The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Evangelism success stories

Practices Evangelism
#1

Hello all,

This is my first post on this forum, I’m glad I found Universal Christianity existed and that there are many who share Universalist views. I came to my own conclusions on Universalism after reading Revelation where it is written there will be no more curse, and that outside the city are the sinners (the unsaved) and not forever burning in Hell. I look forward to interacting with all of you.

Evangelism is something very close to my heart, its something I am burning to do but I feel like something is holding me back. I evangelise mostly on Facebook, I have some great discussions with friends who comment on Christian things I post, and I am frequently surprised by the most unlikely people “Liking” something I have posted, and I have noticed over the years that new people who never interacted with me on matters of faith before, now do. I feel like I’m getting through.

I used to belong to the salvation-by-works ICOC and we used very effective methods of one-on-one street evangelism where our modus operandi was to go out and invite people to our weekly “informal bible discussion groups” or “Bible Talks” and I was always surprised at how many people said yes to such an invitation. At the time I had been indoctrinated by ICOC theology and I did not know how to present the gospel of grace, so converting someone could be a process of several weeks as we took them through the ICOC standard bible study series indoctrination so we could get them to accept everything we believed before we decided they were good enough to be saved and then baptize them. In ICOC your moment of salvation is water baptism, I no longer believe that.

I personally came to believe in Jesus through reading Jack Chick tracts, but they have fallen out of favour with me because most of them use Hell. I don’t want to create that image of God in anyone.

I’ve watched a few Ray Comfort youtube vidoes but I don’t like his style, he seems to beat people up with the 10 commandments first, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video where someone accepts Jesus while Ray is talking to them, or videos where someone was baptized. I also watched Fish With Trish but she seems to be a hit and run evangelist dropping tracts off, I don’t want to do that, I want to see the power of the gospel at work in someone in front of my eyes as a result of words that come out of my mouth.

I want to try a new approach, preaching the bare naked gospel, telling people that Jesus died for our sins, telling them that they are forgiven, that God has reconciled them to Himself, and that all they need to do to receive this is believe in Jesus and put their faith in Him. I’ve never done this before with anyone one-on-one and I was wondering if anyone here has and if they could share how they approach people and how they introduce the subject of Jesus and what they say, and perhaps also share testimonies of successes of people who came to believe through this evangelism.

I hope to hear from you about your testimonies of success stories of people you have lead to Christ, so I can also get out there and try them out.

lots of love
Martin

#2

Hi, Martin!

I don’t suppose I’ve ever met anyone led to Christ by the Chick tracts, but I’m glad to see they’re of some use somehow! :laughing:

ICOC stands for International Church of Christ, right?

I’ll be interested to hear anyone’s evangelism stories, too. As a long-time apologist, I don’t get involved much in the final stages of evangelism, though I’ve tried a little more of that in the 14 years I’ve been a Christian universalist than in all the years prior. Apologetics is evangelism of course, but it’s more like proto-evangelism or evangelical support: I do little spot things (or big galumphing spot things :laughing: ) to help people be in a better position to believe. But other people usually end up making the evangelical call. (Well, the Holy Spirit makes the call, but other people usually end up helping more than I do at the point of conversion.)

Anyway, God’s luck (if I may put it that way) with your evangelical efforts! :smiley:

(Also, since you’ve now had two posts approved you should be off the automatic initial mod-list soon.)

#3

Hi,

yes ICOC is the International Churches of Christ,
they left a trail of destruction in their wake with their
discipleship and salvation by works, it took me from
1992 until February this year to recover.

#4

I have a few stories. But most of my experiences happen over a period of time, rather than going up to a stranger in the street and 20 minutes later they’re saved.

Here’s one. IN my little town the churches get together and carry a large wooden cross through the town on Good Friday. I have only been on this twice - it always seems a bit religious for my liking. The last time I went we had stopped to pray outside the main supermarket in the town and I saw a guy paying quite a lot of attention to what we were doing before walking off. I went after him and gave him my phone number so he could call me with any questions.

About 3 months later he called. I invited him out for a coffee. His first question was “Why the cross?” A gift to an evangelist :slight_smile:

I should at this point say that this was a Muslim guy from Bangladesh.

So, I went through the Gospel from points of view about 4 times during our coffee. At the end I asked him if he’d like to become a Christian (of similar words, I forget exactly). He said “no” as he wanted to think some more about it. I invited him to church and, once he got passed the shock that a muslim would be welcome at Church, he agreed to come.

Over the next 6 months or so I would see him. He would come to church when he could. God healed his back and he felt the presence of God - in his limited English he once said “my head feels empty” when trying to express the peace of God he was feeling.

Then one Sunday after the meeting my (now-ex) wife asked him if he wanted to give his life to God. He said “yes” and they went through some form of a “sinners prayer” together.

Is that the sort of story you are looking for?

Mike

#5

Hi Mike,

Thats a wonderful story, thank you very much, exactly what I’m looking for :slight_smile:

I recently discovered Bill Bright and I read his book “Witnessing Without Fear”, food for the soul of an evangelist!

I’d like to go on a training course to learn the Campus Crusade for Christ method, but I think more importantly to get me kick started into getting out there and delivering the gospel to people who would not otherwise hear it. I’ve lost quite a few Facebook friends through my evangelism efforts there, I think nothing is quite as good as face to face.

I want to see someones eyes light up when they first put their faith in Jesus :slight_smile:

lots of love,
Martin

#6

Welcome to the forum, Martin! I look forward to getting to know you. I was raised in the CoC. We didn’t know for sure we were “saved”, but we were pretty sure everyone else wasn’t. Sad but true.

My all-time favorite means of sharing the gospel is a conversational method taught by William Faye in “Share Jesus Without Fear”. It teaches several principles that equip one well to share their faith. It’s conversational in that the first thing one does is interview and really listen to the person respectfully. And then sharing a series of scriptures, seeking to see if God is working in the person’s life. It is interesting though that in his method the only place one metions Hell is when one disregards the principles and inserts the word Hell into a scripture, overlaying one’s own interpretation instead of letting the person read and understand the scripture for themselves. I’ve found the principles in the method to be very empowering and effective in helping people to stop long enough to listen to hear God speak to them through scripture.

I’ve used this method with several people, but my cousin had the coolest response. I led him through the scriptures and God spoke powerfully to him. For example when he read, “All have sinned and fall short…” He meditated on it for a couple of minutes. Then he looked at me with amazement written on his face. I asked him what the scripture said to him and he replied, “It says that ALL have sinned, Not Just Me!” I took him through the scriptures and God revealed His grace and love to my cousin like he had never heard before though he had been raised in church. It was a very good evening.

“Share Jesus Without Fear” christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?dv=c&en=google-pla&event=PLASHOP&item_no=852798&kw=video-curriculum-80-100&p=1167941&gclid=CjwKEAjwtIShBRD08fKD1OWSik4SJAAuKLovq4SpgN1ti86KaeaklrDPZFsTQJFYAZfjBXQz4B2XEhoC1Cbw_wcB, this is a link to the whole kit, but you can purchase just the book if you wish.

Blessings,
Sherman

#7

I have to admit, when I first saw this phrase, I had visions of this “new approach” that was totally different from what you actually had in mind. But it would surely have gotten people’s attention. :open_mouth:

I will say that I am currently serving in a non-universalist church and have not made my universalist view public to my church or even to my immediate family. As such, I am involved with the evangelistic activities of the church. Tuesday nights are our visitation nights where several things happen. We either 1) Visit those who have visited our church (as evidenced in their filling our a visitor cards upon their first visit with which we obtain their addresses) and thank them for visiting our church. Then as opportunity arises, present a simple gospel presentation (usually some form of the “Romans Road”) and encoiurage them to pray and ask Christ for salvation (based on Romans 10:13). Or 2) go out knocking randomly on doors inviting people to church and give a gospel presentation as the opportunity arises.

I’m more comfortable visiting those who have already visited the church than I am knocking on doors cold. (Sometimes I feel like intruding in on strangers on the cold knock). But others are ok with this. At any rate, the follow-up visits that I prefer opens the possibility of speaking to other members of the family who have visited our church and share the gospel with them. Several times, I’ve seen other family members get saved.

Then I’ve had the precarious opportunity to go street preaching on a few occasions. One day on Mission Beach in San Diego, a group of us stood and handed out tracts while we took turns “preaching” aloud. We got a lot of flack from several distainers, several hecklers and such, even had some water balloons tossed at us at one point. But all that was ok because we saw five people get saved that day. So it was all worth it.