Winning Souls for Christ ~ What does the Bible Say?

Every Christian is to be about winning souls for Christ. It’s part of what makes for a healthy Christian.

Consider what the Bible says about winning souls for Christ.

What does the Bible say about soul winning?

But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

(2 Timothy 4:5)

Timothy is known as the pastor of the church at Ephesus.

And yet Paul writes for Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist.”

This Greek word for “evangelist” means “a preacher of the gospel.”

So some will right away excuse this, as if to say only “pastors” or “ministry leaders” ought to share their faith and to preach the Gospel.

Friend, let me tell you then, that is just an excuse! I, too, used to hide behind that! And my faith in God was weak and suffered.

I thought I was “too shy” to share my faith.

That was many years in the past.

Here’s a short list of scriptures on evangelism and soul winning:

• Soul winning is part of the GREAT COMMISSION (Mark 16:15). The bigger picture is to make disciples of course (Matthew 28:18-20), but only one who is saved first can be a disciple.
• It’s WISE to win souls (Proverbs 11:3).
• Evangelism is PROTECTIVE ARMOR (Ephesians 6:15). It’s part of the whole armor of God! Without proactively sharing your faith with nonbelievers, you’re leaving yourself spiritually unprotected and not as strong.
• God empowers Christians to be WITNESSES (Acts 1:8).

So then, if the Bible says we are to be winning souls for Christ, why don’t most Christians share their faith?

And what’s a simple solution?

A simple solution is for churches to train in easy and fun ways for soul winning

There are many ways to train Christians to witness their faith to others. I myself have gone through a bunch of programs.

There’s no lack of books or training methods out there.

I’ve gone through trainings, taken courses and no, they typically didn’t work well with me.

In reality, the evangelism and outreach trainings I’ve gone through do not work well for the average person either.

The main problem I find in books or trainings is this: books don’t train people. People train people!

For the pastors: the key is to find something that works well for God’s people He’s called you to lead and feed. Then you have to lead them.

We’ve found that in doing our outreaches in various scenarios, the Lord uses us to reach out to people outside of our own comfort zones.

This does something amazing within each of us.

Evangelizing strengthens and solidifies our faith in Jesus Christ!

Reaching out takes us out of complacency and moves us into compassion.

We’ve seen God continue to multiply the “fish and loaves” with our outreaches and it’s amazing!

And get this: it’s actually fun, even for kids to do.

Instead of just screaming in the New York subways, we show the love of Jesus Christ in practical ways.

Yes, there’s a need for that soapbox kind of preaching. But even in the Gospels, there was only one John the Baptist. Still yet today, very few Christians I know of are called to that style of preaching.

And yet shouting publicly is one of the images that Christians think of when they think of evangelism.

Many Christians are afraid of sharing their faith

Let’s face it. Most of us tend to not share our faith in Christ because of fear.

Almost all have some amount of fear of rejection. The person thinks, “It’s embarrassing. I don’t want people to turn me down, or to tell me ‘No’ or to stop being my friend.”

Many people have a fear of failure. Some Christians think to themselves, “I’ve tried evangelism before. It was scary, I tried handing out tracts and nobody accepted them. Most of the tracts ended up on the ground or in the trash.”

Another common one is this: “Every time I go out publicly to talk to people about Jesus, I get these crazy, psycho people wanting to argue with me.” (and some of them even claim to be Christians)

Some feel coerced into evangelism and shy away

Christians are told things like, “You must evangelize. You have to go on Missions. What’s wrong with your faith? The Great Commission is to preach the Gospel. Maybe you’re not really saved?”

And so, well intending, but perhaps overly zealous Christians end up shoving other Christians away from witnessing.

Evangelism for the average Christian

So, what’s a way for the average Christian to get involved in sharing their faith?

For our church, God has given us a lot of grace to facilitate fun group outreaches.

Yes, they’re a lot of fun, and by God’s grace they’ve been favorable!

Jesus said to “love one another.” I think He meant that.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

(John 13:34-35)

Loving people in real, practical ways always throws New Yorkers way off!

New Yorkers are extremely skeptical. They think there’s a catch, or that we’re selling them something. Or that we’re going to con them on something, if we give them free supplies.

In fact, in last Wednesday’s outreach, I heard one guy shout out, “How much?!“ He thought we were selling him a bag of supplies. I don’t think that man even heard the part where we said it was “free.”

You see, New Yorkers are teaching me something about this culture of ours here: nobody seems to really give away items and love for free! Except Jesus Christ!

Some of what I’ve learned

When I was in California, we would go to people and hand out free meals. We loved the people first, and then were able to share the Gospel and pray for people.

Because of the love, many would actually read the Gospel tracts that were handed to them.

Shortly after 9/11, I got to serve for weeks in a relief center at Ground Zero that was the closest relief site to “the pit.” 

I got to see the Lord bring hundreds of missionaries into the relief center to minister to FDNY, NYPD and construction personnel in real, practical ways. They loved the people first, and then their hearts opened to talk and be prayed for.

After Superstorm Sandy hit New York City, the Lord opened a door for us to occupy a 5 acre property for free over the course of 2 years.

We brought out hundreds of missionaries to mix with the people, and again loving the people first in practical ways caused many to come to Christ. Many people were prayed for and were blessed in what the Lord did.

You can read about it in the Calvary Chapel Magazine articles here.

And the thing that I absolutely love, is that these types of outreaches are used “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).

Give people a quick win

We’ve found that for us, what works is to give people a quick win. The “A ha” moment will stick out for them.

The person will start to believe that God can use them in sharing their faith too. They’ll be hooked on evangelism! And they’ll equate evangelism with being fun. This even worked for my own kids, and can work for you too!

And get this, other people tell us “Thank you” all the time. Yet, we’re giving them Gospel tracts that tell them they’re sinners who need salvation through Jesus Christ, and that they must repent.

So I’ve found that creative evangelism builds up and equips the Christian (Ephesians 4:12), and spills over into many other areas in a person’s life in Christ.

Pray to develop fun and easy ways for people to gather in teams to do outreach.

Give out items as you’re able to, and feed people. That’s what Jesus did.

It still works today!

Pray for our outreaches

I’d like to ask you to please pray for us!

Pray that God keeps providing for us, and keeps protecting each of us as we share the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ.

If you’re in the Queens or Brooklyn area of New York City, I’d like to invite you to come out and fellowship with our church. You can take part in our fun outreaches along with us too.

Most churches around us are still closed after they shut down a year ago! But New Yorkers still need love, encouragement and hope. They need it now more than ever!

We want to be used by God to help the people of New York. God loves them and we do too.

~ Pastor Drew