This week, John Leonard is shaking the tree on how we view “our testimony” in regard to evangelism. In the Reformed world, it’s pretty common to make the point that “our testimony isn’t the gospel.” That’s not new. But that’s not where Leonard is going with this one… “Testimonies are powerful. They are so powerful […]
Evangelism Reader's Digest
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #8 – The Inconvenience of Sowing Widely
Last week, John Leonard painted two pictures of evangelism, one an interesting and perhaps more natural way of “sowing widely.” Here he continues to expand and gives an example: “We sow widely by intentional interaction with the people around us. That is hard in a world where personal interaction is being eliminated. I’m a person […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #7 – Sow Widely
Jumping back into our “Get Real” series, John Leonard likes to give us new images of things—squashing stereotypes. This week it’s a common view of evangelism and whether you have “the gift:” “Many of us don’t even want to evangelize because of the stereotypes surrounding the traditional evangelist. We don’t see ourselves standing on a […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #6 – Listen More Than You Speak
We continue taking lessons from John Leonard’s book, “Get Real.” In the past couple posts, he has intentionally startled us with his opening thesis. Today, it seems like maybe he’s been with us on several occasions in our lives, maybe even hanging out with us at work or a group lunch! “It has happened to […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #5 – Who Gets Evangelized & Who Gets Discipled?
If you’ve been following along with our series on lessons from former Westminster seminary prof and current PCA pastor John Leonard’s book, “Get Real,” then you know he likes to throw some cold water in our faces to start an idea. This week is no different in his chapter, “Evangelize Christians and Disciple Non-Christians”: “Conventional […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #4 – An End to Friendship Evangelism???
We return to our series looking at lessons from John Leonard’s book, “Get Real.” This week Leonard opens with a jarring and pointed statement: “Friendship evangelism is not biblical! OK, that’s an overstatement. And yet, the conventional wisdom today is that friendship evangelism is the only form of evangelism.” Now, stick with him as he […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #3 – Party Evangelism
In “Get Real,” author John Leonard has an interesting chapter called “Party Evangelism.” There are two sections to the chapter. The first is establishing that the western mindset has distorted the focus of Christianity to overly individualistic at the expense of the community aspect. This distortion has a significant impact on the role of the […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #2 – Be Normal!
We are looking at lessons from John Leonard’s book evangelism called, “Get Real.” In his opening chapter, he poses the following story and commentary as the over-arching principle: “I have a problem,” began the young lady as she took a seat in my office. “My sister is coming to live with me and her life […]
Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #1 – Two Pictures of Evangelism
We are going to start a new series that will be interspersed with other topics and posts in the coming months. We are calling it “Evangelism Reader’s Digest.” We will take select chapters from good books on evangelism and share snippets from the chapter with our commentary and application for Reformed churches. Some of these […]