Questioning Evangelism

Questioning Evangelism, what a good title. A good title for a good book. Thankfully this title doesn't refer to questioning whether we should engage in evangelism, rather it discusses how to thoughtfully use questions to aid in evangelism. I love this concept, so I thought I would record a few quotes from the book that I want to remember.

"We should be more engaging and less confrontational in our sharing of the Good News."

Guidelines from "How to Win Friends and Influence People":
1. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
2. Give honest, sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse int he other person an eager want.
4. Become genuinely interested in other people.
5. Smile.
6. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
8. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
9. Make the other person feel important, and do it sincerely.

"The church's calling, in addition to proclaiming the Gospel, feeding the poor, building up families and encouraging the down-trodden, must also include intentional efforts to build plausibility structures." (The church must work to answer the question of "why should I believe that or even consider it?")

"Only the cross takes seriously both God's holiness and our sinfulness."

Four factors of Belief in the Bible:
1. Plausibility (Is there a chance the Bible could be true?)
2. Messiness (Book written to apply to human messiness in every time and place.)
3. Reality (history, literary criticism, etc. http://www.str.org/)
4. Need (The Bible speaks to our core needs.)

"Some people ask us for the reason for the hope that is in us only after we've asked them a question and listened carefully to their answer."

"What we believe could be called Mere Christianity, the kinds of things on which the Christian church has agreed for centuries. We believe that there is a God and that He's made Himself known to us so we can have a personal relationship with Him, one that would help us in this life and one that would last forever in heaven. We also realize that we've all fallen short of any decent standard of goodness. In other words, we've all got some sin in us that's messed up a lot of things - friendships, consciences, relationship with God, things like that. We believe that Jesus is the answer for our problems. He not only taught us lessons on how to live so we don't have these problems, but He also died on the cross to take away the penalty that we deserved for the problems we've created. Each of us has come to the point where we follow Him every day of our lives."

This book also contains lots of sample conversations demonstrating how and when good questions can be asked. I would do well to practice asking good questions as this book suggests.