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    Bill Hybels on Outreach - Outreach & Evangelism

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    Outreach: What prompted you to write about personal evangelism for this latest book? Did you sense a real need to focus on it?

    Bill Hybels: Yes. Just in the last 30 years, I’ve seen an incredible surge in Christians knowing how to share with other Christians. They know how to open up their lives to each other, how to ask for help, how to pray for each other.

    But in the same time period, I have not seen near the same progress in Christians feeling comfortable in conversations with people outside the circle of faith.

    What have our local churches missed then? Why are we producing Christians who aren’t comfortable talking about spirituality with others who don’t share their beliefs?

    BH: So much of it is awareness, vision and training. Churches left to themselves will always devolve into a kind of inward-looking dynamic. They have to be inspired to be outreach-oriented. And they have to instill a love for Jesus. People who walk across rooms have landed on the belief that the God they know is worth knowing.

    Moreover, we have to teach people to engage in conversations with those who believe differently than they do or maybe don’t have any spiritual beliefs at all. Personal evangelism, or having conversations about God, with people far from God should eventually become as natural to us as breathing.

    What’s the best way, based on your experience, to train leaders to instill in their congregations a passion for connecting with the unchurched?

    BH: When we train pastors, the first thing we do is point them to the example of our ultimate leader, Jesus Christ. We point out dozens of passages where the scriptures inform us of how naturally Jesus had conversations with people. He invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner, even when everyone knew he was a crook. Jesus said to him, “You’re someone I would be very interested in having dinner with, and I’d be curious to know your story!” So looking at the Master Evangelist and the ease with which He had conversations with people outside the circle of faith becomes catalytic in the lives of church leaders.

    From there, we explain to pastors that lost people really do matter to the Father, and if they matter to Him, they ought to matter to us. Then I try to inspire pastors from a spiritual formation standpoint, explaining that there is a unique work of God that happens in the life of someone who’s serious about spreading the message of Christ.

    You’ve experienced that work of God firsthand?

    BH: Yes, I’m involved in a sailing team, and we’ve become very close. I’ve watched some of them over the years head down the road to self-destruction because of substance abuse or thrill-seeking behaviors. And it’s absolutely heart-breaking to know and love someone and watch him try to handle the complexities of life without the help and guidance of a loving God. It makes me pray differently. It helps me preach differently. There is a marvelous spiritual formation thing that happens inside someone who’s serious about evangelism, but it only happens when you stick your neck out and get involved in evangelistic endeavors.

    Then what keeps people from engaging? What do you identify as the greatest obstacle to evangelism today?

    BH: Fear. The average Christian in today’s churches is afraid she won’t get something right or that someone will ask her a question she can’t answer and she’ll blow the whole thing.

    And I say to people, “OK, then let’s talk about fear!” If you could hear the voice of God prompt you to walk across the room and start a conversation and you obeyed—even if, by your standard, it didn’t lead anywhere—if that hearing and obeying constituted success, could you do that? Most people say, “Yes, I could do that.”

    Then what if the conversation progressed to you asking him about his spiritual background? If that conversation goes nowhere, would you still be OK, knowing that you heard God and obeyed? What if he asks you for a book or CD, and that doesn’t go any further, would you still feel like you succeeded spiritually because you heard and obeyed?

    The idea of doing only what the Spirit prompts and not being responsible for necessarily leading someone to Christ or correctly answering a ton of questions just boggles people’s minds. When you break down evangelism to small interactions, people tend to relax a little.

    Many Christians are afraid that starting spiritual conversations may strong-arm or create distance between friends or family members.

    BH: I remember talking to the spouse of a guy on my sailing team. About the third time I talked to her, I gently tried to steer the conversation to spiritual matters, and she said, “I had a horrible religious experience. This is such an area of pain for me; let’s give this a rest.”

    I told her I wanted to honor her request and then asked, “How long should we rest it? Can I check back with you in six months or a year to see if there has been any healing? I’d like to pray for you along the way, so you tell me when would be a good time to check back.” She kind of laughed and said, “Let’s rest it for at least a year.”

    A year later, we’d gotten to know each other a lot better, and she’d seen me in a lot of other situations. She was ready to talk. I’d proven my friendship to her and the rest of the crew members. And I had honored her by taking seriously her request to not talk about God until she was ready.

    In other words, it all unfolded naturally. In our efforts to train Christians to share their faith, have we become too focused on strategies and methods?

    BH: It’s taken me the better part of my adult life to understand this. But I believe the single-highest value in the personal evangelistic adventure is being attentive to and being cooperative with the promptings of the Holy Spirit! People don’t expect me to say that. They think I’m nuts to connect promptings and the works of the Holy Spirit with old-fashioned soul-winning, which just shows you how far sharing our faith has strayed from what it ought to be. We ought to begin our day by telling the Holy Spirit that in every conversation we have today, we’ll be listening for His voice or to the little cues that people drop. Maybe they’re only one resource—a conversation, an invitation from a friend or a copy of their own Bible—away from really making spiritual progress.

    I’m not suggesting a new evangelism program or new formulas or things to memorize. I am saying that being more attentive to and cooperative with the Holy Spirit would open more doors of opportunity—to say a word for God, or to listen to an unsaved person’s story—than you can imagine!

    You’re talking about seeing evangelism as a process then, rather than a one-time event in someone’s life.

    BH: We used to think the only miracle in the evangelistic process that we could anticipate would be that singular time when a person dropped to her knees and prayed the prayer to trust Christ. But I find that the evangelistic adventure is filled with a whole string of mini-miracles from the first time you watch the love of God melt a hard heart of a non-church person.

    Often, we miss the beauty of going through the process with people from -10 in their relationship with God, up to -8, -4, 2. We need to learn to see the whole experience of listening to people’s pain and their story before we feel the need to tell our story—and live with the idea that maybe we’re only supposed to be warming up these people gradually.

    You can read more of this great interview here...

    Recently, Outreach Magazine had the chance to sit down with Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. It's an interesting read... Bill shares some interesting thoughts on evangelism I think you will enjoy...

    Comments

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    1. Leonard on Wed, November 22, 2006

      I LOVE THIS!  (I am shouting)

    2. nora on Wed, November 22, 2006

      This is outstanding!  I think I need to buy Hybel’s book!

    3. JHPW on Wed, November 22, 2006

      I just finished reading the book.  I would definitely recommend it.  One of the things he discusses is how the longer we have been Christians, the fewer people we have realtionships with that are outside of the faith (he quotes some statistics on this, but I don’t have them in front of me).  He gives lots of practical advice and suggestions on how we can continue to ‘put ourselves out there’ so that we are having regular contact and opportunities to share our faith with unbelievers.

    4. Wendi on Wed, November 22, 2006

      I love this comment by Hybels . . .


      I’m not suggesting a new evangelism program or new formulas or things to memorize. I am saying that being more attentive to and cooperative with the Holy Spirit would open more doors of opportunity—to say a word for God, or to listen to an unsaved person’s story—than you can imagine!


      I used to think (or act as if I thought) that a person’s story didn’t really have value until they’d crossed the line, joined the “saved,” prayed that famous “sinners prayer.”  In the process, I devalued them as people and I think, missed the miraculous work of the HS in the lives of people who I encounter and about whom I may never know where they’ll end up on their faith journey. 


      I think I need to read this book.


      Wendi

    5. David S. on Mon, November 27, 2006

      Hybels has alot of wisdom here. I’ve run into the same thing with people in my church when I’d encourage them to witness, or even be “available” to talk to someone.


      Each year our town holds a festival on the downtown streets. Recently, we’ve put a booth up at the festival to make ourselves “available” and to hand out literature and share with people. We have alot of problems getting people from the congregation to sign up to help. The number one reason, “I’m afraid I won’t know what to say.” While this situation is a bit different than the personal evangelism Hybels describes, if they’re afraid in *this* situation, I know they’re afraid in the personal evangelism situation as well. It seems that this is the number one reason people don’t share their faith with others.


      I like his response, if the Holy Spirit prompted you to just go up to someone and talk, and you did just that - then you have obeyed. He is right on!  In years past, many pastors have so overstressed that we have to get people to make a decision RIGHT NOW, that we’ve changed evangelism from a process to an event. I’m thankful to see someone bring it back to the true nature of personal evangelism.

    6. Phil DiLernia on Tue, November 28, 2006

      I routinely live my life by these tenets and I can personally witness to the unimaginable satisfaction that one gets from feeling “used” by God to impact someone else’s life, if even for a few brief moments, by helping connect them with our creator.


      I have been successful athletically and in business for over 24 years but living this life that Hybels mentions has led me to full time ministry (for 4 full months now!) and I can’t thank Him enough.


      Why He would choose to use us is unimaginable and will continue to be so until my understanding of His love, mercy, and wisdom, is perfected (in other words I’ll always stand amazed!)


      Praise and all glory to God for what He does and how He does it.

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