Personal evangelism is intimidating. The goal is to share the gospel in a new light, a way unique to you that someone may have not thought of before. It requires you to be vulnerable; to share the most intimate parts of yourself and your relationship with God. In order for personal evangelism to be effective, you have to get real with other people, there’s no sugar coating anything. From the worst things you’ve done and the hardest things you’ve faced, to you turning to God instead and the struggles in that, and finally, all of the great things that have come from that. Why is all of this necessary? Your story will impact people’s lives. They won’t necessarily remember all of the bible verses you read to them, but they will remember the ways God worked in your life. Personal evangelism is impactful. When you open up to someone, you build trust with them. As they hear your story, in all its ugliness and its glory, they will be more willing to open up to you in return. Then, you are able to share the gospel in a way that convicts them and help them to surrender to God and find a new life in Him.
But [Jesus] said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” {Mark 5:19}
As for my own experiences with personal evangelism, I have not had much of an opportunity for this type of evangelism in the ministry I have had on The World Race, as I have mainly worked with youth who speak a different language. However, I have used and seen personal evangelism throughout my own team. It is often perceived that mission trips are solely about advancing the Kingdom in your ministry, but I have learned first-hand that mission trips actually go beyond that. I have been serving in ministries alongside seven other girls for five months now, and I would argue that some of my greatest impacts have been in my own team. The reason for that is my use of personal evangelism. In the first month of The Race, my team made it a priority for each of us to share our testimonies. This built trust among our team as we openly shared the most vulnerable parts of who we are with each other. Through that, we were able to relate with each other on deep and intimate levels and connect in ways we otherwise wouldn’t have. While living a life following Jesus, it is comforting to find that others striving for the same thing have struggled in the same ways as you. Personal evangelism brings that to light. In my junior year of high school, I was taking a class in which I shared my testimony many times and became well aquatinted with and versed in the struggles I went through, their purpose, and how God worked in my life to bring me through them. I learned how to share all the ugliness that had been my life before I walked in a relationship with God. I grew to be okay with being that vulnerable because I know how God used that in my life and trust that He will use my own struggles to help others in much of the same way. Likewise, I learned to share all of the goodness that God brought into my life after I gave it over to Him. I learned how to tell these things to others without sounding boastful. Basically, I discovered the most effective way for me to disclose my testimony. Because of that, I was able to personally evangelize my team very well. Through my testimony, I was able to share the gospel with my teammates in a way they could relate to that revealed to them new things about their own faith journey’s. This is exactly what personal evangelism is about.
All in all, the daunting task of personal evangelism is well worth the risk. As hard as it may be to expose all of yourself to another, the relationships formed because of it are even more valuable. Personal evangelism requires relationships to be built and, eventually, allows God to become center of it. That is the beauty of personal evangelism; it creates relationships with the Lord as the foundation. These relationships then last and that allows for so much growth with both each other and God. The people involved are able to walk the life of following Jesus together. They are there for each other in the struggles and will call each other higher in the good and easy times. Ultimately, personal evangelism unites people with each other and invites them into a deeper relationship with God.
