There is a great deal of confusion around about what evenagelism actually is, let alone how we can do it.
For me I think evangelism is simply about sharing your faith with another and how you do that is decided by the person you are talking to.
If someone has reached the point of wanting to become a Christian then a brief description of asking God for forgiveness for sin and an acknowledgement of who Jesus is might result in a prayer and a new life in Christ.
However, these births are not the whole story by any stretch. Most people are no where near making that commitment so using a sins forgiven – Jesus is Lord – prayer model isn’t going to work. Sadly it seems many evangelism courses focus on this approach and it could be why they so often fail.
The majority of the time we will be sowing seeds and gardening. Asking the right questions to encourage people to think about their own beliefs and to examine what Christian belief says. We tend to call this phase apologetics – a much neglected area of Christian discipleship. We are not saying we are sorry but instead explaining Christian belief to those who don’t know.
You could do this couldn’t you? Start just by gently asking a question like – what is it you believe about ….? Where do you get hope from? What troubles you most about the world? etc.
Then you could ask why questions. Why do you believe that? What evidence do you have for that? etc.
This is the biggest work that we are called on to do.
If you are gentle and kind (aka being like Jesus) eventually someone might want to know what you believe (you could probably tell most people even if they don’t ask – just because you have bothered to be interested in what they had to say).
After thousands of these kinds of conversations you might find someone who wants to make a commitment but that only comes after all the other things have been done.
Who do you know that you could ask about what they believe?