{"id":31796,"date":"2022-09-10T15:44:24","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-essential-component-of-effective-evangelism\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:44:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:44:24","slug":"the-essential-component-of-effective-evangelism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-essential-component-of-effective-evangelism\/","title":{"rendered":"The essential component of effective evangelism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Robby Gallaty<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was a senior, there was a girlfriend in the picture. Isn\u2019t there always?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been dating her for almost year, and naturally, she was way up my priority list. She was headed to LSU, nearby in Baton Rouge. I wasn\u2019t interested in North Carolina girls\u2014this was the only one who counted. <\/p>\n

She confronted me, \u201cRobby, you can\u2019t go that far away! Can\u2019t you find somewhere a little closer to home?\u201d And you know, when your girlfriend says it to you, in just the right tone of voice, you\u2019re likely to do almost anything.<\/p>\n

You’re Likely to Do Almost Anything<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I began to think about nearby colleges that had basketball programs. It was very late in the recruiting game, of course; the important schools had filled out their rosters. But I figured a Division I prospect like me could get some interest from a smaller NAIA program. <\/p>\n

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I got out the phone book and called William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi\u2014a simple ninety-minute drive. I didn\u2019t know a great deal about Carey, just that it had a basketball team and wasn\u2019t far from my girlfriend. I called the head coach and told him my situation. He hesitantly agreed to look at me in a tryout session\u2014the team was already set.<\/p>\n

But something strange happened at the tryout: I played well\u2014that is, I played really, really well. As if the spirit of Michael Jordan got into me for an hour. Afterward, Mom said, \u201cI\u2019ve seen every basketball game you\u2019ve played, and a lot of the practices, and you\u2019ve never played like that\u2014ever. You must really like this girl!\u201d<\/p>\n

Just Like Magic<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I shrugged. Again, it just felt like something that worked out. Just like magic.<\/p>\n

Coach was all smiles. It didn\u2019t take him long to offer me a scholarship to play for the William Carey Crusaders. I called UNC-Greensboro and let them know I had a change of plans.<\/p>\n

One simple, impulsive decision had vast implications. The irony was that two weeks after school started, my girlfriend broke up with me\u2014having gotten the mistaken idea that I was cheating on her. <\/p>\n

Her reasoning was that I wanted to purchase clothes at the mall, something I hadn\u2019t done before. If I\u2019d wanted to cheat on her, I\u2019d have gone eleven hours away! She was the whole reason I was here playing for an NAIA school instead of one that could be invited to March Madness.<\/p>\n

But I took stock of my new home\u2014a very Baptist new home.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by Baptists<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My entire culture growing up was so thoroughly Catholic, I didn\u2019t even know a Southern Baptist, and now I was surrounded by a whole army of them.<\/p>\n

William Carey is named after the Father of Modern Missions, who lived in the eighteenth century. I was in a whole new subculture. There was no casual drinking. No Thursday night Frat parties. Faith was more overt, and I found myself to be the number one target of a campus game called \u201cConvert the Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

I made a visible target, cruising through the campus in my red 944 Porsche, blaring uncensored Tupac tracks from the ten-inch bazooka subwoofers in my trunk. I always had a nice car because of my dad\u2019s occupation.<\/p>\n

I had brought my rap music, my alcohol, my sports car, and especially my Roman Catholic affiliation to this new Baptist world. For the first time, I knew what it was like to hold down first place on every local prayer list. Or to be a deer during hunting season.<\/p>\n

I could see the Bible and tract<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I\u2019d be walking to campus, and a vague acquaintance would approach me. \u201cHey, Robby! Wait up!\u201d I could see the Bible and the tract in his hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, man. What\u2019s up?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s basketball going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m redshirting this year. Waiting on the 6\u20199\u201d and 6\u201910\u201d guys to graduate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCool. Hey, if you were to die tonight, do you know where you\u2019d\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood talk, man, but I\u2019m going to be late for class.\u201d<\/p>\n

I Made My Escape<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I\u2019d duck into a doorway\u2014didn\u2019t matter which doorway\u2014and escape another barrage of earnest gospel invitations. I couldn\u2019t understand this whole witnessing culture. <\/p>\n

All these people hardly knew my name, but they were intent on asking me to walk away from how I was raised and take on their form of religion. Catholics didn\u2019t operate like this; you were born into it or you weren\u2019t. When people asked me if I was a Christian, my go-to response was, \u201cI\u2019m Catholic.\u201d End of story.<\/p>\n

But I liked the school, and being the evangelism target didn\u2019t put me off too much. I simply avoided it and lived my life.<\/p>\n

Except for Jeremy Brown<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Jeremy was the asterisk in the big conversion quest. Jeremy had a whole different approach to sharing his faith with me, and amazingly, he was the only one who seemed to have figured out the right formula. <\/p>\n

He offered friendship instead of an evangelistic sales pitch. Jeremy took the time to get to know me and let me get to know him, just the way any college buddy would. <\/p>\n

He cared about me<\/em> rather than my religious scalp.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, he would mention some aspect of his faith, not as a weapon aimed at me, but as a part of the whole world of Jeremy Brown\u2014a world where I enjoyed hanging out. It made his faith intriguing instead of annoying. It was contagious.<\/p>\n

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See also  How to Stoke Your Fire for Evangelism<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI know you don\u2019t have a deep, daily faith in Jesus Christ,\u201d he said. \u201cYou were raised in the church and taught about Jesus, but that\u2019s not exactly saving faith. There has to be a time when you go from death to life. It\u2019s absolutely necessary for eternal life. It\u2019s all about saying \u2018yes\u2019 to him with everything you are. Not to mention you avoid hell by going to heaven when you die.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI get that,\u201d I said. \u201cBut I was christened as a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, but Jesus wants to have a real relationship<\/em> with you\u2014not just something your parents did when you were too young to understand. Saving faith comes from the heart. You and I are friends because we chose<\/em> it. That\u2019s why it\u2019s a real friendship, something we live out every day. Friendship is active and real. So is a saving faith in Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI get that, too. It makes sense. But how do you do it exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is something you really want, Robby, if you understand that sin is a part of your life, and you can\u2019t handle it alone, you can cry out to the Lord through repentance and faith. All you need to do is pray a simple prayer, like the one I\u2019ll give you, and mean every word. Robby, do you think you\u2019re ready to pray that kind of prayer with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re really sure about this? It\u2019s serious, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

He prayed, leaving spaces after each phrase for me to repeat. I acknowledged my sin before God, my need for his forgiveness, and asked Jesus to save me. Afterward, he gave me a big hug and welcomed me into God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n

And for several days, I figured I was just like Jeremy and all the \u201cCarey Christians\u201d now. He led me along, took me to church, and I did all the things I felt I was supposed to do.<\/p>\n

What I lacked was something greater than \u201cmagic\u201d\u2014the supernatural effect, the transformation of new birth. My commitment wouldn\u2019t last, and in time I would understand that the test of real faith is fruit.<\/p>\n

Jesus said you tell a tree by what it produces, and what came out of my life wasn\u2019t the fruit of godliness. I was a good kid from a good family, but still lost as lost could be.<\/p>\n

Yet the seeds had been planted for that tree of eternal fruit. Someday the seeds would sink into the soil, and the real transformation would come.<\/p>\n

ROBBY GALLATY (@Rgallaty)<\/strong> is the Senior Pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN. He was radically saved out of a life of drug addiction on November 12, 2002. In 2008, he <\/em>began<\/em> Replicate Ministries to equip and train men and women to be disciples who make disciples. Excerpted and adapted from Recovered, Copyright \u00a9 2019 and published by B&H Publishing Group.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n
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Recovered<\/h2>\n

Robby Gallaty with Rob Suggs<\/p>\n

FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Related posts:<\/h3>\n
3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community 5 Signs a Pastor Is Emotionally Unhealthy <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robby Gallaty When I was a senior, there was a girlfriend in the picture. Isn\u2019t there always? I\u2019d been dating her for almost year, and naturally, she was way up my priority list. She was headed to LSU, nearby in Baton Rouge. I wasn\u2019t interested in North Carolina girls\u2014this was the only one who … Continue reading “The essential component of effective evangelism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}