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"And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness."
(Acts 4:31)
One of the evangelism seminars I attended at the Empower conference was taught by my friend, Todd Kaunitz, who serves as pastor at New Beginnings Church in Longview, TX. Todd has a heart for Jesus, reaching people, and prayer. Those are wonderful things that all of us need to be passionate about. In his presentation he closed with this powerful section: "Develop Evangelism Through Prayer."
Todd shared the story of Coach Weston in Gilmer, TX. This football coach loves sharing Jesus with the players. He continues to lead many students to Jesus every week! I reached out to Weston and invited him to be a guest on our REvangelical Podcast. I look forward to interviewing him soon. Here was his response to me by text: "That sounds awesome!! We had 70 young men gather at 2:30 this afternoon to hear about Jesus and 5 of them surrendered their life to Jesus! Praise the Lord!!"
Pastor Todd encouraged us in his seminar to do the following:
"Pray together as a church." Movements of God in the Books of Acts all began with prayer. He said that out of 28 chapters in the Book of Acts, 26 mention corporate prayer.
"Pray for salvations and for the lost by name—the more we pray for people the more we are burdened for people." I like to keep a list of unsaved family and friends and pray for them in my prayer journal.
"Pray for boldness to share." Todd referenced Acts 4:29-31 when the early church prayed for boldness to witness. I also thought of Ephesians 6:19-20 where the greatest witness in the history of the church asked a church to pray for him twice to be bold: "And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak."
"Help your people learn how to live in the 'filling of the Holy Spirit.'" He said, "Training your people how to present Jesus is less important than helping your people walk in the power of Jesus!" In Acts 1:8, Jesus said, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." The Holy Spirit gives us the power to witness. It is imperative that we constantly be filled with the Holy Spirit. As we walk with God, we will talk about God. When we follow Jesus, we will fish for Jesus, as Matthew 4:19 tells us.
I hope you have enjoyed this week's devotions on evangelism. I encourage you to be bold, and yes, invite people to your church, which is great, but more than that, share Jesus with them. There are multiple Gospel presentations that you can utilize and put into practice. The key is having one and using it often.
If I can pray for you, please send me an email at: pray@dfea.com |
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