Evangelism and Spiritual Warfare, Mentor's Guide, MG08

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E V A N G E L I S M A N D S P I R I T U A L W A R F A R E

Too Heavy of a Load to Bear

In an evangelistic training session at church, a young Christian is disappointed and discouraged. She enrolled in the course because she was interested in sharing the Lord with a number of her coworkers, and thought the course would be a wonderful blessing to help her prepare for this. Once in the course, however, she was stunned at how much the instructor suggested they needed to know in order to share the simple message of the Good News with others. She had shared Christ with others before, but never knew any of this “new stuff” the instructor was talking about. Frustrated, she asks you why do you have to know all of that doctrinal stuff if all you want to do is to share Jesus’ love with others. When is enough enough already? How much do we need to know in order to share the Lord effectively with others? Although the New Testament provides a number of titles to the good news of Grace in Christ, they all refer to the one, true offer of God’s grace in Jesus. The Gospel must be proclaimed in word and demonstrated in love, and the essence of the Good News is the confession of Jesus’ lordship and heart faith in God’s raising him from the dead. A clear, expanded doctrinal content of the Good News message is contained in the Nicene Creed, which provides a clear, useful, and powerful outline of the critical truths associated with Jesus’ incarnation, passion, resurrection, ascension, and Second Coming.

Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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If you are interested in pursuing some of the ideas of Evangelism: The Content of the Good News of the Kingdom you might want to give these books a try:

Resources and Bibliographies

Ladd, George Eldon. The Gospel of the Kingdom . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

Shenk, David W. And Ervin R. Stutzman. Creating Communities of the Kingdom . Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1998. Snyder, Howard A. Kingdom, Church, and World . Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1985.

The idea of the Gospel and its content is critical to your ministry, and undoubtedly the Holy Spirit has highlighted a particular issue or idea for you that has a real practical ministry connection unique to your own life and ministry. Survey your

Ministry Connections