Relational Evangelism for Reaching the Lost
This article points readers to several practical evangelism resources and highlights Arron Chambers’s book Eats With Sinners. It emphasizes relationship-based evangelism modeled after Jesus, especially through shared meals and intentional connections with lost people.
- Church leaders are encouraged to apply practical evangelism strategies from this issue.
- Eats With Sinners presents a biblical model of evangelism through relationships and meals.
- The excerpt stresses that intentional relationships are central to introducing people to Jesus Christ.
By Mark A. Taylor
Evangelism Resources for Your Church
We like to think every issue of Christian Standard is a winner, of course, but we believe this week’s content is especially useful. Church staffs, elders, evangelism committees, or anyone interested in reaching the lost will find help here.
Read Kent Hunter’s strategies for evangelism and decide which of them is most urgent for your church to adopt.
Look at the experience of Marcus Bigelow and Paul Williams and agree on the implications for your congregation and for your personal approach to non-Christians.
Consider David Bycroft’s experience and approaches and how you could use them where you are.
And after you’ve read this issue, we have one more resource to recommend to you. Arron Chambers has just written a new book that puts evangelism in a fresh, new light. Eats With Sinners introduces a biblical model for evangelism—building relationships like Jesus did, one meal at a time.
The book (item number 021520309) is available now at http://www.standardpub.com/detail.aspx?ID=4079. To whet your appetite, here’s a brief excerpt from Arron’s introduction to his book:
An Excerpt from Eats With Sinners
Relationships are the key to reaching lost people. I define evangelism as “an intentional relationship through which someone is introduced to Jesus Christ.” Healthy relationships are essential if we want to have the kind of life God intended for all of us, and they are also essential if we want to reach lost people like Jesus did.
A few years ago the Institute for American Church Growth (today known as Church Growth, Inc.) asked more than 10,000 people, “What was most responsible for your coming to Christ and this church?”
The survey proves what you might already suspect: most people come to a saving faith in Jesus through an intentional relationship. An intentional relationship for a Christian is one in which a person intends to—one day—have the chance to introduce another person to Jesus and then—one day does introduce him or her to Jesus. And there is no more scriptural model for building relationships with lost people than eating with them.
The word church means “called-out ones.” Christians are called to be different from all the hazardous influences of the world. Perhaps we have taken that too far, with too many of us deserting the very world Jesus expects us to impact. We are faithful in meeting with other saints on a regular basis around the Lord’s table, but are we faithless in our refusal to meet with lost people around theirs?
This can change. It must change . . . one relationship at a time . . . one meal at a time.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
