Conversion, Evangelism and Membership in the Local Church

Biblical Expositional Preaching and a Healthy Church’s Expectations

Last week, we began our series called, A Healthy Church, by asking the questions, what should a member expect from the church? And conversely, what should the church expect from its members? From the outset, we made the observation that the very first thing that a member should expect from the church is in regard to the Word of God.

A member should expect biblical expositional preaching, preaching which reads and explains and applies the text of the Bible. A member should expect biblical theology, that everything that is taught and everything that is believed should come from the Bible.

And a member should expect a biblical understanding of the gospel, which understands both the sinful nature of man and the incredibly amazing grace which is demonstrated in the Bible. Simply put, a church that is healthy in regard to the Word is one that preaches, teaches, and formulates its doctrines on the text of the Bible.

Well, this week, we are going to dig further in what a member should expect from the church with the question, what should a member expect in regard to membership? Now, a few weeks ago, we looked at the question of why is church membership important?

But today, our focus is on a biblical view of how a person becomes a member of the church and what happens when he or she joins the church. This morning, instead of our normal practice of standing together and reading one verse or one section of verses, we are going to be reading various texts to help us understand this passage.

So, instead of starting by standing and reading the text, I'm just going to ask that we pray now and we'll begin our lesson. So, let's bow our heads. Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.

We thank You for the truth of it. We thank You that it encourages us, it teaches us, it reproves us, and it leads us in the path of righteousness. I pray, O Lord, now that as I seek to get exposition of Your text, I pray that You would keep me from error, as I am certainly capable of preaching error.

And I pray that You would open up the hearts of the people to the truth, that everything that is said today would be used first and foremost to glorify You, but also to encourage Your people towards a closer walk with You.

In all this, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. Amen. Well, well. What should a member expect from the church in regard to membership? Well, if you're taking notes, I'll give you the outline now, and then you can go back and add any extra that you want to add.

But the simple answer is this. A member should expect a biblical understanding of conversion, a biblical understanding of evangelism, and a biblical understanding of membership. So we're going to go over what those three things mean.

What do I mean by saying that? But if you're taking notes, it is a biblical understanding of conversion, a biblical understanding of evangelism, and a biblical understanding of membership. So let's start from the beginning.

Conversion as God’s Work in the Heart

These could easily be three individual sermons, but I put them together because of the series. But let's look first at a biblical understanding of conversion. The very heart of church membership begins with the question of who qualifies.

Who qualifies to be a member of the church? And the reality is that church membership is limited to those people who have truly been converted to Christ. At least, biblically speaking, that's what church membership is.

People who have been converted to Christ, joining together, acting as the local body of Christ in their community. But what does it mean to be converted to Christ? Well, there seems to be a lot of confusion in the world about that question.

Many people call themselves Christians, but have no affection for Christ. They have no desire to submit to the Bible. They have no desire to assimilate into the local church. And they have no desire for personal righteousness.

Yet, they call themselves Christians, followers of Jesus. Furthermore, it seems that the Arminian philosophy of conversion has become the mainstream. And that has, in itself, caused a lot of problems.

Arminian theology teaches that man is active in his own salvation. That he must willingly participate with God in the act of salvation, exercising by his own free will, faith, which in turn causes his regeneration.

Many people say, well I like that, that sounds pretty good. Free will, that's a good sounding thing. I get to participate, I get to act, I get to do my part. God votes for me, the devil votes against me, and I break the tie.

You think I made that up? That was from an Arminian evangelist. God voted for me, the devil voted against me, and I break the tie. See, the problem with Arminian philosophy is... Well, I'll ask you, what do you think the problem is?

Could it be that man is in charge of ultimately who gets saved? Because if you think about it, the person becomes the only active agent that matters. If God voted for you, and the devil voted against you, and you break the tie, guess who's the most important actor in the scene?

You are. And God is simply waiting in heaven with bated breath, wringing His hands, just waiting for you to accept Him. See, that's the picture that we have of Christian conversion, that God is just hoping and praying to someone that you will accept Him.

And this is how people misunderstand conversion, and they continue to misunderstand conversion. Because, beloved, the Bible teaches a very different view of Christian conversion. According to the Bible, Christian conversion is something that God does within us.

God converts the heart. We don't change ourselves. As the Bible says, the leopard cannot change his spots. The Ethiopian cannot change the color of his skin. Neither can we do good who are accustomed to doing evil.

God does the work in us. So let's now go to the Scripture and see if what I'm saying is true. I've made a bold declaration. Let's go to the text and see if it is in fact what the Bible teaches. Ephesians chapter 2.

Now, we read verses 8 -10, but I want to start back at verse 1. And I wish I had time. A few months ago, Byron preached after the baby was born, and he preached. I guess almost six months now. But he preached through Ephesians 2, 1 -10.

So I'm not going to give as long an exposition as he did, because I have a lot of other verses to look at. But I just want to reinforce some of the points that he made about God as the active agent here.

We are the recipients. So let's look at this. It says first and foremost in verse 1,. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. This is something I think a lot of people miss. They miss the deadness that we have.

That we are in fact, prior to God converting us, we are dead. And I hear people all the time describe sin as an illness. They describe sin as a sickness. And Jesus provides us the antidote to this sickness.

No, it's not sickness. It's deadness. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. And while I have seen many sick people get better and get up and walk out, I've never seen anybody walk out of the morgue.

I've never seen anybody walk out of the funeral home. I've never seen anybody walk out of the grave. Save Jesus and those who were raised miraculously. So we are described not as being sick in sin. We are described as being dead in sin.

Everyone agree? Good, we can move on. It says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience.

Referencing there in verse 2, the fact that when we were dead in sin, we all followed after the very author of sin himself, which is the devil. He was our leader. You may say, well, I never felt like the devil was my leader.

Well, it doesn't matter how you feel. It matters what is. We all walked in accord with the prince of the power of the air, following him, and who is now still at work, and the sons of disobedience. And he says here in verse 3, he makes sure we don't miss it.

Among whom we all once lived in the passage of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. That phrase, by nature, I remember one time in that fellowship hall in there.

We used to have a stage in there, and we would have worship in there sometimes. And I was teaching one night on a Sunday night. This was before I was ever the pastor. I was youth minister or something.

And I was preaching, and I said we are by nature sinners. That we are actually born in sin, and we are wrought by nature as sinners. And this person got offended. You are wrong! And I took her right here.

And I said, this text is no doubt. We are by nature children of wrath. And just as again, like the Ethiopian cannot change his nature, he can't change his spots, or his skin color, the leopard can't change his spots.

Neither can we by nature change ourselves. Because it's within our nature to be children of wrath. But verse 4 brings the miracle. Because verse 4 doesn't say, but man changed himself. It says, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace.

You have been saved. You see, that's the key. It's not, but man came to his senses and realized he was a sinner and came back to God. No, it's, but God, because He is rich in mercy, while we were still dead, made us alive.

While we were still dead in our sins, God did a work in us. And He made us alive. And raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

And then comes the passage which is, to me, one of the most beautiful in all of Scripture. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Beloved, remember this.

The grace and the faith are both gifts from God. Because it is the grace that enables us to have the faith. That is why it says, and this is not of you. This is not your own doing. You didn't do this, but this is something God has done by His grace.

This is a gift that He has given by His grace. Beloved, this is totally foreign to so many churches. They have such an unbiblical view of regeneration, of conversion, of what it means to become a Christian.

All this talk about accepting Jesus, accepting Jesus. I don't use that language because it is not biblical language. We receive Christ. We don't accept Him as if He is something we can just accept and reject by our power.

No, we receive the gift of grace. And it is a much different understanding of salvation than a lot of folks have. It is not a result of works, verse 9, so that no one may boast. And then in verse 10, He tells us, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

That is an important part, too, because never think for a second that salvation is something that you are called to and then you are supposed to stop. You are called to salvation for a very specific purpose.

God has created you for good works. He has created you to do good things. He has created you as His workmanship. That means workmanship there in the Greek is something that someone spends time working out.

A piece of art, like an artist makes a sculpture. That is his workmanship. That is his piece of art. That is what you are. God has raised you from spiritual death. He has seated you in heavenly places with Christ because you are in Christ.

So you are seated with Christ. You are no longer judged among the unbeliever. You are now righteous before Him. And so He has called you to do good things. That is Christian conversion. God has given you spiritual life, so live it.

That is conversion. And it is a work of God in you. And that is how you can tell. You can tell it is a work of God in you when your change occurs. Because you begin to desire Christ. You begin to desire to follow after Him.

You begin to desire His Word, His people. And to move in accordance with His will rather than your own. That is conversion. It is not signing a card or getting baptized because somebody expects you to.

It is a change of heart. Which results in a change of action and direction and will. That is Christian conversion. Let me show you a few other verses again. I wish I had time to really flesh all this out.

But I want to just show you this idea of conversion being a God thing. Being something God does. It is all through the Bible. Turn to John 1. Most of us are familiar with this phrase or this text. It is one of the most condemning passages in the Scripture in regard to the Jewish people.

John 1 verse 11. Speaking of Jesus it says, He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him. His own being the Jews. He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him. This is why again I don't use the word accepting Christ.

I use the word receiving Christ. It is different. It is different in every way. Given time I could explain the differences. But I will show you here in the text how it is the most plain reason. It says this in verse 12.

But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. Who were born. By the way, who were born. Past tense. It had already happened. Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Their being born again was of God. Their being born again was not of the will of the flesh. It was not of the blood. They weren't born into it and they didn't decide to enter into it. It was something that God had done in them.

It wasn't the will of the flesh. It wasn't the will of man. It was the will of God that they be born again. And it was done and that is why they received Him. The only reason why anyone receives Christ is because God opens up their heart to receive Him.

The only reason why anyone is ever truly converted to Christ is because God has opened their heart to receive Him. No one can come unto me, Jesus said, unless the Father who is in heaven grants it to them.

Very clear. That text is so clear. John 6 and 65. But let's look again at a couple other verses. Acts 11 and 18. Peter is telling about the miracle that has happened. The Holy Spirit has fallen on Gentiles and Gentiles are being saved.

And in verse 18, when they heard these things, they fell silent. They were shocked because this was a new thing. God was reaching out beyond the walls of the Jews. He was reaching out beyond the Jewish people.

And He was saving people that were non-Jews. This was something that was different in the mind of these Jewish people. And it says, when they heard these things, they fell silent. And they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

So is repentance wrought within us or is repentance from God? Well, the text seems to be unambiguous. Notice, it is something wrought in the heart by God. Turn over two chapters to chapter 13 and verse 48.

One of the most contentious passages in Scripture. I heard a man one time who wanted to argue against Reformed theology. When he looked at verse 48, he said that has to be a mistranslation. And he even went to the point of saying there must be a Hebrew original of the Greek that said it differently.

And it was this long diatribe about how this could not be accurate. Because obviously if it was, it would destroy his position. And it does. This was one of the strongest Reformed salvation verses. And a lot of people don't even know it.

But Acts 13, verse 48. The Gentiles were preached repentance to. It says, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

Let me say it again. As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. You know, in most people's theology, that verse fits nowhere. Because most people would read it like this. As many believed were appointed to eternal life.

But it doesn't say that. And neither does it say that in the Greek. In the Greek, it's very specific. Those whom God had appointed. Those whom God had chosen. Those whom God had elected. Oh, there's that dirty word that nobody likes.

But that's it. That's the ones that had been appointed to eternal life. And they are the ones who believed. Belief follows the election. Belief follows the opening of the heart by God. Belief is a result of God's regeneration.

Not the cause. Obviously, this is something that is very meaningful to me. I'm getting a little hot under the collar here. I'm going to calm down a little. Turn one last place and we'll... I'm simply, at this point, just reaffirming what I've said to you.

It's from the text of Scripture. 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 25. Actually, we'll look at verse 24 first because this is leading up. The apostle Paul is teaching Timothy. He is teaching him how to behave as a pastor.

He's saying, The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

What is the pastor called to do? He's called to rebuke with gentleness, with love, with kindness, because it may be that God will grant them what? Repentance. Where does repentance come from? From within or from above?

From above. It's very clear throughout the Bible that the only reason why people repent is God changes their heart. Without the changing of the heart, we would not repent. So, the active agent in salvation is God.

He is the one saving. He is the one granting the gifts of faith and repentance. This is why the Bible says that salvation is of the Lord. But I want to digress for a moment. I want to ask a question. We know that God is the active agent in salvation.

We're the recipients. We receive His salvation. We are passive. He is active. He is the one that acts upon us. But the question is, does that mean that I don't participate in my salvation process at all?

And the answer to that is no. We do participate, but we participate passively. We receive the gift of regeneration, which converts our hearts, and as a result, we believe freely. We believe. Prior to conversion, we would not want to believe.

Prior to conversion, we would have no desire to follow Christ. In fact, we would not even be able to. Romans 8, verses 7 and 8. For the mind that is set on the flesh... By the way, every mind that's not converted is set on the flesh.

In case you're wondering. Every mind that is not converted is set on the flesh. Because it can't be set on the Spirit. The Spirit is dead. And there's only two... The dichotomy in the text is you're either set on the Spirit or you're set on the flesh.

And if the Spirit is dead, then you're set on the flesh. There's no doubt. And the mind that is set on the flesh is what? Hostile to God. You might say, well, I know some people who aren't believers. They don't seem very hostile to God.

Spend some time talking with them about their own sin. And you will see how hostility will rear its head very quickly. Spend some time talking. Well, I don't want to talk to them about their sin. It will make them angry.

Then we prove my point. So let us continue. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. It doesn't say it will not. It says it cannot.

Because why? Because it's set on the flesh. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. I don't know how the Apostle Paul can make it any clearer. I don't know how anybody can stay in the pit of Arminianism.

I really don't. I can see how you can start there because that's where most churches are today and that's what most churches teach. But after you've been exposed to these verses, I don't know how you can stay in that pit.

Well, I can't give up free will. It's not about free will. Who's more free? You or God? God is free and I am free. But guess what? God is more free than me. And when my freedom runs into God's freedom, God wins.

There is the reformed doctrine of the free will via R .C. Sproul. I wish I had made that one up, but I didn't. That was Sproulian theology, but it's the truth. God is free. I have freedom, but my freedom is less than God's.

And whenever my freedom runs into God's, He wins every time. My freedom is bound by my nature. Thus, I'm not truly free. As Byron says all the time, I can't make myself a tractor. I can't will myself to be a bird because it's not within my nature to do so.

I'm not totally free. Such an idea is ridiculous. Neither am I free to do which my nature doesn't want to do. My nature doesn't naturally want to follow Christ. So the only reason why I would is that God work on me from the outside.

That God changed my heart. That's why we say conversion is a work of God. We are dead in sin. We need spiritual resurrection. God is the one who grants spiritual resurrection. And by that, we believe freely.

Faith does come from us, but it's a gift from God because without His regeneration, we would not exercise it. So why is that important to understand for church membership? Why is that important to understand for the series that we're in right now?

Because we spent a lot of time on conversion there. Well, the reason why it's important to understand is this. Because a proper view of conversion, or rather an improper view of conversion, leads to a very improper view of evangelism.

And that's where we're going next. Now, we've looked at the biblical view of conversion. A healthy church needs a biblical view of conversion. And they need a biblical view of evangelism. Now, for evangelism, I want us just to look at the great evangelism verse Matthew 28.

If you want to turn there in your Bible. When most of us are familiar with it, probably could quote it, but we'll still turn there and look at it for a second because I want to just point out the great commission.

Matthew 28, verse 18 -20. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Important in this text in verse 19 where the command to go, therefore, it actually could also be translated, therefore, as you go, make disciples.

It's just another way of reading that text because the text is not necessarily saying that we all are commanded to be missionaries as Paul was and go to different lands. But as we go throughout our life, daily as we interact with people, daily as we are involved with people, we are to be making disciples of Christ.

That's our command. Go, therefore, as you go, make disciples. How do you make disciples? Well, you baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's the process of the introduction into the faith.

By the way, the whole idea of the mourner's bench, if we don't have one, but you know what I'm talking about, the bench that's in front of a lot of churches that people come up and cry on at the end of service, it was actually developed in the Methodist movement as a place for people to come and weep after a sermon.

The mourner's bench and the whole idea of coming forward and that's where you get saved, that's where you demonstrate your faith, that's foreign to Scripture. The demonstration of faith in Scripture is baptism.

It always has been. Baptism doesn't save us, but it is a demonstration of the faith that we have. You could go straight to the baptistry here, you don't have to come via the aisle. If you come to me on Wednesday night, Pastor, I've received Christ as my Lord and Savior, I've bowed the knee to His Lordship, Christ has saved me, He has regenerated my heart and I have a desire to follow Him.

What's next? Baptism. That's the natural next. And getting back to the subject of evangelism very quickly, a biblical understanding of evangelism. If we look at this text in Matthew, it's obvious that evangelism is not just a suggestion from Christ.

It is a command. It is a mandate. And many claim a desire to fulfill this mandate, but their methodologies are unbiblical and this is what concerns me most. Often, the reason why churches have an unbiblical method for evangelism is because they have an unbiblical understanding of conversion.

Once people believe that conversion is a product of human decision making, once they believe that conversion is a product of human will, they begin to come up with ways to manipulate the will so as to make people make the decision.

Or at least, aid them in making the decision. And I've heard so many methodologies for winning someone to Christ. I've heard, you've got to get the right kind of lights. Because at some point in the service, you've got to dim the lights.

I've heard that you've got to have the right musical numbers. I do believe Just As I Am is very popular. And you've got to play it 117 times to make sure that they have enough time to make the right decision.

You've got to have the right tear-jerking story to finalize your sermon, to remind people just how important it is that hey, you're only 18 inches from hell, every time you drive down the road, that's how far it is from the car who passes you.

You're 18 inches at any moment. Because all those things... I hurt my back last night, if you're wondering why I'm moving funny. You're supposed to guarantee a person's salvation because of these methodologies.

I had a guy one time teaching an evangelism course that I attended. He said, give him enough time, he can get anybody to receive Jesus. You know who I'm talking about. Anybody a believer. But here's the problem, folks.

Beloved, here's the problem. All of this unbiblical evangelism has done nothing but bear a nation of dead fruit. A .W. Tozer said, it is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they have yet not been saved.

Dr. D. James Kennedy, founder of Evangelism Explosion. No, which one was Kennedy? Was it Evangelism Explosion? Great man of God. Wonderful man of God. It's what he said. The vast majority of people who are members in churches in America today are not Christians.

I say that without the slightest fear of contradiction. I base it on empirical evidence of 24 years of examining thousands of people. In November 1970, a number of churches combined for a convention in Fort Worth, Texas, they secured 30 ,000 decisions for Christ.

Six months later, the follow-up committee could find only 30 of those people were still active in a church. Out of 30 ,000, 30 were still active in a church. That's not 1 of 30 ,000. You see, the problem is that many churches have removed the Gospel from the church, and instead they've replaced it with a sales pitch, a Jesus sales pitch.

You've heard me use that term before, but I don't ever want you to forget it, because that's what often you hear instead of the Gospel. You hear a Jesus sales pitch, and the result is that churches become filled with unregenerate people.

They have been sold the bill of goods. They have responded to the sales pitch with great emotional fervor, but when the emotionalism dies down, they are nowhere to be found. You know, in previous centuries, our church is a Baptistic church, not a Baptist church.

We're Baptistic in the sense that we believe that baptism follows conversion. That's called credo-baptism. For centuries, credo-baptists were normally baptized in adulthood. Somewhere between the ages of 17 and 20 is when people would be baptized.

However, in the last century, that changed dramatically. In many churches, baptisms began occurring at younger ages. 13, 12, 11, 10, 7, 6, 5 year old children were being baptized. And it was the norm.

Not the exception, but it was the norm. What has caused the shift from adults receiving Christ and accepting Christ and being baptized as a result of that regeneration to children? What's the cause? Could it be that younger children are easier to manipulate with our sales pitch?

Could it be that the parents of younger children are very excited to have their children be baptized because they fear if they're allowed to get too old without locking in their decision that they might drift off into some form of paganism?

So we encourage our kids to be baptized. We push them into baptism. My mother, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I tell this story. And this is my biological mom. My other mom is here, Pat. But my biological mom, when I was 12 years old, she made me be baptized at the church that she was going to because I had reached the age of accountability.

She did not want me to be imperiled in my soul. She was under the influence of bad theology. She knows it now, but didn't know it then. But it was like, you need to do this because if not, you're going to go to hell if you die.

One church even built a baptistry that was shaped like a fire engine. They put bells and whistles on the baptistry and every time a child went under the water, lights and sirens. Is there any kid in this room that doesn't want to get into the fire truck-shaped swimming pool?

If you couldn't sell that to a young 'un... I mean, seriously. But that's what it has become. And evangelism is no longer about telling people the truth about sin and the gospel. It's about how many people can we get to sign a card?

How many people can we get to walk an aisle? How many people can we get to get into the baptistry? It's not about conversion anymore. It's about numbers. I've heard people say this about our church. I've heard people make the observation that we are not as committed to evangelism as we should be.

And what I think they mean when they say that is that we do not have the typical evangelism programs which you see in a lot of churches. We don't have a revival service once a year wherein we bring a speaker from another town to come in and speak to our people and make sure that everybody is prayed up and ready to go to heaven.

We don't have a revival service. We don't have judgment house wherein we gather people up and show them a bunch of people dying and then put them in a room and say, hey, now you need to decide Jesus because that could be you next.

We don't host a weekly neighborhood canvassing wherein we go knocking door to door preaching to people. And some say because we don't, we're not fulfilling the Great Commission. Well, beloved, we can always do more to evangelize the lost.

I know that. We can always do more to evangelize the lost. And that is no doubt. But hear me now. The vast majority of the common evangelistic methods bear nothing but dead fruit. The vast majority of modern evangelistic methods do nothing but bear dead fruit.

One young man challenged me. Tony was here. A few other people were here. A young man challenged me at the back door one day because we were not canvassing door to door. We were not fulfilling the Great Commission.

We were not trying to save souls because we were not going door to door. And if we didn't, we did not have the blessing of Christ. And I said, well, tell me about what you do. He said, well, I take a survey to the door.

They don't even know that I'm from the church. They don't know what I'm doing. I get them talking, and I get them wrapped into the conversation. And before they know it, I'm talking to them about Jesus, and I've tricked them into subliminally.

Remember the word he said? Subliminally. I've tricked them into answering my questions. I said, well, glory be. Why don't I just become a hypnotist? I'll have all the followers in the world. If subliminal messages and sales tactics are how somebody gets saved, then the Gospel is not true.

Yes, I want us to engage in evangelism. Yes, we need to do more to evangelize, but our evangelism must be biblical. It must be. It cannot be man-centered pop psychology. It cannot be based in trickery.

It cannot be bad history shaped by fire trucks and Miley Cyrus concerts. It must be the Gospel. That's why I don't believe there is a method. I don't believe there is such a thing as evangelistic method.

I think you share the truth with people about sin, about Christ, and about salvation. You don't have to trick them. You don't have to fool them. And guess what? You don't have to convince them. The Holy Spirit changes the heart.

God brings new life into the dead soul. You just are responsible to tell the truth. It's not your job to convince anyone. Only God can change your heart. You will never fail as long as you tell the truth.