3 Pro Tips for Effective Evangelism | Ep. 1

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Evangelism 101: 4 Gospel Questions

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Let's face it, it's not getting any easier to be a Christian in today's culture, and the number one question that keeps coming back to me as I talk to more and more

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Christians, particularly across churches, is how do I share the gospel effectively? How do

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I evangelize in a manner that is persuasive, particularly when people shut down, they get angry because they heard certain trigger words like God, the

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Bible, or sin? In this video, I'm going to give you three things that you need to understand before you actually get out there to engage others for the gospel.

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So let's go. I'm Nate, and this is

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Wise Disciple. We're all about living effectively as Christians in today's culture. Now, if you like these kinds of videos, well, make sure to subscribe to our channel and click that notification bell, because there's a lot more like these coming your way soon.

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As I said at the beginning, there are a lot of Christians out there who are finding it very difficult to share their faith. It used to be the case that we could go out and maybe share a couple of Bible passages, maybe talk about our testimony.

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And that was enough, not anymore. And so before you go out there and you start to engage others for the gospel, even if you are interested in apologetics and you want to give a defense of the faith, there are three things that you need to understand first.

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The typical paradigm of communication is flawed. Think about it. In a two -person conversation, it's generally understood that person number one is supposed to make a bunch of speeches at person number two, and then person number two is supposed to sit back, be quiet, and listen.

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And then when person number one is done, now it's person number two's turn to make a bunch of speeches back, and then person number one is supposed to sit back, be quiet, and listen.

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This treats conversations like it's a tennis match. The ball goes over one side of the net, and then it gets batted back over the other side.

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In that paradigm of communication, people aren't really listening. Have you ever been in a conversation where you've been talking to somebody, you're trying to lay down some truth, but they got irritated, so they shut down?

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Or maybe they're not really paying attention because they're thinking about what they're going to say back to you. This is the typical paradigm of communication, and we see it happen over and over again, especially on social media.

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Now, think to yourself, how are you going to share the gospel in this kind of back -and -forth paradigm of communication?

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I suggest you completely get rid of it. Fight the urge to make speeches, and find another way to communicate.

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I think a lot of people make the same mistake that I made when I initially got out there and started engaging folks for Christ.

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That is, I treated people as if they were purely logical, rational beings. That was a huge mistake.

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God has actually made us to be the intersection of both intellect and emotion. The emotional component is a key factor in people's decision making.

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Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist, and he's a professor at NYU, and he characterizes it this way.

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He says, think of decision making like a rider sitting on top of an elephant. A lot of people will look at that illustration, and they'll think, you know what?

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The elephant is my logical, rational side, and the rider is my emotional side.

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But the opposite is actually true. The rider is our logical side, and the elephant is our emotions, and the elephant is wandering around wherever it pleases.

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The rider is just along for the ride in many cases. See, I think once you understand that, then you can start to see that beliefs are more like houses.

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People actually move into their beliefs, and they live inside them, and they get very comfortable in them.

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Now, imagine trying to persuade somebody to change their belief and say, become a

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Christian. You have to understand this. What you are doing is you're asking someone to move away from their favorite house.

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The couch is set up the way they like it. The refrigerator is set up with all their favorite foods. We have to recognize and appreciate the emotional component that goes into engaging people about their beliefs and persuading them to change their minds.

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It's not as simple as just yelling at them from outside their house that they need to move. So I said it before, but I'm going to say it in a different way now.

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When we get out there, we Christians, and we try to engage others for Christ, especially today, we don't treat people as fully people.

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Instead, we treat them like they're test questions on a piece of paper. And so with the test question, all I have to do then is

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I need to just throw the answer down on the paper, and that takes care of everything. No, it doesn't.

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People are not test questions. People are the intersection of both emotion and logic, and they have their own sets of backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs.

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And that's how we need to approach people. If you really want to engage others for Christ and be as effective as you can following the biblical injunctions that teach you to do so, you need to understand the audience that you're talking to.

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That requires you to stop making speeches, to stop just coming in because you know one little piece of information about the person you're talking to, and now you're going to give them nine bullet points about why they're wrong and why

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Christianity is true. No, you need to take some requisite time and sit down and get to know the people that you're talking to, because if you do, you will start to better understand what it is that keeps them from Christianity.

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Remember, emotions are a big component of decision making and beliefs. What is holding them back from considering Christ as a true alternative to their worldview?

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Why are they at their beliefs in their worldview in the first place? You need to know more than the mere fact that they don't believe what you believe.

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You need to get to know the people that you're engaging, because once you do, you'll be able to reach them where they're at in the most effective way that you can.

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You see how all of these three things, they keep you from simply treating your conversations like you're in some kind of formal debate.

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A lot of us that are in apologetics, we really love watching those kinds of formal debates.

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For me, I used to teach debate, so of course that's very interesting. The problem is we think that that way of communicating is the most effective way to do it.

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It's not. People are not changing their minds in today's culture in large part because of that dynamic of communication.

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We need to start treating people as full human beings, and we need to speak in a much better way.

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Now, this actually raises a whole host of new questions, right? Which is, if I'm not supposed to be making speeches, then what kinds of things should

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I be saying? How should I get conversation started in the first place? When it comes to persuasion, how should

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I even do that at all? Is there a proper order of persuasion? Let me tell you, there is, and we are going to answer those new questions in the next few videos.