Evangelism Handbook

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” These familiar words of Ralph Waldo Emerson ring true in our day. The testimony of the believer, both in word and deed, is crucial to sharing Christ. How can we tell others with confidence, as did Peter, “about what we have seen and heard”? Believers excited and grateful for the change in their lives by the gospel can be powerful tools in the hand of God.

Following my freshman year of college, I spent a summer selling books door to door. Most of the time I sold a reference book for schoolchildren. It was a good product overall; however, I soon learned that I was best at convincing people with limited resources to buy the product. As the weeks passed, I became convicted that the value of this product was not worth what some people were willing to pay, and the fact that I could convince someone to buy my product did not necessarily mean they should.

Confidence in one’s product matters in sales. It is even more important in sharing the gospel. Please note, the gospel is not about selling a product—we are offering a gift! But one hindrance to a confident Christian life is a lack of certainty about our own salvation. The apostle Paul was certain of his (see Phil 1:6). John talked as well of the confidence of knowing Christ: “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

I remember the first time I visited the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, a perennial leader in evangelism. I stayed with a family of church members. The wife’s love for Christ glowed. When I asked her about her joy in the Lord, she said, “It is amazing how much joy you can have when you are really saved.” She had been an active church member for many years but had never been converted. After meeting Christ, the change in her life was obvious to her and to others.

Billy Graham has said that the greatest field of evangelism in America is the church pew. I am convinced that we who lead churches must exhort our people consistently to be sure they are in the faith. Confidence in one’s conversion brings enthusiasm in evangelism! Here are eight keys to assurance of salvation.

7. Sound doctrine. A true Christian will be convinced of the truth of Scripture. A young Christian may not understand much about doctrine, but a believer cannot consistently deny the truth of the revealed Word of God. I was a child when I came to Christ. I did not know what a virgin was, let alone the virginal conception of Jesus. But I am fully confident in this biblical truth now. Can a believer be deluded by false teaching? Certainly. But the mark of a believer is his or her recognition of the truth.

The Bible gives several examples of personal testimony. For example, we read of the man born blind (see John 9). After the remarkable physical and spiritual changes in his life, the man was confronted by the Pharisees. He replied, “I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:25 NIV). He told his story. The Samaritan woman went into her community saying, “Come, see a man” (John 4:29).

Every Christian has a testimony. A personal testimony is something every Christian can share. I once thought my testimony was insignificant because it was not dramatic. If you feel that way, remember the fact of conversion is more vital than the circumstances surrounding it. In today’s culture with its emphasis on personal experience (witness the infomercials with testimonials, Facebook and MySpace pages with biographical info, and other means of personal storytelling), the testimony can be an effective tool in one’s witness.

At this point I want to make one thing very clear: the greatest reality of one’s conversion testimony is just that—you have been converted! The focus should be to exalt our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. I have often been at youth camps or other events in which the only testimonies given consisted of a dramatic conversion from drug abuse, promiscuity, or some other grossly sinful lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, those are amazing testimonies to God’s grace. But so is the story of a child raised in a godly home who as a youngster yields his life to Christ and follows Him for a lifetime.

I encourage you to use today’s technology to make much of the testimonies of believers. Record and post testimonies regularly on your church Web site; teach your youth how to write their testimony succinctly on their Facebook or personal blog; encourage the use of the testimony, both the more dramatic and the more consistent.

A testimony is not ancient history; it is something that happened in our lifetime. People are looking for living, real, spiritual experiences. Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Georgia, came to Christ in a powerful way. His best friend was an agnostic. Some time after Johnny’s conversion, his friend said to him, “I have a problem. I am an agnostic. I’m not sure there is a God or if you can know there is a God. So here’s my problem—what happened to my friend?” Johnny’s friend was saved and is now in the ministry.

TV talk shows, talk radio, the World Wide Web, the Internet, and chat rooms demonstrate the hunger that people have to communicate with one another. I spend a little time every week or so on the Internet, chatting with people and seeking opportunities to witness. One of the things I’ve discovered is that people are interested in learning about other people.

Your testimony gives people something to which they can compare their lives. The focus is on Christ and the change he has made in your life, but it still is a mirror for that person. When my former professor, James Eaves, was pastor at the First Baptist Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico, years ago, a waitress was converted. She sent out invitations to her friends to attend her baptism, followed by a party at a friend’s home. She also invited her pastor to the party and gave him an opportunity to say a few words. More than 17 of her friends were converted as a result of her conversion and witness.¹

Jesus said that if we are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of us. Let us never be ashamed of telling others what God has done through Christ for us. The more you share your testimony, the more comfortable you will become. You will learn to adapt it to the audience to whom you are speaking. For example, when speaking to a teenager, I emphasize the changed lives of youth from my past and the impact they had on me. To a person reared in church, I will emphasize the fact that I grew up in church but realized church involvement was not my primary need. Adapting is not embellishing. Avoid the temptation to add details that did not actually happen. Have confidence that God can use your story just as it happened.

I grew up in the south, where the tea is sweet and the summers are hot. My parents began taking my older brother and me to a small, young church when I was pretty young. I was a pretty good kid, not particularly rebellious, not given to more gross sins. At age 11, something amazing happened there (this was 1970). In a short period of time, a number of hippie-freak types (genuine weirdos) came into our church and were radically changed. I saw God work among these young adults, many of whom had been doing really bad things—drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, etc. I began to look into my own heart and realized it was not pure, either. I saw those young people so altered in their attention, so hungry to know God, so passionate about their relationship with Jesus that I realized I had nothing like that—only a collection of Bible stories in my head. That August, I gave my life to Jesus Christ to use as He saw fit. I asked for forgiveness for all my sin, and surrendered my life to Him. I have never been the same. For me the journey of following Christ started slowly but accelerated in my high school years. I began to love the Bible and saw God answer so many prayers. Since then He has given me a wonderful family and a place to serve. Believe me, the journey is awesome! My story may not be too dramatic, but the change I have seen Jesus make in my life has been nothing short of amazing. It is not always easy to follow Jesus, but it is never boring. Has anything like that ever happened to you?

The reason the organization known as Mothers Against Drunk Driving makes such an impact is that the founder lost her son to a drunk driver. Chuck Colson’s passion for prison ministry is fueled in large measure by his own time spent in prison. The difficulty my wife and I experienced before we had kids, coupled with the severe illnesses both our children faced in childhood, has given us a special burden for infertile couples and those who have lost children. It is amazing how many people have common struggles. A recovery testimony is the story of how God has helped you through a difficulty since coming to Christ. It gives praise to God for His work in bringing us through a crisis.

3. The spiritual autobiography is easily communicated through different media. Some of my students have begun to print copies of their personal testimonies in more detail—something like an autobiography that I’m describing here. As they go door-to-door, meet people, or write people to whom they are witnessing, they include copies of their autobiographies. A personal experience of a changed life will gain a hearing with some people when a sermon in a church building would not.

4. The information in a spiritual autobiography will be more effective when you share it with people in your own cultural context. The spiritual autobiography is effectively used in a public church setting or a public gathering where you have time to give more than your testimony. The testimony is brief and to the point, demonstrating the change brought by the gospel when you were first converted. The spiritual autobiography goes through much more detail, looking at the different aspects of your life before and after you came to Christ. Include both high and low spiritual marks, giving an honest, personal description of your life in Christ.

Recently someone asked me about my tattoos. I always start chronologically. My first tattoo rests on my left shoulder blade; she is a yellow and purple fish that looks similar to an angelfish. She has a bright blue flirtatious cartoon eye. She has remained nameless for 17 years. I started drawing her in high school. She was my doodle, my daydreams. “How wonderful it would be to jump in the ocean and swim away” . . . and “Oh, how I feel like a fish out of water. I am suffocating and I wish this pain would end.”

My father left and divorced my mother when I was five or six. My mother told me that on the day he moved out, I invited my dad into my room for a tea party. After pouring the airy tea into my favorite blue-flowered plastic china cups situated in front of two of my stuffed friends and my father, I poured my cup full and sat down. I then picked up my cup for a sip, looked my dad in the eye and said, “I just want you to know that you are the one who is going to be lonely; not us.” I finished my tea in one gulp and left my Dad sitting in my room with lifeless friends, which is where he continues to dwell to this very day.

My dad thought he found life in the arms of women. These women became my competition: “How is it that I can get my father’s attention?” My father remarried quickly and soon I was in competition with two younger women: my stepsisters. I cannot say enough about my stepmother; she was a second mother to me, she gave and gave and I loved her. I developed close relationships with my two sisters also. But my father always remained aloof. To me he was this person I longed to have a relationship with; I longed for him to tell me he loved me, I longed for his praise, I longed for any interaction. I never could figure out a way to hold my father’s attention.

And as it was, neither could my stepmother. I do not know why I remember their divorce the way I do; it could not have possibly happened the way I remember the events unfolding. But it seems like one day my eldest stepsister came to pick me up from my mom’s house to take me back to their house to have dinner. When I got to the house my stepmother was already crying and I was informed that my father had left, they were getting a divorce, and she and the girls were moving to Colorado Springs at the end of the month. I felt completely abandoned.

I did not realize how severely this affected me until I saw my (ex)stepmother for the first time following their leaving. I think it was in ’96 or ’97, so I was in my mid-twenties. I saw her at my aunt’s house. I remember just sitting there not saying a word, but just staring at her and hanging on her every word. I found myself even following her around their house. I felt like I was small child. The feeling I get just thinking about this encounter is so surreal. Never have I seen a more wounded soul, except perhaps my own. We shared a common wound, and all I wanted to do was to embrace her and cry for her as much as for me.

So, she and the girls were gone, my dad was out chasing women, and my brother Kip, who incidentally is one of my most favorite people, graduated from high school and left for Georgia Tech. It was just my mother and myself. My mother began hitting her stride at this point in her life. She had just finished college, had worked her way up through the ranks at Naples Community Hospital and was the Human Resources Director, and had spiritually begun to grow. We always enjoyed a close relationship. It was not perfect, but it was the one relationship I could count on.

I, on the other hand, was hitting the streets of rebellion; smoking, drinking, and sexual experimentation. I was mentally mature for my age, I was headstrong, and I started receiving unwanted attention from older men. One event in particular happened at a camp I used to attend every year. I never told anyone what happened and buried it deep. But years later I went back to this camp for a ladies retreat with my mom and some of her friends, and he was still there. I then dealt with the crushing blow of guilt knowing that because I never said anything more, girls were probably molested.

My father married a woman named Tara the fall of my eighth grade year. I moved in with them for my first three years of high school. Tara and I developed a great relationship over time. I give her all the credit; I was not an easy teenager to be around. From this marriage I received the blessing of two half brothers, Hunter and Cody. Hunter was born while I was in my junior year of high school and Cody my freshman year at FSU. Hunter quickly became the apple of my eye. This was a good thing because I was the built-in babysitter due to the fact that I spent most of my time grounded for drinking or smoking pot or flexing my independence in one way or another.

Caring for Hunter aroused my desire to get married and have babies. As far back as I can remember, all I have ever wanted to be was a stay-at-home mom. I used to envy my friends who had mothers who were home waiting with hugs and snacks when they arrived home from school. I longed for my own family and I longed to be married. The problem was I could never figure out how to keep a boyfriend. At 16, I gave in and slept with my boyfriend. I remember thinking, “I guess I might as well get it over with.” Triumph for him, but for me it was a promise of marriage and love. A couple of months later school was out and he moved. He did not move out of town, just across town, but he never called after that. It was a long tumultuous summer. I seriously thought I was going to die of a broken heart. I simply could not understand where I went wrong: “Didn’t I do everything he wanted? Why do men leave?” As it happened, I did not die of a broken heart, and we ended up re-establishing a solid friendship.

I lived out the next couple of years angry and frustrated. I decided to take control of my heart by deciding that I would keep emotion out of sexual relationships. Sex was used to show a dominance of power; it was mine to give or take away. And then, from out of the past came the boy who had broken my heart in high school, the one who had first held my heart, but had left it in shards. My roommate and I had decided we needed a break from college. Our idea was to sell everything we owned and then move to the Caribbean, wait tables, and just live. I shared my wanderlust with the old boyfriend and he said, “Why don’t you move to Hawaii. I have always wanted to live with you before we got married.” With the potential of marriage on the table, I jumped. I sold everything I owned and moved to Hawaii, which is where I sat for my second tattoo.

I have a sun tattooed on my right ankle. Its detail has faded over the years, but the effects of my move to Hawaii are about to be shared. I lived in Hawaii for six months in the town of Kailua. I made a home on Koolau Street. I enjoyed the domestic life of cooking, cleaning, ironing, etc, serving my not-yet-husband. For work I was a short-order cook at a bar and grill called “The Shack” (it is still open and I have never found a better burger to date!). It was a local hangout, and I was given a local name, “Ka-la-pume-a-hanh-a,” which means “warmth of the sun.” I got the tattoo to memorialize my Hawaiian name, but today it serves as a reminder of how the sun feels good but leaves you burnt, while the Son provides true warmth.

Environmentally, Hawaii was where the idea of being with a woman began to take root. During my time there, my relationship with the guy I was living with was not great—I was raped (not by my boyfriend), and I had become friends with a lesbian couple and been introduced into the gay lifestyle. I left Hawaii not just broken hearted, but spiritually and mentally broken. Whatever ideas I had about God had been replaced with the picture of this mean old man sitting in heaven giving me a taste of what I desired and then shooting me down with lightning bolts of rejection and pain. About a week before I left the man I felt sure I was supposed to have married in Hawaii, he was going out with his friends and, commenting on his shirt, I said, “Well you are not going to meet the girl of your dreams in that shirt,” to which he replied, “Darcy, I have met the girl of my dreams; I just can’t live with her.” I began to hate God. “Where did I go wrong?” “What is wrong with me?” “What do men want?” When I got back to college I studied harder because it was obvious I was going to have to take care of myself, and I played harder because it was the only time I felt good. I began to dabble in same-sex affairs and considered myself bisexual until I realized that being with women was probably the safer bet. By the time I went to chiropractic school, I was a full-fledged lesbian with a cool tattoo to prove that I was serious.

My third tattoo started out as two scientific female symbols linked together and colored in with a rainbow-colored camouflage. I designed it myself and it made it into the artist’s book. For the next 10 years I searched for relationships with women that were safe. I was an activist; I marched in parades and worked to promote same-sex marriage. I helped raise money for the same groups that today are millions of dollars strong. I knew how to defend homosexuality with the Bible, and I led people away from Christ. I led friends into the homosexual lifestyle. I felt free and in control. I was gay and proud to be so. But as the years wore on and wore me down, I found nothing that I was looking for. I did not find marital bliss. I did not find emotional safety. I did not find happiness. Rather, I found death and dying, depression, and dysfunctional relationships to extremes. I was living in Boston when I hit bottom. In the depths of my depression, my first thought in the morning was “I hate my life.” I had been burnt by the sun and was drowning in the sea of my life. I bore the classic markings of a God-hating, totally depraved human being. It is no wonder that Paul uses homosexuality as THE picture of depravity. Homosexuality is the ultimate in self-love; this idolatry screams, “I love myself more than anyone else, so I want to be with someone just like me because they will then have to love me as much as I love me.”

During this time I began to be wooed by God. I began talking to Him (well, more yelling at Him), airing out my frustrations. It is funny, because I spent time telling people God did not exist and convincing myself of the idea. My life was bad, and therefore God could not exist. But then when it came down to it, I knew He did exist. He was a mean man who would not give me what I wanted. I knew He had the power to give me what I wanted. I knew He could make my life better, but I would scream at Him one night at the ocean’s edge in a wild thunder storm, “What do you want from me? I am a good person, what else do you want from me? Why don’t you ever give me what I want?” But, the fact is, I was not a good person, I was a self-loving God-hater, I did not give God obedience, so in fact He did give me what I wanted, which was not Him. I believe this was the beginning of my salvation process. I began to see my life differently; I began to detest everything in my life.

A couple of months later my mother came up for a visit. My mother is not the savior in this story, Christ is. But because she never stopped praying for me, God allowed her to be the Gospel carrier for me. The Lord laid upon her heart a message to just shine forth the light of Christ, rather than His contempt for my lifestyle. He loved me through her, and I was drawn into a night of Q&A about a relationship with Christ. A week or so later, I found my childhood Bible, began reading, and was saved in my apartment. I had reached rock bottom, and I found Christ is the Rock at rock bottom. My moment of salvation was not sweet and pretty, but rather it was ugly, yet completely sufficient. I surrendered my life to Him. I shook my fist in the air and told Him if He wanted my life, he could have it because I certainly could not manage it. I spoke to him with an air of “Good luck; let’s see how you do with this mess.” In my head I did not believe that he could fix me, but in my heart I knew that all I had to do was follow Him wherever He wanted me to go and things would get better. I moved from Boston five days later.

Three months later the Holy Spirit brought about conviction and repentance over my homosexual lifestyle. This event was preceded by a non-combative conversation with a strong Christian that confronted my false beliefs about homosexuality. Weeks later, I lay prostrate before the Lord, confessing that I knew what the Bible said about homosexuality, but that I had heard so many interpretations about what it all meant that I needed Him to speak. I cried out to Him in conviction, “Lord if being gay is okay, then give me peace, but if it is not right in Your eyes, deliver me, because I do not want anything to come between us.” I was granted repentance and I cried, “Forgive me Lord—I do not want this,” and He delivered me! I was free from homosexuality from that moment on. I have never stumbled back into or even longed for that lifestyle ever again.

Most people scoff at such a miraculous turn, but to them I say, “I guess I am just too dumb not to believe that the power of the cross would not completely deliver me.” Oh, there was work that I can put a theological point on now: put off/put on, MAKING every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, etc., but the work is that of the Holy Spirit. Environmental work included completely abandoning the lifestyle, which included losing every friend I had, and living as my newly created self, a child of God, sister to Christ, and in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. Getting ready for my first date with a man after being saved by Christ was interesting because it was hot and I had to figure out a way to cover up the tattoo on the inside of my left ankle. I eventually wrapped it with an Ace bandage and said I hurt it running. For weeks I worked on a redesign. For weeks I cried out to God for help. For weeks, I felt like I was too broken in my past to ever be able to be truly loved or blessed by God. I had the mark of a wretched past. And then, I had the idea to surround the symbols with a butterfly and to add one more symbol. My thought was that the symbols would represent the Godhead, the blessed Trinity. And as for the butterfly—well it symbolized my transformation. This tattoo, my butterfly, forever reminds me of the work of grace in my life.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to this worldly age, according to the ruler of the atmospheric domain, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also. But God, who is abundant in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. By grace you are saved! He also raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavens, in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace in [His] kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are His creation—created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.

Again, your conversion may not be as dramatic. But I used Darcy’s story not only to give an example of the autobiography but also as a reminder of the deep need so many have for Christ. The autobiography takes 15 to 25 minutes to share, a testimony, 90 seconds or so. The autobiography is probably 10 pages, double-spaced.

It would be appropriate for you as a church leader to share your autobiography occasionally with those you lead. Pastor, tell it to your church annually or at special times. Sunday school teacher, tell your story to your class. It may encourage them to do the same. Even if you never have the opportunity to give your spiritual autobiography in a public place, just writing it out can be a great spiritual exercise. When my wife and I were going through the missionary approval process for the Home Mission Board, we had to write our autobiography. What a wonderful experience it was for me to reflect over my entire life and remember how good God has been.

In the witness training that I lead, I require each participant to write his or her personal testimony. On more than one occasion, individuals in the training have discovered they had no testimony and were converted! A simple exercise you can do in a Sunday school class or an evening service, for example, is to provide paper and pencils and ask participants to write their conversion testimony. You might use Paul’s testimony in Acts 26 as a biblical guide, followed by the sharing of your own testimony. Then challenge the participants to share their testimony with someone during the next week.