I remember when I was a student with Youth for Christ, when I first heard of 3Story Evangelism. I remember thinking how complicated witnessing seemed, what a beautiful thing it was the 3Story encapsulated the basics of what I needed to do to start sharing my faith in Christ, and the difference he has made in my life with those around me. With 3Story, we can talk to our friends, family and co-workers about our faith in Christ by knowing Our Story, listening to Their Story, and dialoguing with them about God’s Story.
In high school as I became more and more familiar with 3Story (which is a method of what is called relational evangelism), it became something I grew more comfortable doing. It is exciting to think about the impact that students can have for Christ merely by sharing their whole life, including their relationship with Christ with people they already know. Then I went to college. Early on, I became involved in Campus Crusade for Christ (soon to be renamed Cru). One thing that Cru does well is initiative evangelism, which is where students and staff take the initiative to start conversations with other students, both those that they know and don’t know yet. Now, I know what many of you might be thinking and I was thinking the same thing. When I thought of initiative evangelism, I thought of someone going door to door, his KJV at the ready, asking if you would like to know Jesus. This is something that I felt I would never be able to do, and every fiber of my being wanted to fight against the very idea of talking to people I didn’t know.
Eventually this changed. After a little while I learned more about what Cru means when they talk about initiative evangelism. In fact, as I learned more, I eventually made up a new term, initiative relational evangelism. The truth is that we are called to reach out to those around us, both those that we know and those that we don’t know, with the message of Christ. In every case, forming a sincere relationship is important, whether we have just met someone for the first time, or if we have known them for years. Over the next few days I am going to write more about initiative relational evangelism, but first I would like to hear your thoughts. How can we be relational when we are initiating spiritual conversations with people we don’t know? Can you think of any ways that what we have learned about 3Story as a form of relational evangelism can inform what we do when we are engaging in initiative relational evangelism?