Cold Turkey evangelism, as many people refer to it, takes a lot of heat when in conversations regarding methods of sharing the gospel. Let me be very clear up front that I don’t believe sharing my faith with a complete stranger is the best way to go about winning the world for Jesus Christ. But let me be equally as clear that I still encourage students, along with myself, to share the good news with anyone we encounter because the gospel is powerful. If we simply dismiss opportunities to tell strangers about Jesus because we don’t know them we are putting to much of the emphasis on ourselves and not enough on the gospel itself.
A few years back when I was serving as a volunteer small group leader for our church in Colorado I took my group through the GOSPEL Journey Maui (if you haven’t done this study with your youth group or small group you should get the curriculum and implement it as soon as possible). After 9 weeks of amazing spiritual discussions that were faith stretching and fortifying I took my students to a local shopping district north of Denver to engage strangers in spiritual conversations, pray for them, share the gospel, and invite these people to church. I’d love to tell you that a revival broke out in our area as a result of our efforts and that hundreds came to Christ, but that’s not quite the way it played out. But what did happen was still impressive and God was working in the lives of these teenagers:
- I saw students become more and more bold in their faith
- With each passing week students would seek out kids they knew from school to start discussions with
- I began to hear stories of my students going to school and having conversations with their friends
- These students were praying for people as they met them and learned of their needs
- People did come out to our church as a result of conversations they had with these teens
When I have a chance to connect with these kids, now over 2 years later, they still talk about those experiences and how faith forming they were. As a result of those evenings out having spiritual conversations and sharing the gospel God was at work in the lives of these teenagers shaping them to be more evangelistic with their friends and family, as well as strangers.
If you haven’t done something like this with your youth group or small group I want to challenge you to plan out and schedule a time to do so. The impact it will have on you and your teens will be amazing and I pray that you see the same type of fruit our group did, if not more. My plan is to resurrect this evangelism idea in my youth group by taking each of the small groups in our ministry out at different times this spring and summer (we have 14 small groups).
To purchase the above mentioned GOSPEL Journey Maui, CLICK HERE!
Do you try to program cold turkey evangelism in your youth ministry or are you opposed to this method? What are other ways that you create opportunities for the teens in your ministry to get their feet wet in sharing their faith?
