Counties evangelist, Will Andrews, shares how a simple new evangelistic tool is helping his church to spread the Good News.

Will and Lynne work in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and are committed to Evangelism and Bible teaching that ensures the Good News of Jesus Christ is relevant and understandable to seeking people.

Will uses clear Application Preaching that connects with people and is accompanied by quality visuals. As well as church-based outreach, Lynne is very active in Personal Evangelism in the neighbourhood.

They use coffee events, evangelistic quizzes, and enquirer groups to appeal to those who are seeking and helping them to link with a church.

In 2018 Will found out he has Neuroendocrine cancer, which has given him a lot of opportunities to share the gospel and give pastoral care to people who have cancer.

Will also represents Counties on the Operations Team of the Church Revitalisation Project, using his experience of conducting Church Health Checks over the last 20 years.Make it stand out

In 2009, Lynne and I attended Abundant Life Church (as it was called) during our sabbatical. On that Sunday, the pastor, Paul Scanlon, introduced the church to “The 15-Minute Revolution: “Go ahead, inconvenience me” (which became a book).

The principle is simple: at the start of each day, ask God to ‘inconvenience you’ to give you an opportunity to interact with a non-Christian in a way that will show Christian kindness and hopefully open a door to share the gospel.  A bit of a take on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

WILL’S TESTIMONY

 It was a joy to introduce our home church to a personal evangelism programme called the ‘15 minute revolution’ using a series we put together called ‘Love Won Another’ (no spelling error on my part, but wordplay on our Bible verse for the year John 13:34-35 to give it some application to evangelism.) 

Over six weeks, along with the teaching, during which folks were encouraged to share their faith using the Biblical examples, each member of the church was given a tract and encouraged, and hopefully inspired, to seek an opportunity to pass it onto a non-Christian in the coming weeks and months. 

Many people were inspired by the idea, and it was great to hear feedback from people who had never shared their faith before. This was done with work colleagues, carers, friends, and people in shops.  It made the church look outward and think about evangelising in a ‘do-able’ way.  No programme or training, just copying the way it was done in the Bible.  

One lady ‘S’ returned on the second Sunday, wanting four more tracts as she had given hers away to her carer, and intended to give the rest to the other carers.

Another man, ‘E’ Eric, had a ’15-minute’ moment with his neighbours regarding a car parking problem on his road, which allowed him to be a ‘peacemaker’. One neighbour thanked him, and he responded: “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, which opened up a chat with his Muslim neighbour.

Another lady had been going swimming with a group of friends for ten years and never shared her faith.  The idea inspired her, and she had the opportunity to share it with them all simultaneously – she was thrilled. 

Many have caught the bug to carry on, and some are still finding the situation or courage to speak up, so we trust that the ‘15-minute revolution’ will become their default behaviour this year. 

It is great to do personal evangelism ourselves, but this was a lovely opportunity to equip others, which is part of the role of an evangelist within a church.