Relational Evangelism is also known as Friendship
Evangelism, Personal Evangelism, Lifestyle Evangelism, and Servant Evangelism. Relational
Evangelism builds an intentional relationship, earns credibility, and waits for
spiritual conversations to come about with this person. When the topic of
faith comes up, the right to share Jesus has been earned. It is important to be
aware of the spiritual journey of the individual.
But
before people can pray to the Lord for help, they must believe in him. And
before they can believe in the Lord, they must hear about him. And for anyone
to hear about the Lord, someone must tell them. And before
anyone can go and tell them, they must be sent. As the Scriptures say, “How
wonderful it is to see someone coming to tell good news. (Romans
10:14-15, ERV)
As
Christians, our primary purpose in life is to make disciple for the Kingdom of
God by being a voice in the midst of the spiritual darkness of this world.
Making disciples for Jesus can happen with anyone who is not a believer in Christ.
“Salvation is free, but discipleship costs everything we have.” (Billy Graham)
You can identify
people that need Jesus by praying that they will cross your path, and by
noticing them by putting on your spiritual Jesus “glasses” on regularly. To
create a safe place for spiritual conversations, one must be patient with this
sometimes slow process, speak to them their spiritual level (avoid
Christianese), respect and be sensitive to their emotional (and physical) needs,
and resist controlling the conversation by not being argumentative with them.
“God gave us the ability to think about his world, but we can never completely understand everything he does. And yet, he does everything at just the right time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, ERV)
“Trust in God's timing. It's better to have to wait a while, and
have things fall into place then to rush into something and have things fall
apart.” (Adam Cappa)
"So relational
evangelism; go for it as long as it turns into real evangelism. You hanging out
having a beer with your buddy so he can see that Christians are cool is not
what we’re called to do. You’re eventually going to have to open up your mouth
and share the gospel. When the pure gospel is shared, people respond.”(Matt Chandler) [i]
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