Going Public with Your Faith Leader's Guide: Becoming a Spiritual Influence at Work (Paperback)

Chapter One

Spiritual Economics

Before You Lead

Synopsis

It is amazing to realize that God the Creator chose to use ordinary people to spread his message of salvation to the world. Who but God could have imagined that a mere handful of disciples-ordinary people who lived out their faith in everyday encounters in the home, neighborhood, and workplace-would grow to number more than half a million by the end of the first century!

Today, just as in the first century, God calls his followers to be his witnesses. Each of us has a part in distributing God's message to the world. We each have the privilege and opportunity to be part of God's process of drawing people to himself.

Unfortunately, few of us have had much success in evangelism. For many of us, the experience of sharing Christ has been uncomfortable, ineffective, and perhaps even counterproductive. The evangelism formulas and methods we have used just don't seem to work. Consequently, many of us have given up trying to fulfill our biblical responsibility to be witnesses. But we're not truly satisfied with that decision. Most of us want our lives to count. We want to make a positive difference-to be significant-before God, and many of us define this significance in terms of sharing the gospel and participating in the process of guiding people to faith in Jesus Christ. We don't want to look back at the end of our lives and think, I wasted it.

Bill Peel and Walt Larimore understand our desire to make a difference, our desire to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with people we care about. They have experienced our frustration too. They believe that our lack of effectiveness is due in part to the fact that we haven't fully understood evangelism as the Bible describes it. Through these six sessions, you will help participants discover evangelism as Jesus described it-not an event but a process. You'll help them realize that evangelism isn't simply imparting facts about God and humankind and pressuring non-Christians to receive Jesus on the spot. Rather, evangelism is more about "showing" Jesus to people, not "selling" Jesus.

Through the sessions that follow, you'll guide participants in discovering that the workplace is our culture's largest mission field. You'll help them discover how God can use their unique areas of influence, gifts, and abilities to significantly impact his kingdom. You'll help them discover their vital role in cultivating, or preparing, a person's heart to receive the gospel message.

God is already at work behind the scenes creating opportunities for each of us to share his truth and love with family members, friends, and associates. He will open the doors and supply us with everything we need to have meaningful discussions about spiritual topics. Our role is to discover what God is already doing in non-Christians' lives and to join that effort. By being an ambassador for Jesus in the workplace, each of us can become a pipeline of God's grace to people who would never darken the doorway of a church!

Key Points of This Session

1. God has a distribution plan for the Good News of Jesus Christ, and we are it!

Ordinary men and women are the means by which God has chosen to distribute the gospel to spiritually needy people. He is already at work behind the scenes creating opportunities for meaningful discussion about spiritual topics, and our role is to share our faith with people we encounter as opportunities arise. Our job as God's representatives is not to try to "start a fire in the rain," but to discover where he is already at work and to pour fuel on that fire.

2. Many of us want to actively participate in the distribution of the Good News, but our past attempts have often met with disappointing results. We need a new approach.

Discouraged by our past attempts, many of us have given up on evangelism-and that is detrimental to ourselves and to the world around us. So we need to take a new look at evangelism. We need to realize that evangelism, as revealed in Scripture, is not an event-a point in time when we recite the gospel message and expect non-Christians to pray to receive Jesus as their personal Savior. Rather, evangelism is a process by which we help people to take steps toward Jesus.

3. The fact is, we can participate in God's distribution plan for the gospel.

God has given us the gifts, abilities, and opportunities to help the people we encounter in daily life take steps toward faith in Christ. For most of us, the workplace-not the church or a foreign mission field-is the primary setting for effective evangelism. As ambassadors for Jesus in the workplace, each of us can become a pipeline of God's grace to people who might otherwise never darken the doorway of a church.

Suggested Reading

Introduction and chapter 1 of Going Public with Your Faith by William Carr Peel and Walt Larimore.

Materials

A television, VCR/DVD player, video/DVD, pens and/or pencils, Bibles.

Session Outline

53 minutes

I. Introduction (5 minutes) Welcome What's to Come Questions to Think About

II. Video Presentation: "Spiritual Economics" (15 minutes)

III. Group Discovery (27 minutes) Video Highlights (5 minutes) Large Group Exploration (10 minutes) Small Group Exploration (7 minutes) Group Discussion (5 minutes)

IV. Personal Journey (5 minutes)

V. Closing Meditation (1 minute)

(Continues...)