Pastors: Teach your people the gospel!

As members of the lead team for a Christian organisation, we recently had the privilege of interviewing candidates for a vacant position. We had some amazing talent present themselves. One thing that stood out, though, was a general inability, when asked, to successfully articulate the gospel.

During discussions following interviews, we determined that the issue here wasn’t whether the candidates were themselves genuinely born again, because they all displayed Christian virtues and outlooks.

The problem seemed to be that they had either not been given the tools by their local church leadership teams, or maybe they hadn’t picked up the information that was shared.

Either way, it was a strange phenomenon to observe believers struggling to relate the basics of the gospel message–how a person can be saved, and what Christ’s work on the cross was all about.

Essential gospel message

For our ministry, the ability to clearly articulate the gospel is an essential as we operate on the front lines of evangelism and are in a very good position to be asked to give a reason for our hope.

Although we mostly operate as gospel messengers by the good works we do, we are then in a position to articulate our faith when requested, and need to be constantly prepared to let people know what it is that makes us tick as a Christian agency, and what the basis of the good news is.

To this end our ministers need to be able to present the gospel at the drop of the hat, and also to be able to talk for an extended time or for a short time. Say we have three or four minutes to present the gospel during a working person’s life having been asked what it is all about, are we prepared to share the good news in a short amount of time between stops?

If this is true for otherwise excellently equipped potential ministers in job interviews, how is it for the rest of the Body of Christ? Are all believers adequately equipped to share the gospel message if asked to give a reason for their hope in Christ?

A health check for churches

Pastors, can you say for sure that your people are well able to share the gospel? Have you taught them on a regular basis how to lead a person to Christ? What is the gospel?

It is definitely the local church’s responsibility to ensure that their people know what the gospel is and how to share it with others. There are a great many books written, and teaching courses, of course, but it remains the task of Bible teachers to get this important truth across, and to make sure everyone is able to pass it on to others.

Statistically, the greatest and most effective form of evangelism is one-to-one ministry. It happens more often amongst friends and family than in the greatest of evangelistic rallies. Training church members to articulate the gospel in their own words is one of the most important services a church leadership team can enact.

Look out for more information on this site on how to effectively train a team to share the good news with friends, colleagues and family.