Equipping and Releasing

Increasing evangelism in the local church is a challenging yet worthwhile endeavor. There is nothing quite like the joy of leading a friend or family member to Jesus Christ.  It is a stimulating activity for any Christian to be involved in a short term or long term mission project, but do we as believers take our faith regularly into the marketplace where we live and eat.

George Barna says in his book Revolution, “Most churched Christians believe that since they are not gifted in evangelism, such outreach is not a significant responsibility of theirs.”  And “The typical churched believer will die without leading a single person to a lifesaving knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ.”

We believe here at Equipping and Releasing that this is a tragedy that can and should be remedied.  The Evangelist is one of the 5-fold ministers listed in Ephesians chapter 4.  And like the other members of the 5-fold it is not just his job or his office to perform the duties of that office, but it is also his duty to fulfill the remainder of that passage of Scripture.

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”  – Ephesians 4:11-13

As Evangelists we have a responsibility to help the body of Christ become better at evangelizing.  So that we together can carry out the great commission, which is not a mission just for evangelists.  It is instead a mission of co-labor to be done together as the body, and it can be done with great excitement and joy as a labor of love.

To accomplish this the body needs to first be gently encouraged and trained in simple one-on-one friendship evangelism.

ADVANCED EVANGELISM TRAINING

Are you wanting to train a dozen people to do street ministry?  Are you thinking of having a group that is very highly trained in the area of evangelism so that they can help others in your congregation learn good evangelism skills?
Are you thinking of having a high impact outreach and needing a few of your people to hone up on their talents before you get started?
We have developed some specific teaching in this course for equipping a group of people to operate in the office of Evangelism.  Prior to this event you may want to circulate a questionnaire or use another means to determine who in your church has some raw evangelism talent that wants to be challenged to go to the next step.  We can provide this for free before we come.
This course provides a very intense training.  It is a total of 16 hours in length.  It is also advisable that it is completed over a series of four days or two consecutive Saturdays, as it is a lot of information to be absorbed in a shorter time period.
Here is an outline for the course:

1.  Out of the abundance of the heart
a.  Intimacy with Holy Spirit
b. Presence Evangelism
c. Being in the Word

2.  Coming under authority
a. Loyalty to the house and to the Apostle
b. Resisting the spirits of Jez and Korah
c. Living in humility

3.  Learning to share your testimony
a.  One-on-one testimony
b. Sharing the testimony in a group

4.  Using prayer
a. Fostering a disciplined prayer life
b. Using prayer to work the salvation ground
c. Building relationships with support intercessors

5.  Understanding The Five Fold Ministry
a.  How the Evangelist and Pastor can work together
b.  Recognizing other people’s gifts
c.  Encouraging and motivating

6.  The message of the Gospel
a. Knowing the Gospel stories
b. Knowing the tract
c. Closing the sale
d. Doing an effective alter call
e. Making your own  tract

7.  Effective Outreaches
a.  Pros and Cons of various outreaches
b. Good ideas vs. God ideas
c. Working as a team
d. How to keep the harvest

8.  Traveling Evangelists
a. Preparing for the arrival of the Evangelist
b. Traveling with the Evangelist
c. Traveling as the Evangelist

9.  Raising Disciples
a. Discipleship is my responsibility
b. Working with the one that I won
c. Building character in me and in them

10. Miracles and Healings Follow the Evangelist
a. healing and deliverance
b. Getting more training.   Use the healing rooms
c. Studying the great Evangelists of our time

11. Recognizing Your Limitations
a. Setting healthy boundaries
b. Employing the gift mixes around you
c. Encouraging those who work with you

12. Building Healthy Relationships
a. With your Apostle
b. In your home life
c. In your team
d. In your workplace

This training course is not a free training.  In some of our other seminars we make enough to keep going because of the numbers of people involved and we always try to work with the body of Christ to provide the equipping.  We do quite well at some of the larger churches and therefore are able to operate on a lower budget while helping smaller churches.  This course however is provided to equip a small group.  Normally there would only be 8 to 20 people present.  We bring along training equipment and workbooks and each of these have a cost.  There is also generally not enough money made from the small group to cover costs.  Therefore we usually charge $100 per person in attendance for the training.  Your church may want to pay that upfront as an honorarium or you may want to charge those in attendance as a course fee.  We also require that our travel costs and lodging are provided.

When Pastor Kerry George first began doing ministry she was often invited to do outreaches and still today she does this and has trained other evangelists to go do outreaches as well.  However, it was her desire to fulfill the mandate of Ephesians 4:11-13 and actually train the saints to do the work of the ministry.

As a result a very effective method of training Evangelists in the local church has developed.

When you contact this ministry and ask about our evangelism training we will typically ask you many questions before we put together a program for you that is just right for your church.

Firstly we will want to know specifically if any type of evangelism training has been implemented before and how that has gone for you.  This is very important, because if your church is very seeker friendly or program orientated your people may not be ready for a heavy evangelism conference.  It would likely be poorly attended and it may even cause rifts.  Therefore we would like to assess the situation and would probably suggest a softer approach.  It may even be a good idea to book a “Juicy Fruit Seminar” first to expose the people to the idea that each member of the body can contribute to the gospel effort without them feeling overwhelmed.

The One-On-One Evangelism Seminar

The one on one evangelism seminar has been created to help equip and mobilize the local church into evangelistic action.  This seminar can be done in three or four parts depending on time availability.  It is an intense seminar that is designed to take the average believer to a new level of understanding in their role as a Christian.  It is packed with Scripture as well as with hands on activity.
Some of the subject matter covered includes:

1. Deeper intimacy with Holy Spirit.
2. The office of the Evangelist vs. the call of every believer.
3. Answering common questions like, “Why should I evangelise?”  “How do I view evangelism?”  “What types of evangelism outreaches are most effective in bringing in the lost?”
4. How to retain the fruit of souls that are won to the kingdom.
5. Getting started sharing the basic gospel message.
6. Using prayer to prepare the soil for readiness to the message.
7. Basic discipling of the new believers.
8. Servanthood.
9. Unity.
10. Financial discipleship.
11. Knowing our gift mix and using it for the best results.

The seminar is a free seminar.  Pastor Kerry generally asks for travel costs and accommodations to be supplied.  A love offering is accepted during two or three of the sessions, and books, CD’s and training materials are made available for purchase during the event.
Equipping and Releasing will also supply your church with posters, handouts, and post cards invitations for the promotion of this event.  We do this for free for churches with less than 100 members.  For larger churches we will either email these tools to you for your own office to develop or charge you a nominal fee to cover the costs.

This seminar has the best results in a church where evangelism has already been encouraged and supported with training and finances.  If this has not been the case we would highly recommend booking a “Juicy Fruit Seminar” first and warming the people up to the basic premise that all believers are required according to Scripture to involve themselves in the process of soul winning.

We would also be willing to develop a very specialized series of events for your church to bring about the best results for increasing evangelism.  You can contact Pastor Kerry personally at juicyfruitchristianity”at” msn.com or by telephone 403-818-6467.