Need evangelism is producing effective Kingdom results! We live in different and difficult days! “Unhappiness is at a record high”, according to Gallop. “People feel more anger, sadness, worry and stress than ever before”.
What is need evangelism?
George Barna explains, “Evangelism that starts at the non-believer’s point of felt need and ties the gospel into that area of need has the greatest capacity for capturing the mind and heart of the non-Christian”.
Bill and Wilma Watson spent many productive years in Ethiopia as missionaries. They have found that understanding and meeting people’s needs is an effective bridge to present the gospel.
Need evangelism captures people’s hearts!
These veteran missionaries make people feel loved and accepted. They lovingly seek to capture the hearts of the people they are with, by actively listening to their interests and concerns.
Then when the time is right to share the Good News, they offer to share a Bible verse of comfort or encouragement and ask if they can pray for them. This leads to the next step to have the unbeliever become a child of God. It works every time!
Examples of how need evangelism works.
A thirty-year-old man had just been released from prison for drug trafficking, for the fourth time.
After listening to his story, Bill asked him if he died tonight, would he go to Heaven? His reply was an emphatic, “Yes”. “What makes you so sure”, Wilma enquired. He assured them that he hadn’t murdered anyone! He was basically a good person for he would give a discount if they couldn’t afford the drugs.
God gave Wilma the wisdom to ask him if she could share something from her cell phone. She went to her Bible app. and asked him to read Ephesians 2:8.
After reading God’s Word his eyes filled with tears and he asked, “What should I do now?” He became a child of God there and then.
Another example of need evangelism
(The Bible verse used to bring comfort and encouragement would depend on the person’s need, whether they felt unloved, rejected, stressed, fearful, worried, angry or sad).
Gaining a hurting person’s confidence is a journey. Bill and Wilma spend time listening to and understanding the person’s concerns. When they sense that the person is relaxed, feeling loved and accepted, Wilma asks if she could show them something from her cell phone. For a stressed, worried person she reads from her Bible App: 1 Peter 5:7, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.”
Bill assures them that God sees and lovingly cares about what they are going through. He then asks if he could pray for them and give God, the Creator of the universe, all their concerns.
They all affirm that they would appreciate that.
He prays something like this: “Thank you, Jesus, for comforting and being with _____ during this difficult time. Free _____ from all his/her concerns, worries, fears and stresses and and fill him/her with heaven’s peace”.
He then enquires if they feel better! When he/she indicates they do, he asks, “Would you like me to show you how you can have that peace living inside you permanently”?
Bill and Wilma have led hundreds one-on-one to Jesus using need- evangelism. Their success rate is extremely high!
Teaching and effective tools equip others how to apply need evangelism.
The Watson’s daughter Leanne commented,” You should share with others how you both so effortlessly win so many to Christ”.
They shared Leanne’s request with a Pastor friend. He believes that Christian’s lack of confidence keeps them from sharing their faith. He suggested that they first teach how to overcome feelings of inadequacy, the fear of not getting it right and the fear of rejection.
Embracing and Sharing God’s Grace
Wilma has now completed a course called, ‘Embracing and Sharing God’s Grace’. The first half deals with putting off the hindrances that keep people from walking/flowing in the Spirit.
Bill and Wilma have proven that when you walk in the Spirit, and you expect and believe that God would use you, He will send people who have an unmet need across your path.
The second half of the course shares how to pray scripturally for the unsaved. The participants will learn, with the Holy Spirit’s enabling and wisdom, how to ask open-ended questions and make need evangelism effective.
View the course at – https://breakfreetoday.org/amazing-grace/
You will love this clear scriptural presentation!
Hundreds have become children of God in this clear, step by step presentation of the gospel, using John 1:12. The online PDF in English and other languages, can be shared by email or SMS and stored on people’s phones for optimal use.
There is also a downloadable children’s edition of the presentation.
Check the presentations out – https://breakfreetoday.org/become/
Bill and Wilma have shown over the many years of ministry that the best way to add new people to a church, is to mobilize members on how to win the lost. (They trained the Ethiopians on how to lead their friends and family to Christ and witnessed many thousands saved, enabling them to establish over 250 churches).
They have made it easy and effective for your church to help every believer fulfil their God-given purpose, empowering them to have the joy of leading their connections to Christ!