Leading God’s people into outward focused living requires leaders to create opportunities that transform people’s “want to’s” (produced by the Holy Spirit) into “how to’s.” My workshops are designed to inspire the desire and build the skills necessary for implementing outward focused living. However, I’ve found that very few Christ followers are moved to application unless their faith community provides a grace-filled, intentional, follow-through that emphasizes doable, authentic, sustainable, baby steps that help people grow in their confidence and competence. The following ideas and experiments are intended to help in the process of transforming “innies” into “outies.” I’m always adding new ideas and experiments to this page, so please share yours by e-mailing them to me at Doug.Pollock@aia.com.
INTRODUCTION - Some Things to Consider as You Begin the Journey Outward
* Do not push people into action beyond the capacity of what their heart is ready for. In most cases if you do, they might participate on the outside, but on the inside they will resist the notion of this becoming part of their overall lifestyle.
* Never underestimate the emotional bondage people have towards the topic of evangelism. You must help them work through their issues. Their heart is the heart of the matter. When the heart is right, the feet are swift to move into action. If your people are not moving, it’s time to stop and find out what the heart issues are. The following represent the top 10 questions Christ followers ask me in my workshops. You must address these if you want to see your faith community move past themselves.
1. How do you start authentic spiritual conversations without turning people off?
2. How do you reclaim missed opportunities to share the good news?
3. How do you overcome a fear of rejection and/or failure in evangelism?
4. How do you know when someone is ready?
5. How do you reach someone who doesn’t want to hear it?
6. How do you repair evangelistic bridges that have been burnt in the past?
7. Is it wrong to have an evangelical agenda in my relationships?
8. Who are we to declare to others that our God is better than their God?
9. I’m afraid they will ask me questions I won’t be able to answer; what do you do
when this happens?
10. Evangelism is not my gift, is everyone called to do it?
* Don’t teach it without doing it! Jesus trained people in the ministry, not for the ministry. In most cases long-time believers have had way too much teaching without application. Nudge them out of the nest to create a hunger for more. Jesus modeled this when he sent out the 72 in Luke 10.
* Watch the language you use because it will shape the way your faith community looks at outreach. Anything that creates an “us vs. them” mentality, or an attitude of moral superiority is not helpful in connecting with not-yet Christians.
* Create a grace and truth filled learning environment where practitioners can share their successes and failures in their journey towards outward focused living. Find ways to champion the small victories people experience along the way.
* While doing outward focused things in community, always provide time for your people to express what’s been impressed on them by their experiences. Always conclude with a challenge to take what’s been learned corporately and apply it individually. If you do not, the tendency is for Christ followers to reduce outreach into an event rather than a lifestyle. Events are great for momentum, instruction, etc., but can easily leave people with the mindset that once it’s over they are done with this “outward focused” thing until the next event. You will have to slay this beast early, and often, if you want your people given to mission right where they work and live Monday thru Saturday.
* If you are feeling overwhelmed with the idea of leading your faith community into outward focused living and need a coach for the journey; call me at 937-289-4422 and we’ll discuss the possibility of teaming up together.
Getting Your People Out On The Golf Course (also see “About God’s GPS”)
Leading people into a new way of acting and feeling usually requires a new way of thinking. It’s been said that you will always be what you have always been, if you always do what you have always done. If you have been involved in Christian leadership for very long, you are well aware that change happens very slowly in most faith communities. If you want to microwave the process of change, I would suggest focusing on the following four big ideas for three months at a time during a year long period. However, I have a holy hunch that you would be much more satisfied with the results from a “slow and steady wins the race” kind of mindset. If you were to spend one year on each of the following four ideas, a greater percentage of your faith community would be apt to join you in the outward focused journey.
Jesus told his disciples that He had many more things to share with them but they were not yet ready to receive them. Therefore, regardless of how you go about it, don’t move on until your people get each of the four big ideas below. How will you know when they got it, you ask? Whenever they are consistently sharing stories, and raising questions from their own personal application of these ideas. To facilitate a laboratory for this learning process to begin, some Christ followers will need encouragement to get out of the clubhouse, and onto the golf course by joining a new club, pursuing a hobby or beginning a recreational pursuit with other not-yet Christians, so that they have a place to apply these four big ideas.
Lasting transformation is most likely to occur through the following process. First, introduce your people to the big ideas of outward focused living through the reading of the “Irresistible Evangelism” book and the articles on my website. My workshop is a great follow-up to the book because I bring the big ideas to life through personal stories, video clips, and role-playing scenarios. This creates a desire for most folks to get out on the driving range and try out the four clubs mentioned below. (If this language is not making sense to you, please buy a copy of the book and read it before you go any further. You can’t take anyone on a journey any farther than you’ve already been.) After the workshop, most faith communities have found it very helpful to introduce the award winning plug and play “Irresistible Evangelism” DVD training kit in a small group format and introduce the IE pocket card which serves as a guide and a reminder.
STEP 1 - Gospel Demonstrations (Active Kindness)
***Demonstrating God’s love in practical ways by offering to do humble acts of service in Christ’s name with no strings attached.***
1. Outwardly focused attention giveaways. Verbally affirm others for something you observed them doing or saying. Verbalize why this meant something to you.
2. Go to http://www.servantevangelism.com/ and browse through the list of 500+ ideas to help lead your faith community through a brainstorming session of which ideas might work best on your golf course. Start slowly with one outreach a month in community and one personal act of kindness per week.
3. Give away a prayer experience. Ask others if there is anything happening in there lives that you could pray for them about. Let them know that your only expectation is that they let you know if God shows up in their situation in a way that was real to them.
4. Check out externallyfocusedchurch.com for other ideas from faith communities who are on the journey to becoming more outwardly focused to stimulate you in your journey.
STEP 2 - Gospel Explorations (Active Friendship)
***Seeking to understand others before we seek to be understood by moving into relationships as listeners and learners. If effective evangelism begins where people are and not where we would like them to be, then we must pay the price of gospel exploration if we are going to make sure our gospel mail is being sent to the correct spiritual address.***
Most Christ followers need to turn their eyes into ears, and their ears into eyes, if they are going to see people the way Jesus saw them. The following exercises are intended to help people put on “Jesus glasses.” Typically when believers begin to see people the way Jesus saw them, the Holy Spirit produces the love and compassion from which to “irresistibly” reach out.
1. Friends of sinner’s field trip: Go to places where Christians are usually absent and not-yet Christians are present in full force; bars, rock concerts, parties, happy hours, etc. Prayerfully consider what you see and hear. Gather back in community afterwards and share what you noticed, what you felt, what disturbed you, what you felt God was speaking to you about, etc. Talk about the ramifications of what you learned as a community.
2. Take a journey to the other side by asking some or all of the following questions (or other questions that you would like to ask not-yet Christians) of people during a one week period. Gather back together in community and share what you learned about how outsiders view the Christian faith.
•What would you like to say to Christians if you knew they would listen?
•Have you ever had a Christian attempt to convert you? If so, what kinds of thoughts or feelings did the whole experience stir up in you?
•Have you ever met anyone or experienced anything that made God seem real to you?
•What kinds of experiences did you have with organized religion as you were growing up?
•What would it take to motivate you to give up your Sunday mornings to attend church?
•If God called you on your cell phone and gave you the opportunity to ask Him any one question, what would you ask Him and why?
•What do you understand the core message of Christianity to be?
•What do you find to be the most difficult thing to buy into when you consider the claims of Christianity?
•Why do you think God seems so real to some and so unreal to others?
•If you were going to talk to someone about God how you would like them to approach you on the subject?
3. Scratch and sniff experiment: Sometimes in our faith communities we become oblivious to what kind of scent we are giving off. If you want to better understand how you are being perceived, the best people to help you with this are outsiders. Pay outsiders to come in and give you feedback on what it was like for them to be around your faith community. Have your leadership team take them out for a meal so they can share their observations.
STEP 3 - Gospel Conversations (Active Wondering)
***Raising reflective ?’s that help create space for gospel conversations and lead to others into self-discovery through dialogue.***
1. Download the article entitled “Have you Wondered into Anyone’s Heart Lately?” and the “99 Wondering Questions,” from my website. Use these and chapter 8 from the “Irresistible Evangelism” book to introduce the paradigm breaking idea of active wondering.
2. Take a topic of conversation that has been stirred up by the media and corporately ask people to share what they are wondering about the topic and how they might introduce their wonder into conversations in their sphere of influence.
3. Take turn role-playing common scenarios that people in your faith community encounter in their day-to-day lives. Corporately brainstorm wondering questions that could be asked to create space for a conversation to happen.
4. Have each person in your faith community share one conversation they had or overheard in the past week. Use it as a springboard for others to wonder into.
5. Consistently remind people that wondering into people’s lives requires a willingness on our part to quit trying to control the curriculum for our conversations and instead join the conversations people are already having.
6. Ask people to share an opportunity they feel liked they missed because they did not know what to say at the time. Have everyone brainstorm ways to reclaim the missed opportunity by wondering back into it.
7. Most Christ followers have burned a few evangelistic bridges along the way with family and friends. Open up a discussion for people to share what they said and did to produce this unfortunate result. After everyone is done sharing their stories, invite everyone who has burned a bridge to participate in the following bridge repairing exercise. Tell them to make contact (face to face if possible) with the person they burnt the bridge with. Ask this person for their help. Explain to this person that they have been taking a class that has caused them To take a serious look at how they come across when talking about matters of faith, which has prompted a new awareness of the awkwardness created by a previous spiritual conversation.
At this point interject the following wondering question: I’m wondering if you would be willing to help me understand what it felt like to be you when I’ve brought up spiritual matters in the past? From here on in, listen, take notes, apologize, and ask forgiveness when necessary. Have each person come back and share what he or she learned from this experience.
STEP 4 - Gospel Presentations (Active Sharing)
***Clear Gospel presentations help others understand and respond to the gospel message.***
1.Go to AllAboutGod.com and familiarize your faith community with a resource that helps believers address the tough questions not-yet Christians often pose when considering the claims of Christ.
2.Go to the subheading entitled Articles on my home page and print hard copies of “Gospel Snacks” for your faith community. Lead your people through the process of preparing their own “gospel snacks” so they are prepared to introduce these in the conversations they are having with the not-yet Christians in their life.
3.Demonstrate how to bring the bible into your conversations in natural ways. Have the people in your faith community role play how to dialogue through specific passages in the bible that highlight what a person must do to become a Christian. Emphasize the importance of a dialogue because most Christ followers quickly move towards preaching or a monologue when it comes to gospel presentations.
4.Expose your faith community to the many different gospel presentations that are out there. Discuss what they like and dislike about each one. Make sure you include my favorite one called “Ultimate Questions” (the content is awesome but the pictures need updated). Lead a discussion afterwards on what your faith community believes about the essentials of what a person must do to become a Christian.