Are First Things First?

Last year I went to the BGEA School of Evangelism. It was awesome. I give you permission to attend.

One scripture and principle God seared in my soul was this one:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures; (1 Cor. 15:3-4 NASB)

One principle for ministry from this verse is this:

The most important message of the church is the gospel and it must be first.

I got to lead a man to the Lord today. He was a walk in to our church offices. Last week we had an evangelism equipping leader, Dennis Nunn, who taught us some fresh ways to do evangelism. I recommend him to you. He can bring a “back to the basics” mentality to your church culture. I used Nunn’s approach of sharing the testimony with 1 Cor. 15:3-4 inserted into it. It was great, simple, and powerful.  Last week I taught a “whiteboard” lesson to pastors at the SBTC Evangelism Conference. Here’s the outline of what I taught.

First things first MUST be first with you.

The way to tell where you are with evangelism is to see the difference between program and personal evangelism:

• When program evangelism is first,

1. You feel good about you.
2. You can hide from your staff and leaders regarding evangelism.
3. You are only life-giving as long as the program is life giving.

• When personal evangelism is first,

1. You feel good about God working through you.
2. You can lead your staff/deacons/leaders with confidence.
3. You are “life-giving” all the time because you constantly evaluate your personal commitment.

Where are you will personal witnessing? Start over, again, again, and again.

Focus on you, then your family witness, then leaders, and through them, the church.

There’s a difference between program and personal evangelism. We need both. But personal must come before program.

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