JACKSONVILLE — With its continuing commitment to come alongside churches, the Florida Baptist Convention has developed a series of free online evangelistic resources to equip churches across the state to share the gospel message.
The resources will enable the convention to fulfill one of the key elements of Challenge 2025, a statewide campaign to reach the state for Christ with goals in church planting and renewal, baptisms, mission engagement and mission giving. With a statewide goal of baptizing 30,000 new Christian believers per year, the new resources are designed to boost efforts of churches in reaching their goals.
“These evangelism resources are provided for equipping individuals in personal evangelism,” said Tommy Green, Florida Baptist executive director-treasurer. “I pray churches will utilize these training tools to train and encourage others in sharing Christ.”
The materials offer video training sessions featuring a variety of evangelism strategies taught by well-known evangelistic leaders. These include: “The Best News,” taught by James Merritt, pastor of Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga.; “Evangelizing without Memorizing,” taught by Matt Queen, evangelism professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas; “Three Circles,” taught by Jimmy Scroggins, pastor of Family Church in West Palm Beach; “EvangeCube,” taught by Florida evangelist David Burton; and “Gospel Appointments,” a resource used on college and university campuses.
These evangelistic trainings are available online at www.flbaptist.org/evangelism.
“The Best News” training is a three-week module composed of five parts that work to build a believer’s confidence in sharing the gospel with friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. Components include weekly gatherings to learn how to start gospel conversations, exercises to test new knowledge, study guides to retain and organize ideas and concepts, cards to guide gospel conversations, and intentional prayer time. Each training session is guided by a video (also available online) that follows the study guide.
“Evangelizing Without Memorizing” is a half-hour presentation that suggests “if you know enough about the gospel to be saved by it, then you know enough about the gospel to share it.” Four simple steps are needed to share the gospel without memorizing: learn to summarize the gospel; know which scriptures to use; understand how to instruct someone to pray to receive Christ; and finally, ensure the gospel presentation has made a new disciple.
“Gospel Appointments” evangelism training was developed by Paul Worcester, who recently founded Campus Multiplication Network with the goal of training leaders to multiply ministries around the world. He also serves as National Director of Collegiate Evangelism for the North American Mission Board (NAMB).
The training urges participants to set planned times to form personal connections with the goal of sharing the gospel. “They are effective. There is something about sharing the gospel clearly with people in a one-on-one setting that God uses,” Worcester said on the Campus Ministry Today online publication. Having used the resource for nearly three years, he has seen more than 100 students pray to receive Christ, he added.
Scroggins developed the “3 Circles” resource for NAMB. The simple tool uses a drawing of three circles and three arrows to help believers answer common questions that will lead to sharing their faith naturally and actively with others.
The EvangeCube, a tool developed by E3Resources, is a seven-picture cube that simply and clearly portrays the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“This information has tremendous potential to inspire individuals who are equipped to share Jesus with a lost and dying world,” said Green.