I’m currently reading “Share Jesus Without Fear” by William Fay. Some of his suggestions look pretty good. Has anyone read this already? What did you think?

Hi Craig.
I googled and found All About God . Is that the gist of it? Do you think they are plagiarising? [Imagine Christians plagiarising!]

Sounds a bit like a rewrite of Evangelism Explosion methods.

Have only heard of one William Fay, & he’ll be 15 this year!!  [I called him William III when I taught him, as he was the 3rd eldest of seven Williams I taught at one time, all aged between 12 and 13].

Is this writer William Fay an Australian?

David, that web page summarises some of Fays techniques.

Tia, he is American.

I was given a ‘share Jesus without fear’ new testament at my ordination as deacon in 2002.
I think it was named such becasue of its size and hideability!

The books been floating around for a while - whats its big idea ?

It’s more a couple of techniques than a “big idea”. The first technique is a series of 5 questions that allow you to “gently” get to the point of sharing your faith. The questions are -

* Do you have any kind of spiritual beliefs?
* To you, who is Jesus?
* Do you think there is a heaven or a hell?
* If you died tonight, where would you go?
* If what you believe is not true, would you want to know?

Assuming the person answers “yes” to the last question, you hand them a bible and go through a series of bible verses with them. You ask them to read the verse out, then ask “What does that mean to you?”

Fay suggests you mark up a small bible, highlighting the verses and writing the page numbers of each subsequent verse in the margins, so the person can easily find them. His list of verses is -

Romans 3:23
Romans 6:23
John 3:3
John 14:6
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:15
Revelation 3:20

At the end you ask the person if they wish to “receive Christ”.

I quite like the questions he has come up with - I could see that possibly working in walk-up evangelism. He gives some good “real life” examples of how he has used them.

I also liked the way he used the bible. One thing I don’t like about 2WTL is that is requires all that bible verse memory. I’ve taught the course a couple of times, and about 80% of the participants effort goes into learning the bible verses.

Sure it’s good to learn the verses, but I don’t think it gives a lot of “bang for buck” in terms of learning how to evangelise. And it seems a bit pointless when you can easily look the verses up.

Also, if you are talking to an unbeliever, I think the memory verses just slide right past them - there is too much else going on in the presentation that is taking their attention. The last couple of times I’ve done 2wtl with someone I’ve just skipped doing the memory verses. Actually, I’ve got really lazy now and put the pictures into my mobile phone.

Anyway, I’d be interested to try the SJWF bible method in real life.

I’m all for evangelism, but worried by the concept of asking a person a series of questions, getting them to answer YES, and then telling them they are now a Christian, God guarantees it, etc.

For the musicians, I’d say it is like giving a short spiel on sonata form, and then thinking you have taught them all they need to know, after a few words about Expositions, Developments, Recapitulations, first and second subjects, bridge passages, codettas and modulations to the dominant and relative minor.

A quick check the next day may well be very revealing.

The most worrying thing is the pronouncing the person a Christian after they agree with you, pray the prayer, sign the form or whatever.

It doesn’t seem to be the way people became Christians in the New Testament. I’m sure that sometimes the person really is repenting, really does understand, and really does want to trust in Jesus for salvation.

But at other times this may not be the case and it is dangerous to make pronouncements that are not true.

But at other times this may not be the case and it is dangerous to make pronouncements that are not true.

I certainly understand your concerns David.

What is your preferred method of evangelism?

Hi Craig.

I don’t see Jesus “whipping out the Four Laws” as they used to say 30 years ago.

I’m happy with Dominic’s Introducing God, which of course depends on Two Ways to Live.

Not crazy about formulas, especially simplistic ones which seem to make the gospel simpler than the NT reveals it to be.

But in sharing the gospel, I’m disappointed that many systems do not seem to use the NT pattern of teaching people to repent, confess Jesus as Lord and be baptised.

Lots of systems base themselves on an incomplete version of the NT.

For instance, as a child, I was told [in a Baptist Church, may I add] that the gospel is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” from Acts 16:31, but if you read the next few verses, you’ll find that Paul must have actually shared more than that.

Hi David, I think I understand your criticism’s of current practice. What I’m wondering is, do you have a model that you would put in it’s place?

Ah… I’m the Christian with a ministry of criticism, not the one who has a ministry of fixing problems! [That’s a joke, by the way.]

I think Will Metzger’s book Tell the Truth is pretty sound, though a bit intense. I also like Randy [not of Short People fame] Newman’s Questioning Evangelism.

Nick Pollard’s Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult is also well worth reading.

I see the value of learning an outline such as Two Ways to Live. In fact it would be better if a person were familiar with several outlines.

But as far as parroting it off to everyone you meet, I think you could come over like Malcolm, the bloke with Asberger’s Syndrome in the film of the same name, where he is interviewing a prospective tenant : know the scene?