In a recent film aimed at church leaders, Rico Tice of Christianity Explored pithily summarised where the UK is in evangelism right now.
In 1954 Billy Graham preached the cross at Haringey stadium and 40,000 were converted, but 90% of them were already churchgoers. By 1994 people were starting from much further away, commonly believing Christianity was irrelevant, untrue and weird. For them, coming to faith took time and often involved evangelistic courses like Christianity Explored.
A person they know and trust
Now Tice says that, in 2017, people are locked into a post-Christian culture that is spiralling downwards at an alarming rate. This means most are already so far away from any thought of the gospel that they initially won’t consider doing a course. Instead, they first need the gospel taken to them, outside our church structures, by a person they know and trust, in a location they are comfortable with.
Today, Tice sees one-to-one Bible study as being absolutely critical, the first stage in evangelism. But most Christians simply don’t know how to use their Bibles to lead someone to Christ. That, he believes, is the real value of The Word One to One, a verse-by-verse walk through John’s Gospel incorporating easy-to-follow notes which answer the questions the passage raises, so that a discussion can follow.
He says: ‘Not everyone is called to be a Bible teacher – but everyone is called within the Great Commission to be a Bible sharer. And given the culture we are now in, it is essential that churches realise how important it is to encourage one-to-one evangelism outside our churches. Let’s face it, shepherds don’t give birth to sheep. Sheep give birth to sheep’.
Across the world
This message is already being picked up globally. In South Africa, Bishop Glenn Lyons has recently called the church to a new challenge, READ 500, with each region aiming for 500 active one-to-one readers in 2018. He says: ‘We want our people to be reading the Bible and doing so with others. This is where the real growth happens. When the word of God is opened, God works.’ He adds: ‘In many ways it’s the key activity bridging evangelism and discipleship’.
In this country many churches have grasped Tice’s point – Robin Weekes, minister of Emmanuel Church Wimbledon says: ‘The Bible is at the heart of all we do, because only God’s word can create followers of Jesus and change followers of Jesus. So in every way we long to get ‘big’ with the word of God.’ Emmanuel are strongly utilising One to One. Robin says ‘Firstly it gives Christians a vision to open up God’s word with someone. Secondly, it gives Christians confidence in the word, for here is John’s Gospel in an accessible form, with questions and answers. It requires no expertise – just the courage to ask a friend. And thirdly, it is wonderfully flexible. Christianity Explored and Life Explored courses are really useful, but require people to be free at the same time for five to seven weeks, which is increasingly difficult. Using The Word One to One only requires you and your friend to be free, and you can meet whenever is convenient for you both’.
Ultimate box set
It seems that our culture responds to a story-based gospel more willingly than to abstract ideas and theological concepts. The gospel becomes the equivalent of the ultimate box set, with the person doing it keen to learn what happens next. And as they do so, the empowered word will take root within them.
One example is a 93-year-old lady in Australia. Whenever she gets a new carer, she holds out The Word One to One and asks them to read it to her. She now has a Thai Buddhist nurse excited to find out what happens next in John. Or closer to home, in Kent, a former City executive with a terminal illness has been using it with many of his friends and colleagues. He has found that almost always God has gone ahead of him, working in the lives of those he asks. His shortened life expectancy gives him added urgency.
Co-author of The Word One to One, Richard Borgonon, says: ‘In ten years of sharing John’s Gospel in this way, the sad and shocking reality is that almost everyone has said something like “Why has no one ever shown me this [the gospel] before?” Around the world, God is very active as he puts the word back where the word belongs, foundational in evangelism, in the hands of ordinary believers, just as was the pattern in Acts.
‘And when we do this, we become living church to our friends, preparing for the day when they are ready to come in to all that we represent as church families and to sit under the teaching from the pulpit’ – the word they first fell in love with through one-to-one evangelism. It’s time we realised that the word is not just for us, it is for sharing !’
