Discipleship Evangelism, Read Matthew 28:16-20; Romans 10:14-17

“Discipleship Evangelism” was a tool I came across many years ago that I found to be quite helpful in evangelism.  The primary tool was a manual written by a pastor in the Portland, Oregon area.  (I will update this later with his name and the publishing information.)  He has since died; his material was no longer in print and yet I found it so helpful I wanted to make it available to others.  So I got in contact with his widow who granted full right to use the material however we desired.  We shared with her how God had brought many people to Himself using this approach.

I say approach because it is a method.  But it is a method that is very intentional about helping people get into the Bible on their own.  What happened many times over the years was that I would ask people, “Have you ever read the Bible?”  The answer was quite often, “Not really.  I tried but it didn’t make sense.”  My response to them would be, “You know, I have a tool that has been helpful to many people, enabling them to understand the Bible and read it for themselves.  It involves three hours of study together, one hour a week.  I would be happy to meet you at your home or wherever you would want and help you with this.  Are you interested?”

The material I am talking about was a written text, 4 pages each time together, that we would read through.  I would read.  Whenever we read from the Bible I would help them find the verse (getting them comfortable with their own Bible) and have them read it.  It was quite simple but yet quite profound.  

We found this approach to have some great advantages.  For one thing, we found many people open to being able to read the Bible for themselves who might not have been open to more direct approaches to the issue of eternal life.  Further, any approach to evangelism that is truly effective must eventually involve the person reading the Bible.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.  In addition, by meeting once a week for three weeks often opened the door to further meetings for discipleship for those who wanted to pursue a relationship with Christ.

With that in mind our intention, beginning in tomorrow’s blog, it to publish the script of these three 1-hour lessons.  It is somewhat of an outline format but is still quite understandable.  I hope you will be encouraged.  Perhaps it will encourage you in our own Bible reading.  Perhaps you will see something that you can use with friends or loved ones.  We will not use our usual approach of giving a Bible reading at the beginning of the post.  Rather there will be passages to read as you work through the presentation.  I am anticipating we will need three posts to work our way through each of the three studies.