these resources are freely available to the church to assist, help and inspire us to enable everyone who loves Jesus and His gospel to share Him more effectively with others
We all know that sharing the life-giving message of the gospel with others is one of the most important and urgent tasks we can engage in as God’s people – and yet, for many of us, evangelism often feels difficult and nerve-wracking. Whether you are totally new to sharing the gospel, or a church leader looking to mobilise your church family for personal evangelism, our prayer is that these resources will be a wonderful starting point to help you consider how you can journey with others to the fullness of life which can only be found in Jesus Christ!
The suite of resources is designed as a modular menu accessible to and easily adapted by the local church to train their people in the areas that would best serve the local church context. The main menu is divided into four categories with each category offering a variety of options for consideration.
- Loving connection – how can we intentionally build upon the many communities we inhabit and connections we have?
- Intentionally Bible-driven – what is the theological foundation for journeying with others towards life in Jesus? How can we ensure that what we are sharing is biblical truth and theologically defined?
- Faithful witness – how can we faithfully communicate our faith in a variety of different contexts and by using different means?
- Encouraging discipleship – how can we ensure that new people are given a warm welcome into our churches and the practical help they need to mature in their faith?
In keeping with its menu-driven design, the offering consists of twenty-one stand-alone training modules for personal evangelism, with each one providing:
- Around 15 minutes of video content from an experienced trainer.
- Brief testimonies from everyday believers on how these principles apply in their lives.
- A session guide including suggested discussion questions, practical exercises, and further Bible passages to reflect on.
- A talk outline and transcript of the training content should you wish to adapt the talk to your own context.
- A take-away challenge to put into practice.
It is stating the obvious to say that the resources are not designed to be a 21-week course, and in response to several requests for some “set-menu” options we have provided three mini-series suggestions based on responding to three key questions:
- Is your church theologically confident but struggling to connect with others? We suggest a series titled ‘Connecting and journeying’.
- Is your church active in the community but struggling to communicate the gospel? We suggest a series titled ‘Communicating the good news’.
- Does your church need help involving people in the life of the church? We suggest the series titled ‘Welcoming and discipling’.
we encourage you to take some time to Review, Select and Deliver. It is my conviction that no one knows the local church and the community in which God has placed you like you do
However, we hope the flexibility of the resources will serve you well and we encourage you to take some time to Review, Select and Deliver. It is my conviction that no one knows the local church and the community in which God has placed you like you do. For this reason, I think there is huge value in taking some time just to review what each of the sessions offer and think through which ones might be the most applicable in your context. Having done this, select the ones that best serve your needs at this time and then use them to deliver a helpful training session. You may find this planner helpful for the reviewing process.
These sessions can be delivered in the context of whole church membership training either in mid-week gatherings, as a part of a Sunday service or through a growth group. But their design also allows for more localised ministry groups, ministry teams and church organisations to review them for their unique context and select and deliver the sessions that will be particularly helpful for them. We have been encouraged to hear of church-based toddler groups and community care teams beginning to explore how they might resource and equip their dedicated team for greater effectiveness. It’s worth saying that the resources will be available after the mission, so you don’t have to use everything at once and you can continue to equip your church family at a pace that best serves them.
Here at APFL we long to see people engage in training and inspiring local churches to plan for mission, and we trust that this suite of resources will help you to encourage, equip and enable everyday believers to grow in confidence in sharing Jesus with their friends. In the near future we look forward to sharing some other resources and promotional concepts we are working on but for now, why don’t you join with us in using these training resources and share them with others that might find them helpful as they seek to make Jesus known?
To browse and download the full sessions, please register for the Leaders’ Area.
The 21 training videos are available for anyone to watch whenever they like here.
Catch-up on our resource launch webinar here.
Your servant in Jesus
John MacKinnon
Training Director