By Randy Siever

“Being nice to people doesn’t get them saved. You need to present them with the bad news about their sin, tell them about Jesus and the cross, and bring them to a point of decision.That’s what Jesus called us to do, and anything short of that is just a cop out.”

I knew my fellow evangelist meant well, and I understood perfectly what she was saying in her critique of my Doable Evangelism presentation. I would have argued the same points myself just a few years ago.

“Pre-evangelism” is an insider term, used mostly by evangelists like me in recent decades to describe any effort to find an “opening” for the verbal presentation of the Gospel. This would include the building of relationships with people you don’t know, praying for the lost, various random, but strategic, acts of kindness, etc. These don’t qualify as evangelism. They just set you up for it.

Real evangelism requires the pitch, much like my evangelist friend described above. Some sow, some water, some reap. It’s all good…but everyone knows that it’s the reapers who are doing the real evangelism. Those who sow and water are just helping them get the job done.

This modern evangelism paradigm is supported by a few lines from the verbal Apostle Paul: “…how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (Rom. 10:14b). And, “Faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” (Rom. 10:17). We have concluded from this that evangelism is primarily about telling, and without speaking the Gospel there is no conversion…right? Read the rest of this entry »

Our new friends from Brazil who are presently in Asbury, UK have sent us a short video update that gives us a look at their growing community. For the whole story, click here.

Nicholas Fielder and Josh Brown were kind enough to record a podcast with Jim a couple of weeks ago.

You can download it from The Nick and Josh Podcast blog or directly from here.

Check out Nick and Josh’s other podcasts too: they’ve talked with lots of interesting people.