I saw a lot of you at the Questioning Evangelism Class last night; thanks for coming! If you didn’t make it, I’m sorry you missed it! The MP3 is available here! And you can get a much more thorough explanation in Mr. Newman’s book by the same name.

I so appreciated Mr. Newman’s class last night, because I thought: here is evangelism that even I can do. I confess: I’m an evangelistic chicken (I think that was how he described us), and so this class of “evangelism for non-evangelists” was just right for me. And it is so helpful because most evangelistic encounters these days aren’t about “closing the deal”, but are simply about building relationships and helping people move one step closer to “Z.” (If this doesn’t make sense to you, download and listen to the message!)

I particularly liked the four principles and four helpful questions:

1. Some people aren’t even awake. Most people don’t like to think deeply. In the words of Screwtape: “Give him jargon, not argument. Reason moves him onto the Enemy’s ground.” They need a question to wake them up, like: “Really?”
2. Some things can’t be true. Some things just don’t stand up to reason: how can all religions be saying basically the same thing? Use a question to lead people to the truth: “Can you explain that to me?”
3. Some questions aren’t sincere. They may be attacking. Listen for: “Are you telling me that anyone who disagrees with you is going to hell?” Create a question to point that out their insincerity: “Do you believe in hell?”
4. Sometimes a partial victory is best. Use questions to move things along: “Do you ever think much about spiritual stuff?” ” Isn’t it possible…” “How do you know that?”

Our assignment is to give this a go before the next class. Are you up for that? I am. If you want some examples of how this stuff can work, check out Mr. Newman’s second book, Corner Conversations.

We do it again on Thursday night, February 8!

See you then!

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