Preparing People as Witnesses
Calvin Ratz
In churches positioned to evangelize, members have confidence in the church and feel comfortable inviting outsiders to the services. Growing churches have built a culture that views evangelism as the norm.
—Calvin C. Ratz Walking down the first fairway at a golf club, Don, a recent convert, told me about his work. He ran his own business, specializing in securing high-profile managers and executives for large corporations. "When they need a certain type of person," he said, "they come to me. People call me a headhunter." That caught my attention. As I plotted how to land my four irons on the greens, I also thought about my job. Yes, I'm called to preach, pray, and visit the sick. But finding people to fill jobs—and finding jobs in which to place people—is a critical part of my ministry. I, too, am a headhunter. More specifically, one ministry to which I am called to recruit people is evangelism. One church leader put the challenge this way: "I have no difficulty getting my people to serve on a church committee, sing in the choir, or even teach a Sunday school class, but how can I get them involved in sharing their faith with others? How do I prepare my people to witness?" Whose Job to Witness?
Preparing people to witness begins with a conviction that lay people make the best witnesses, mostly because they are more strategically located to witness than ministers. So, if extensive evangelism is going to happen, it's going to happen through them. Tom is a mechanic who came to the Lord a couple of years ago. Many of his friends continue to drop by to talk about old times. One of his friends, a truck driver named Gord, was an introvert. He had no personal church experience, but he did have strong opinions about preachers and what he ...
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