A Journey to the Heart of Evangelism, by Janice Keats (Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009)
A confident young woman sits across from you and throws out a challenge: “Tell me why I should follow Jesus.”
Umm… well…
You could probably tell her a few reasons, if you had time to think, but she’s asking now.
What Canadian author Janice Keats did in that situation was to share her own story of coming to faith. No debating or teaching or “shoulds,” just a personal experience that had credibility because she’d lived it.
Some people have amazing faith stories, complete with miracles and release from addictions. Others can’t remember a time when they didn’t know God.
A Journey to the Heart of Evangelism is for all types of Christians, and as the subtitle promises, each of us does have a story.
This is a slim book because our stories don’t need to be complicated – we just need to think through how to share them.
A Journey to the Heart of Evangelism maintains that although some are given the gift of evangelism, all are called to share Jesus’ message – with His help.
The five chapters are designed for personal or group study. Using Scripture, teaching, and application questions, the book addresses our many fears and excuses, and challenges us to live obedient to and dependent upon God.
By the end of the study, we’ll not only know why we need to be involved in sharing our faith stories, we’ll see it’s not as intimidating as we might have thought. And our faith will be refreshed by revisiting our experiences.
The final part of the book contains questions to help us discover and articulate what it is we want to say about this God who’s made a difference in our lives. There’s even a place to record the names of four people we want to remember to pray for and to share our stories with.
And like St. Peter says, we’ll “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have.” (1 Peter 3:15)
In A Journey to the Heart of Evangelism, Janice Keats has given us a helpful way to demystify sharing our faith: it’s about our stories, not about arguing or logicking people into the Kingdom. Most of us don’t have theology degrees, but we all have stories.
A Journey to the Heart of Evangelism is available from amazon.ca, amazon.com and from the Wipf & Stock website, and can be ordered into your brick and mortar store as well. For more about the author, visit her web page and her blog, The Master’s Path.