U.S. Mission Leaders Focus on 3-Step Evangelism Strategy
American mission leaders focused on a three-step strategy to evangelize cities across the United States at a recent annual conference.
Christian leaders at the Mission America Coalition (MAC)’s annual meeting last week in St. Louis, Mo., dedicated a full day to the “Prayer-Care-Share” strategy of evangelism. The approach calls for praying, by name, for those who do not know Christ, then caring for them with “tangible acts of kindness and love,” and lastly finding opportunities to share the Gospel.
“This simple but potent strategy of prayer, care, and share first begins with individual Christians within local churches,” explained Dr. Paul Cedar, chairman/CEO of MAC, to The Christian Post in an interview ahead of the conference. “Christians [who are] not merely focusing on themselves and churches [which are] not only looking inward [but] being mobilized to begin this wonderful lifestyle that we think is very Biblical – a lifestyle of praying and caring for lost people which is the great commandment that Jesus gave us – to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”
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Cedar, who spoke about the power of prayer at the conference, shared that his wife’s faithful and persistent prayer for their neighbors had helped lead some of their neighbors to Christ in the last few years.
The “Prayer-Care-Share” strategy is not new to MAC members but rather it is the basis for the “Loving Our Communities to Christ” (LC2C) evangelism model that was launched by MAC in nine pilot cities across the country earlier this year. LC2C, the current major MAC national initiative, is still in the beginning stages with pilot cities that include Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Charlotte, N.C.; Fox Valley, Ill.; Santa Rosa, Calif.; and Tuscaloosa, Ala .
Following Cedar’s presentation on “Prayer,” John Nichols, the executive director of the Lazarus Foundation, addressed the second step of caring for ones’ neighbor.
“I really believe that wherever there is a church, no one [should] go hungry in that community; wherever there is a Christian, that no one will go hungry in that neighborhood,” Nichols proclaimed on Oct. 11 according to an MAC report. “We are about a caring God, and we are about a caring church.”
Matthew Watts, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Charleston, W. Va. – one of the nine LC2C pilot cities – presented on the “Share” component of the evangelism strategy.
He said the greatest neglect of the Church is the evangelism and discipleship of children.
“The most dangerous society you can live in is a society that is free and children have no discipline,” Watts stated, saying that leads to anarchy.
He spoke about school-based mentoring programs, mentoring in the Church, and community-based re-sentencing re-entry initiatives for juveniles.
“Start where you can have some victory,” Watts said. “We have children and grandchildren in the public schools. Start mentoring programs in schools with people in the church. Win children to Christ.”
The director of the Billy Graham Center and the Proclamation Evangelism Network, Lon Allison, also spoke about the topic of sharing the Gospel to the conference attendees.
“I don’t believe that the Gospel is simple,” Allison stated. “The Gospel talks about cosmology, theology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, eschatology…You tell me that it’s simple to explain God squeezing Himself into tininess and living on planet Earth?...that blood atonement is necessary for the forgiveness of sin?”
Allison emphasized that language is important because God calls on mankind to proclaim His message through the power of words and public speaking by prayer.
“God calls us to take the complexity of the Gospel, pray like crazy, say ‘Jesus help me,’ and then just declare it as truth,” said the Billy Graham Center director.
