Evangelism on the Go!

There are many good books on prayer, and that is not the main focus of this book, however, one of the most meaningful prayer times while I was pastoring a church during revival preparation took place at a home prayer meeting. Many times, such meetings become “organ recitals” where we pray for everybody’s ailing organs, but we fail to pray for their ailing souls. We fail to pray evangelistically because we do not know how to pray evangelistically.
I led them through the ACTS acronym. Adoration. Confession. Thanksgiving. Supplication. I taught them that adoration means to praise God for who he is. I read some scriptures and then listed some of God’s attributes. Then we spent time in praying adoration to God. As the prayers began to cease, I moved to confession. I explained what confession meant, and then gave them a few minutes to pray in silence and confess their sins silently to God. After two minutes, I closed that section of prayer. They said that two minutes seemed like an eternity.
Next, we moved into thanksgiving. That is thanking God for what he has done. Rather than just talking about it, I had them speak directly to God in prayer. Finally, they realized that prayer was more than just asking God for items off a wish list. Only after completing the other three parts of prayer were we able to move into supplication.
Supplication means asking God to supply a need. I told them to ask God to give salvation to people they knew of. Instead of asking others to pray for someone, I told them to address God directly, out loud, and let the others support that silently in their prayers as each person had the opportunity to pray.
One participant in the meeting who had been raised in a very formal religious tradition was impressed by the natural flow of that meeting. Even though it had a structure, it was not rigid. He said that he had never experienced anything like it before.
Several months after that prayer meeting, this man approached me about assurance of salvation. After I had conducted a funeral, he called me one Sunday afternoon and wanted to schedule a meeting with me that afternoon. During the funeral, I had spoken of the assurance that the woman had from following Christ. He asked how he could have that same assurance. Although I suspected so, he did not have a relationship with God. That day he came to know God personally. He asked me, “Why don’t all churches teach this?” I explained that many people simply believe that if you go to church a few times each year, do a few good things, and put some money in the plate, you are going to heaven. Before he left, he asked me to pray for him as he had some medical tests coming up, and he was concerned about them.
That was December. The next March, I conducted his funeral. The tests revealed that he had a brain tumor that he did not survive. Before he went to the hospital, he stood up in church and told how he had come to have assurance of his salvation, which he had never had before. He gave his testimony, and encouraged others to make sure of their salvation. None of us suspected that not long after that testimony, he would be in the Lord’s presence. You never know when you might be the last person who gets to present the plan of salvation to someone. It could be their final destiny.
Get off the sidelines and get into the evangelism game!