Here is a great article from the InterVarsity Evangelism blog. If you are calibrating your church or campus ministry to be more fruitful evangelistically, please read this. It has great advice. Here are a few excerpts below and a link to the whole post.

That’s right. Sixty newcomers have a great evening listening to someone explain the message of Jesus, love what they hear, and spend a long time discussing it afterwards with their Christian friends. Somehow, though, not a single one becomes a follower of Jesus.

Very odd. It’s not like this was a tough audience. What went wrong?

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Knight of St. Francis – Assisi

This is a guest post by Jason Gaboury. He is the Regional Director of New York/New Jersey with InterVarsity. He directs and oversees the work of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to undergraduates in that massive area!

The yellow edged paper on Mom’s desk had the words printed in elegant script.  “Preach the gospel at all times, when necessary use words.”  A thin script underneath identified St. Francis of Assisi.

The script, the hand, even the composition of the paper suggested a scriptorium, monks copying aphoristic sayings of the saints by candlelight.

More than two decades later I still think of this quote when I remember my mom.  The phrase captured a way of being that extended beyond the pulpit and pastor’s desk of her small parish church.  It propelled her into Habitat building projects, compelled her to visit the imprisoned, and made her a companion to the suffering.

Imagine my surprise to learn, after mom’s death, that this quote was something St. Francis never said.  Often attributed to St. Francis, the quote above (along with several variants) doesn’t appear in print before the 1990s.

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By Tyler Allred

Beau wrote a great post helping us understand how to identify an evangelist in our midst.

Now, I want to talk about how we can effectively empower and release those with the gift of evangelism in our ministries.

Many Christians I know assume that “everyone is supposed to do evangelism” (even though most still don’t!). Those with the “gift” of evangelism (like the rest of the gifts) are there “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). They are given to lead everyone else into the regular practice of sharing the good news of our King Jesus and compelling others to follow Him as Lord.

Here are five reflections on how to empower and release those you’ve identified with the evangelistic gift.

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By Steve Stuckey

Last week Beau put up a post on “How to Identify an Evangelist in Your Ministry”. I agree that the six indicators that he lists are a good start to identifying someone as a potential evangelist. I was intrigued that some of his indicators suggested an underlying tension between an evangelist and those running established church ministry programs.

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We seek revival every fall with about 400 student leaders in SoCal.

In the Southern California Region of InterVarsity we have been talking about revival a bunch over the years. It is what we feel God has called us to seek Him for during this season of ministry. Our core work is to “plant and build multi-ethnic witnessing communities on colleges and universities in Southern California” and it is inside of this that we are asking God for revival on campus and in our lives.

Of course this brings up many questions. Revival is a scary word to some people. But I think it can help us become more of the Mystic Leader that Brian Sanders talked about last week.

Here is a definition from Tim Keller that I really like. He is one of the main people we follow in our understanding of revival.

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“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Rom 10:15

If we are going to activate evangelistic people in our ministry, then we have to know what they look like! Sometimes this can be pretty easy if they are highly gifted and are more developed. But if they are a young person it may not be as clear from the surface. You will want to know what to look for. Here are six indicators I often am looking for.

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