For this conversation, we sat down with Matt Brown to talk about the joy and challenge of evangelism, and how to do it the Jesus Way.
Matt Brown: https://www.thinke.org/
Pre-order “Truth Plus Love”: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310355249/
When Billy Graham passed away it made me think, “What next step do I need to take to help reach this generation with the gospel?”
Pastors need people like me (evangelists) who are passionate about sharing the gospel outside the church… if you struggle with evangelism, find people who inspire you and find ways to step outside in your everyday life…
Billy Graham was great at clearly presenting the gospel… more pastors need to think about that, and about how they are giving people a chance to respond…
The reality is, there is Holy Spirit power when we preach the gospel… when we talk about Jesus and lift up Jesus God will move in a sovereign way and draw people to himself… we need to make more opportunities for this…
The way Billy Graham lived his life was such an example to all of us… nobody is perfect, but he lived with integrity and tried to avoid the stumbling blocks that leaders get caught up on… he lived a life of authenticity and was likable…
My question is how can we champion some of the opportunities (presented by the new media) to talk about Jesus and bring the Bible to our world… and how can we have the right spirit when we do it? Church leaders and Christians need to set the pace here…
For a long time in my own life, I thought intensity and aggressiveness was the measure of maturity… what I began to realize was that if we live lives of the fruit of the Spirit, with a whole lot of love and joy and peace and kindness, then the gospel is going to look really good to people…
1 Corinthians 13 says that if we don’t have love, our words won’t be heard… the gospel can’t be heard through a life of un-love… we need to ask ourselves if what we are about to say is loving, gentle, and full of the Father-heart of God…
There’s a difference between being bothered and being burdened… we really need to have God’s heart for people, which comes out in the fruit of the Spirit…