WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance

80 WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BASIC MINISTRY TRAINING
I TRAINING IN EVANGELISM
Any believer who desires to be an effective witness of Christ must receive
training in evangelism. For the cross-cultural worker, such training is
essential. No cross-cultural worker should expect to advance the Gospel in a
different culture if he has not demonstrated his ability to win people to Christ
in his own culture.
I received my early evangelistic training through leaders who were no
mere theorists. They were practitioners who were engaged in the work of
evangelism and discipling others. Three men in particular (Youth for Christ
director Joe Weatherly and Navigator leaders Roy Robertson and Warren Myers)
equipped me in the context of student ministries, and evangelistic preaching in
villages and cities. While in the United States, I also learned from Paul Little
through practical seminars he taught on evangelism. 1
It may sound strange that missionaries who have received Bible training
have proved to be deficient in this most important area of evangelism. In a
Lausanne issue group on Effective Evangelism of which I was a part, some
leaders of biblical and missiological institutions expressed their concern about
this weakness. 2
Some years ago, I conducted a series on Evangelism at a Bible college in
Singapore. The objectives of the course included learning how to understand
the people we relate to in order to build bridges of friendship and
communication. It is important to find common ground when sharing the
Gospel. One of my surprises was to find that most students who attended the
course had minimal contact with non-Christians. We began by having each
one list non-Christian relatives and friends they knew and to make it a point to
pray for them, building friendships and common ground that will lead them to
the Scriptures and the Gospel.
Training in evangelism should include principles and concepts as well as
evangelism skills. Missiological concepts related to contextualisation would be
especially helpful for those crossing cultures.
1 Paul Little (1966), How to Give Away Your Faith, Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press.
2 Lausanne Occasional Papers No.56, Effective Theological Education for World Evangelization, 2004 Forum. This paper is available at
the Lausanne website