sunday Evening Study

Does anybody here play golf? I used to think that I did. I played a lot in my teens and early 20’s, but then I went a good decade without playing. At my last church our pastor loved golfing - a lot. Our Tuesday staff meetings occurred on the golf course several times. The first time I embarrassed myself fully. The second time I embarrassed myself so fully that I embarrassed everyone else, as we were played through 3 times. The final time, I embarrassed myself and sprained my wrist - an injury born of abject ineptitude.

I was a baseball player. When you translate that to golf, at least for me, it meant that I had a beautiful 200+ yard drive off the tee. I could, as Tin Cup says it, really “grip it and rip it.” I had a very decent long game for a golfer who hardly ever golfs. My short game….well, not so much. I might get on the green in 2 on a par 5, but it was going to take me 13 strokes to sink it.

The fact of the matter is, to be a good golfer, you have to have a good long game and a good short game in order to play well. If you abandon either in your practice, you are not going to have success when you play with people - you just aren’t. 

From the standpoint of evangelism, for 100 years Christians have played a very strong short game. This is especially true when the person is clearly interested - we can see the flag. The problem today is that we are still 300 yards down the fairway, and we need a long game to get to the stuff we are good at. Evangelism in a post-modern world is no longer miniature golf - we have to learn how to tee off and drive the gospel.

I know, I know. It’s a cheesy, corny, very pastor-like metaphor. But it is also true, and accurate, and it bears consideration. It used to be that we would work to get the whole gospel message out at one time and make the evangelism of a person a single event thing - especially at rallies and revivals. This is why tracts were designed - it is a short game, and a very effective one. Yet today, as we have discussed over the last couple weeks, our skeptic society tells us that we need to take a long game view, and approach this conversations with a desire to leave the person wanting to continue the conversation - whether that means more talk or that means commitment to Christ, depending on where they are in their spiritual journey.

Why not the short game? Unfortunately, there has developed a prevailing opinion about coming in hot really on any subject - many find it offensive. You could get into a cab and learn that the last person who tried to evangelize the cabbie came at them hard and urgent, offending him in the process in multiple ways. As a result, he is not even going to be interested in even “light” spiritual conversation. When we burn bridges like this, we simply make the task more difficult for the next Christian the person meets.

The truth is that no matter how we approach evangelism, we need to expect that sometimes we will receive negative or even angry responses. This is not new - Let’s open up to Acts 17. Read verses 1-6, then 10-13, then 16-20. We can see in each of these encounters different responses stemming from different levels of experience to the Gospel - those in Thessalonica having been barraged with it, those in Berea have been already convinced, and those in Athens having never heard it. Yet in each we see Paul approaching his evangelism in a way that is as inoffensive as possible, remembering that we already know that the message we carry itself will be offensive to some.

We spoke last week about pre-evangelism - the tilling of the soil to receive the seed of the gospel. In order for per-evangelism to be fruitful, it means that in certain situations we will have to ask our unbelieving friends questions which will allow them to surface the truth for themselves. We do this by asking probing and thought provoking questions about what they believe. This will allow us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the beliefs they already hold and help them to come to right conclusions on their own.

This sounds weird, I know. This is exactly what I used to do when I worked in IT Operations. As a major incident manager, my job was to respond to a crisis situation, get all the support players involved, and act as the situation commander until the issue was resolved. The majority of that job had to do with asking people questions about their own environments so that we could find where something was awry. I was not an expert in each of their respective fields, but my questions were designed to look at what they knew and find the anomaly - what did not sit right. That was how we resolved major issues.

Sometimes people will form a belief system for reasons they themselves have never considered - maybe parents, one principle that resonated with them, or because of emotional response. Often, when people examine what it is they believe, especially in spiritual matters, the holes and issues are already at the surface and just need to be recognized.

Jesus did exactly this at the well in Samaria. Rather than delivering a “turn or burn” message to the woman, He asked her a series of questions which allowed her to examine her own life and choices, seeing the holes in her faith. Only then did He offer her the Living Water which would cause her to never thirst again.

Basically, some people will not understand the truth unless they come upon it themselves. Jesus knew that there was only so much about the Gospel that people could understand at any one time, even telling the disciples in John 16 “There is much more to say to you, but it is more than you can now bear.” Sometimes we may become impatient, but there may be a limit to what a person can truly absorb at any given time, and we must be sympathetic to that.

Asking questions is also crucial for us as evangelists as it can allow us to find some kind of common ground with the person with whom we are speaking. Look at Paul’s ministry - his approach to the Jews and the Greeks was to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of OT prophecy and promise - a subject that they already accepted and understood. When speaking to Gentiles he approached their separation from the church and their rejection - something near and dear to their heart that Paul understood well.

Here is the bottom line with respect to pre-evangelism as we have discussed these past 2 weeks: the more pre-evangelism we do, the opportunity we will have for direct evangelism. The more we share the gospel, the more likely people will come to know Christ. Therefore, the more pre-evangelism we do, the more likely people will come to Christ. Reflecting Matthew 9:17, we need to put new wine in new wineskins if we want to effectively reach the skeptics, pluralists, and relativists of our day.

The combined approach of asking questions, surfacing doubts, creating interest, uncovering hidden barriers, and building bridges to the gospel are at the heart of pre-evangelism. We are going to investigate each of these things further as we study. Sometimes we may not get very far even in this approach, and in those cases we must focus on cultivating good soil and leaving the rest in God’s hands so that someday the seeds that are planted will bear spiritual fruit. Our job is to help our unbelieving friends to make one step closer to Jesus.

There are four basic steps to building the bridges of pre-evangelism within our circle of influence.

First, we need to determine whom the Lord is placing on our hearts to reach out to. It may be a coworker or friend or family member. If God is the center of our lives, it is unlikely He will not have someone for us to reach out to.

Second, we need to pray for open doors. Remember that God cares for the lost people in our lives, and He will go before us to open doors even when we feel like we aren’t equipped or ready.

Third, look for divine appointments daily. Look at the ways God is already at work in the lives of those you want to reach. Sometimes we might find ourselves in a situation that seems almost manufactured - next to someone on a plane, in a long commute together…

Fourth, we need to make the most out of every conversation we have with non-believers, and we do this in two ways:

• Listen carefully and make every encounter count. SOmetimes we miss opportunity because sometimes we miss opportunities to move toward sharing the gospel because we are not listening well enough.
• Strive to discover the connection - the common ground that will allow you to relate with the person, just as Jesus did at the well by speaking of living water.

And of course, pray without ceasing. Let’s pray together now.