Today our Network Leadership Team had a enjoyable meeting with Jim Henderson. He is the author of “Jim and Casper Go To Church” and “Evangelism Without Additives.”
In the course of our time together I thought Jim made several insightful comments:
- “We need to see evangelism as a spiritual practice of relationships, not a program”
- “If we filter our approach to evangelism by doing only what we would want done to us, we will find more authentic ways to share our faith”
- “A better measurement tool for a churches evangelism is how many people are in a real relationships with pre-Christians than only how many are saved”
He also shared three skills to the spiritual practice of evangelism:
1. We must learn how to notice people. We get so busy and insolated in life we often fail to see the people and their needs around us.
2. We need to pray behind people’s backs. That is, we need to pray for the things we notice in people’s lives.
3. We need to ask “How are you?” and then listen.
If we do these three spiritual practices, God will open the right doors to authentic conversations.