Hybels:  Evangelism Doesn’t Have to Be More Complicated Than This

Orginally published on Thursday, June 01, 2006 at 6:53 PM
by Todd Rhoades

An interesting article over at the Church Communication Network site... Bill Hybels shares a little of his philosphy of evangelism. Bill writes...

When I pose the question to Christ-followers around Willow and in my travels, ten out of ten of them can trace their faith journey back to someone, somewhere, who took a walk across a room and extended a hand of friendship to them. Could have been a locker room, a classroom, a restaurant, a golf green, a grocery store, wherever. The point is that they were drawn to a person before they were drawn to God. Eventually, whether the next day or the next decade, they turned over control of their lives to God. And it happened all because one Christ-follower agreed to take twenty simple steps across a room.

The walk-across-the-room idea is absolutely fundamental to what personal evangelism is all about. But don’t just take my word for it. With this metaphor in mind, consider Philippians 2:6-7, a set of verses you all know by heart. It says that at a specific point in time and space, Jesus Christ voluntarily left the fellowship of the Trinity so that he could strike out on the most significant walk in history. His was a walk across the vastness of the cosmos - a series of steps that ushered Christ into our earthly paradigm. It was a walk that would inevitably cost him his life, and yet he took it joyfully. Every time I mull over this part of Paul’s letter, I’m reminded of just how far Christ walked in order to provide a way for all of us to be made right with God. He endured ridicule and beatings and unbelievable suffering, which all serves to put into perspective my ridiculously small steps across a living room or a board room or an airport terminal.

Call me crazy, but I think Christ wants for all of his followers to do exactly what he did when he took that walk. “Follow my lead!” I think he says to believers all over the world. “Leave your well-known circles of comfort and take the risk to enter the zone of the unknown. Feeling wobbly as you take those first steps? No need. Remember that my Spirit is guiding your every move. He’ll tell you when to walk, what to say when you open your mouth, how to behave in a natural, honoring way with the person you approach. Worried about the outcome?  Leave that up to my Father. Really … he’s much better at that sort of thing. All that is required of you is your initial obedience to walk when he says to walk, talk when he says to talk, and fall silent when he whispers that you’ve said enough.”

Friends, evangelism doesn’t have to be more complicated than this.

You can read the whole article here.

Any thoughts? 

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

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