New Evangelism Ministry in Evangelical Covenant Church

NEWS: New Initiative Seeks Involvement in Evangelism - Evangelical Covenant Church What's Your One Step? For nearly 10 years I was part of a team called Prayer and Evangelism Associates in the Evangelical Covenant Church.  We were both clergy and lay people who led interactive seminars called Schools of Prayer/Evangelism all around the denomination.  Great people and great ministry opportunities.  Through a series of leadership transitions it died a rather ignominious death — though I'm actually not sure of that.  One day communication from the office just stopped, yet there were occasional whispers of things still happening. Kind of disappointing. Moving on .... In the School of Evangelism the definition of evangelism we used was "To evangelize is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and others to bring a person one step closer to Christ." Evangelism is not just about manipulating a conversation to get people to pray a prayer.  This definition recognizes a couple of Biblical and important points in evangelism. God is the primary evangelist.  God is the one who draws people to Himself.  We work in concert with Him — not the other way around. Evangelism is a process.  People don't live in a vacuum where they wake up one day and think, "Hmmm. I think I'll be a Christian today."  No.  More likely they take a series of steps, over a period of time, toward becoming a Christian.  They move a step at a time because of prayer for them, care for them and sharing the gospel with them. Evangelism is a team effort.  For one person to come to Christ it takes the involvement of many persons in their lives, each being influential.  People who pray for them, demonstrate the love of Christ to and for them and share the gospel with them, all are influencing that person to come one step closer.  All are doing evangelism, not just the person they are with when they come to faith in Christ. The new ministry the Covenant is promoting, What's Your One Step?, is helping people to firstly, make a commitment to prayerfully lead a person one step closer and secondly, network together using their web site to share stories of how they have participated in God's great story. By the way, I still lead evangelism training seminars for churches and can come to your church for a very low cost.  Cover my travel and lodging expenses, a booklet cost of about $1.50 per and an honorarium of any kind and I would be glad to come.  Hmmm ... this should be a new blog post ... I'll have that up shortly.