[This course is prepared from the book:
Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg, Becoming
A Contagious Christian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994). It also used course
materials developed by http://www.xaatuva.com based on the above book]
Contents
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1. Why Become a Contagious Christian?
1.1 People Matters to God
Who is a Contagious Christian?
·
Christ follower who has the heart
of God for the lost.
·
Christ follower who has high
potency for influencing others for Christ through his/her life style.
·
Christ follower who goes close
to lost people in relationship so that s/he can influence someone for Christ.
·
Christ follower who can
communicate gospel clearly and lead them to Christ
·
Christ follower who can be a
spiritual parent for his/her disciples
Why we are not able to become a contagious
Christian?
The reason that most of us struggle to be
contagious Christians is fear, uncertainty, and self-centered living that gets
in the way of what God is trying to do through us. This is a
matter of motive, and must be overcome by developing God’s heart for the lost.
What is God’s heart for the lost?
Ans: People matter to God
·
Anthropic Principle: Someone
took a lot of effort in the entire universe to make it right so that we could
enjoy our life on the earth. That’s why we really matter to God.
·
A lesson from business: There
is a shift in American corporate culture: shift from serving boss to serving
customer. This also shows that people matter.
What are the three common themes in the parable
seen in Lk 15?
1.
Something of great value was missing. The
spiritually lost people matter to God a lot.
2.
That which was missing was
important enough to warrant all-out search.
3.
Retrievals result in rejoicing.
People
matter to God. It is the heart of God for the lost. Since people matter to
God, people also matters to us irrespective of how/who they are.
Guiding thought:
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People
matter to God. It is the heart of God for the lost. Since people matter to
God, people also matters to us irrespective of how/who they are.
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1.2 Rewards of Contagious
Christianity
Personal Benefits
·
Adventure
·
Purpose
·
Fulfilment
·
Spiritual growth
·
Spiritual confidence
·
Enduring investment
·
The honour of being God’s agent
The cost of contagious Christianity
·
Time and energy
·
Reading and study
·
Money
·
Risk of embarrassment,
Rejection or Persecution
·
It complicates Your life
Guiding Thought
The reward for contagious Christians is high, great in value and eternal. Though the cost of contagious Christianity is not ignorable, the great reward makes the cost relatively low. |
1.3 Formula for impacting your world
Jesus gives us a clear picture of
what it means to be contagious Christians through the images of “salt” and
“light.”
Read Matthew 5:13-16.
·
Salt leads to thirst
·
Salt spices things up
·
Salt preserves
To have the greatest possible impact,
·
salt must be Potent enough to
have an effect
·
salt must get closer to
whatever it is supposed to affect.
What are the
functions of light?
Light illuminates things, so that we can
see things. It clears the darkness. Thus, light symbolizes a clear
communication (CC).
The Formula to Impact the World
The
command to be salt and light is the basis for the key idea of this study:
HP + CP + CC =MI.
That is,
High Potency + Close Proximity + Clear Communication = Maximum Impact.
To have
a maximum impact in the lives of those around us, we need to excel at each item
on the left of the equation. In order to be effectively salty Christians, we
must have high potency. If our lives don’t reflect Christ, we won’t have an
impact. We must also have close proximity to non-Christians. After all, what
good is salt if it never leaves the salt shaker? The key component to being the
light of the world is clear Communication. If we do good deeds, fight
injustice, and work for peace in the world, but never mention Jesus, what good have
we truly done?
Reflection questions:
1.Does
HP + CP + CC = MI accurately describe your life right now? Which part of the
equation
do you consider yourself strong at? Weak at?
2.Which one of the following options describes
your present condition more accurately?
a)I am a
person who has High Potency and Close Proximity, but no Clear Communication. b)
I am a person who has High Potency and Clear Communication, but no Close Proximity.
c) I am a person who has Clear Communication and Close Proximity, but no
HighPotency.
Guiding
Thought
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2.
PREREQUISITE OF HIGH POTENCY
Introduction
The
first element of contagious Christianity is High Potency. The three key
components of High Potency are authenticity, compassion, and sacrifice. We will
look at how each of these gives us a more credible witness and opens people’s
hearts to the gospel.
2.1 Authenticity
“Christians should be the good news before they share the good news.”
While not always the case, the fact remains that if we are going to share the
message of Jesus with our friends, our lives must agree with our message. This
is called authenticity. God knows we will make mistakes,
and He uses us despite our shortcomings, but we are still called to live a
consistent lifestyle.
Elements of Authenticity
a. Authentic identity: Just being you
God created all of us with a unique identity.
The greatest mistake that can be committed by any believer is to repress or
suppress this identity. Our authentic identity includes our unique personality,
temperament, passion and interest.
b. Authentic emotional life: Being real on the inside
Many Christians think that the authentic
emotional expressions are not suitable for their spirituality. So they hide
their hurts or grief and paste artificial smile on their face. Here two things
can happen: firstly emotional vertigo. It means a person outlaws his feeling,
he enters into emotional confusion. In such a case a person loses his ability
to experience emotion, he may not be able to recognize it when it tries to
break through and he does not know how to express it before others. Secondly, unchurched people can be repelled
by emotional inauthenticity.
c. Authentic confession: Being forthright about failure
Example of the young convert. We need to
admit our mistake and wherever it is needed , we need to confess and raise
apology. Our authentic apology has great impact on people. We should not
get into image building by hiding our
failures.
d. Living by genuine conviction: Living like we mean it
Unchurched people are not impressed with
spineless Christians. They respect our faith. When we confess our convictions,
it provokes them to think about their faith.
2.2 Compassion
As
contagious Christians, we must demonstrate compassion, not only because it is a
mandate from God (see Deut. 15:11, Jas. 1:17, Matt. 25:40), but because it
opens up people’s hearts. There is a tremendous pulling
power even in a single act of mercy. God wants such actions to draw people to
him. Our witness must be marked by a deep, genuine
love for people. Unfortunately, because many of us have fast-paced and have self-centered
lifestyles, our compassion quotient gets zapped.
Hindrances to our compassion quotients
a. Where you live:
Where
are you from matters a lot to bring compassion. A defeating home or work
environment can be a problem in our life to produce mercy. Compassion breeds compassion.
Love breeds love. Anger produces more anger. Hatred feeds hatred. We need to
deal with our destructive upbringing or defeated living situations to raise our
compassion quotients.
b. How you live:
Modern
work commitments and demands of modern life consume our leisure time
considerably. We live faster and faster. This often leads us into a crisis mode
of life. This can stop us to have compassion. If we come out from such a mode,
it will help us to have compassion in us.
c. How you give:
Excessive care giving can bring down your
compassion quotients. We need to meticulously balance caring for others and
caring for ourselves. This can prevent burn out in the process of giving
compassion.
d. What you have received:
We
all received God’s grace. Thus, we all are expected to give grace to others. We
are channels of God’s grace to others. Mother Theresa said “The wire is you and
me; the current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us,
use us and produce the light of the world-Jesus.
2.3 Sacrifice
Sacrificial
acts are rarely forgotten. To stand out as contagious Christians in our
narcissistic
culture, we need to live selfless, sacrificial lives (see Rom 12:1-2). The
sacrifices we make as college students may look like: staying up late and losing
study time to talk with a friend going through a crisis, giving up a Saturday
to volunteer at the homeless shelter, or driving an international friend to the
grocery store. “Sacrifices move people. They melt
people. They stop people in their tracks and make the ask, “Why? Why would you
go out of your way for me? What would motivate you to put my interests before
your own?”
Three areas of sacrifice
- Maximizing
your moments: Giving time is important.
- Reinvesting
your resources:
- Modelling
over the long haul: it means a consistent godly lifestyle.
Guiding
thoughts:
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3. THE POTENTIAL OF CLOSE PROXIMITY
Introduction
Even the
most highly potent person makes little impact for the Kingdom if he doesn’t get
out of the salt shaker eventually! That’s why close proximity is essential for
contagious Christians. Here are certain strategic ideas to develop a close
proximity with unbelievers.
3.1 Strategic opportunities
in relationship
To be
contagious Christians, we must spend time rubbing shoulders with people who
don’t
know Jesus. Think for a minute about whom you can most naturally and
effectively share your faith with. Who comes to mind? You are probably thinking
of a friend, a family member, someone close to you. We can most effectively
share our faith with those who trust and
respect us. Trust and respect are at the
heart of friendship, and friendship is the product of large amounts of close
proximity. Thus we need to develop relationship with
people before we share gospel to them. It is called by Bill as Barbeque
principal.
Barrier to building relationship
a. Biblical issues:
Often believers take biblical verses such as
“friendship with the world is hatred towards God,” or “come out from among them
and be separate” and argue that we should not build relationship with
unchurched people.
b. Spiritual danger:
1Corinthians
15.33 says that “Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character”? It is
mentioned in the context of wrong teachers who denied the resurrection of Christ from the death. This verse gives two
implications: Firstly, one can influence others in the area of faith that
matters in a relationship setting. Secondly, when we sense that we are
influenced negatively in the area of faith by anyone in any relationship, we
need to set back from such relationship.
c. Risking your reputation:
“But if I start spending personal time in
public places with pagans, you might say what will the people in my church
think?” Jesus was with irreligious people. Luke 7.34 says some called Jesus
as a friend of gluttons and drunkards.
d. Personal discomfort:
When
we make friendship with irreligious people, we may face lot of situations of
discomfort: foul language, ego, humour with off colour, wayward values, bad
habits etc.
Develop a strong relationship
Small talk, helping in their needs, encouraging for
their benefits, inviting for food, go for an outing, spend time, make regular
call or respond to his or her facebook wall, give a surprise gift etc
3.2 Rubbing shoulders with irreligious
people
Practical ways you can reach out to three
groups of people in your world: people you know, people you use to know and
people you would like to know.
People you know
Sometimes we have misconception that
evangelism needs to do with unknown people. However, there is a great
possibility with those who are trusting us and know our motives. Following are
two possible approaches:
a. Throw a “Matthew Party” (Lk 5.29):
Sports
events, holiday parties, events for kids on the block, snacks parties, baptism
receptions
b. Involve others in your everyday activities:
Sharing
a meal, watching the game, sporting activities, exercise time, babysitting and
work exchanges, children’s activities, strategic workdays
People you used to know
Some
of us may take initiative to contact our old friends. Sometimes it is essential
to lead somebody to Christ.
People you would like to know:
Strategic
consumerism: We need to try to develop friendship and
share gospel with people whom we see often when we go for shopping, grocery
stores, restaurants and so on.
3.3
Finding the approach that fits you
Common misconceptions
What are the things that comes to you when
you think about who is an evangelist?
Often misunderstanding stops us to assume
the role of an evangelist. That is why we need to know the different approaches
of evangelism.
Different approaches
i.
Peter’s confrontational
approach (Acts 2)
ii.
Paul’s intellectual approach
(Acts 17)
iii.
The blind man’s testimonial
approach (John 9.25)
iv.
Matthew’s interpersonal
approach (Luke 5.29)
v.
The Samaritan woman’s
invitational approach (John 4)
vi.
Dorcas’ service approach (Acts
9.36)
vii.
The incarnational approach of
Jesus (Jn 1)
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4. THE POWER OF CLEAR COMMUNICATION
The
last element of contagious Christianity is clear communication of the gospel.
This one is often seen as the scariest! However, if we live highly potent lives
in close proximity to non-Christians, clear communication will come more
naturally and more frequently!
4.1.
Starting Spiritual Conversations
Spiritual conversation brings spiritual impact.
Therefore, our aim should be to raise the topic. We may not able to share
gospel every time or people may not respond as we expect but the ultimate
concern is to raise the topic and build a conversation. There are three different
approaches that we can use for initiating a spiritual conversation. They are:
- The
direct method
- The
indirect method
- The
invitational method
1. The direct method
Here we will not wait for opportunity but
we create an opportunity. Here you straightforwardly raise the spiritual topic
and then see if the person is interested in talking about it. Following are some of the ideas/openers that
you can use for opening a direct conversations:
·
You can say to a person “if you
would ever like to know the difference between religion and Christianity, let
me know. I would be happy to talk to you about it.” It creates curiosity in
people.
·
How is it going today? People
may say either one answer of the following: I am fine or I am not fine. If a
person seems to going through tough situation, then you can ask to open up and
share gospel.
·
I am curious, do you ever think
about spiritual matters?
·
Who in your opinion was Jesus
Christ?
·
What is your spiritual
background? Were you taught in particular religious perspectives as you grew
up?
·
Do you ever wonder what happens
to us when we die?
·
Who do you think a real
Christian is?
·
Where are you heading in your
spiritual journey?
2. The indirect method
·
Business : How is your year
going? You replay something like “Well, financially okay; family-wise, pretty
well; and spiritually, things are great. Which one do you want to talk about?”
·
Relocation: when a person who
relocated to a new place may ask about place details. At such a time you can
also introduce your church.
·
Hobbies and spare time: if
anyone asks you about hobbies and spare time you can give replay like this: if
you are involving in worship team, you can say: I like to play music in our
worship team. If you involve in sound system can say: I like to handle sound
system in the church. If you involve in prayer team or any other team you can
say that.
·
Nature: you went to for a
flower show with a unbeliever, then you can say looking at the variety of
flower something like this: what an imagination God must have to make so many
different shapes and colour of flowers.
·
Sports/Music: if you are a
knowledgeable person on music and sport, then you can talk about believers in
that industry. It will help you to build up a conversation.
·
Shared struggle: if you see a
person who is going through a struggle that you also faced, then you can ask
that person something like: can I tell you about the higher power who has
changed my life? Or I also have a same struggle; Can I tell you how I overcame
it? Can I tell you some of the biblical principles that helped me to handle the
same struggle in my life?
·
Easter and Christmas
3. The invitational method
We need to invite people to seeker sensitive meetings/events. When
you invite people, you can keep following points with you:
·
Be very careful to select
events-whether concert, plays, movies, church services or social gatherings.
·
You can give some hand-outs to
people. It can be a brochure, hand written memo or an sms.
·
Offer them a ride and suggest
having a meal or coffee together after the event.
Overriding
principles
·
Pray hard
·
Talk to people individually
·
Pique curiosity: no need of
bringing gospel in direct fashion always you can drop hints and create
curiosity.
·
Relay on reciprocal reflexes
·
Seize-split second
opportunities: every day we get several opportunities to talk about God and use
it.
·
Do not underestimate their
degree of interest. Do not think that other person is hard core Hindu, not
interested in God and so on.
4.2 Making the Message
Clear
Often we have relationship and high potency
but we do not know how to share gospel. What are the points we need to share to
an unbeliever. This section will give you a clear idea about what is gospel and
illustrations for explaining it well.
Four Points of Gospel
1.
God:
·
God is love. He is compassionate.
He made us in his love.
·
God is holy. He separates us from
sin.
·
God is just. His judgments are
righteous.
2.
Us
·
God created us in his image and
likeness. Image represents that we are his representative to the world.
Likeness means we share certain qualities of God such as morality, love,
ability to make relationship and compassion.
·
God created us with free will
which means we have a complete freedom to make choices. But we have to face the
consequences of our choices.
·
God created us with spirit,
soul and body. Spirit helps us to relate with God. Soul gives self awareness
with emotion and intelligence. Body helps us to relate with physical body.
·
However, human beings misused
free will and disobeyed God. Consequently sin came to us.
·
Consequence of sin: death, we
are separated from God, deprived character, guilt, shame and punishment of God
3.
Christ
·
To deliver us from sin, God
took human form and came to this earth in Jesus.
·
Jesus was uniquely able to
solve the problem of sin because He was both God and man.
·
He had a virgin birth.
·
He had a sinless life
·
He died for our sins in our
place. He took our punishment upon him when he died on the cross.
·
He came back to life on the third
day and is still alive. He will come to this earth again.
4.
You
·
Now ball is in your court. The
salvation that offered by Jesus is completely free.
·
You can receive it through
FAITH in Jesus. Believing that Jesus died for your sins and resurrected on the third
day.
·
Confess your sins to Jesus
·
Take decision to follow him.
·
If you do this, your sins will
be forgiven and you will have a personal relationship with God as his child.
Illustrations
a. Do Vs Done
Religion can spell as DO. Because it consists of the things people
do to try to somehow gain God’s forgiveness. But Christianity can spell as
DONE. It means what we could never do for us has been done already for us by
Jesus.
b. The Bridge Illustration
c. The Roman Road
o
Romans 3.23:for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God.
o
Romans 6.23: For the wages of
sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
o
Romans 10.13: Everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Your personal story
“For God did not give us a spirit of
timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be a
shamed to testify about our Lord...” (2 Timothy 1:7-8a). Stories have power. It
is always better to keep few stories of dramatic life change though Jesus with
you in addition to your own story. Your own story can make a great impact.
Following four points should be included in your story.
1. (before) Your life before an encounter with Jesus
2. (the journey) Specific events that led you to encounter Jesus
3. (the decision) How you responded to this encounter with Jesus
4. (after) The positive change in your life since
You can write your story around these four
points. When you write/tell, try to be as specific and concrete as possible,
and use as little “religious” or “spiritual” language as you can. Shoot for 2
minutes, because even a stranger can listen for 2 minutes without feeling bored
or offended. When you’re sharing, it is much easier to expand it in the moment
and make it 5 or even 10 minutes, rather than try to shorten it.
Communication
Tips
·
Do not give a speech
·
Give it in doses
·
Be bold
4.3 Breaking the Barriers
to Belief
Divine perspective
Thomas tested Jesus before he believed in
risen Jesus. When those who have interest in Jesus raise some doubt or
confusion, we need to be patient enough to clear it. We should be like Jesus
who helped Thomas to believe in him in his confusion.
Barrier to Belief
1)
Misperceptions
a.
Poor examples
b.
Bad teaching
c.
Natural fears
2)
Intellectual roadblocks
a.
The historical accuracy of
Bible
b.
The logic of faith
c.
The problem of evil
d.
Christianity vs. science
e.
Hurdling the roadblocks
f.
All gods are one
3)
Moral misgivings
5. THE
PAYOFF: MAXIMUM IMPACT
5.1 Crossing the Line of
Faith
Approaching line
After sharing gospel to them, you can ask
questions like following. These turning point questions will shift the focus
from what you shared and from you to them. It will help them to take a
decision.
- Give up
on doing
and start trusting what Christ has done on your behalf?”
Stop trying to get over the sin chasm by
your own efforts, and cross over on the bridge that God has provided?”
- Acknowledge
the wages you’ve earned through sin, and receive the gift that is offered
freely through Christ?”
- Get beyond just studying about aviation, and actually climb
aboard the airplane?” (This is for those who know gospel for quite some
time but reluctant to take decision)
·
Do you like to receive Christ
in your life? Do you want to open the door for Christ in your life?
Assessing interest
After asking about question, you should
handle the responses of your friend carefully. If your friend responds
defensively, continue the conversation with caution. If they share the reasons
for their defensiveness, then you can help them further. Sometimes you can
thank them for giving you an opportunity to explain something that is very much
important to you. Your willingness to back off may lower their defensiveness.
Assessing understanding
Each one will understand the message
differently. We need to understand they take few days or month to process the
faith and take a decision. We need to continuously talk about Jesus with
different illustrations.
Assessing readiness
You may get the following options:
o
They are not yet ready: we need
to pray continuously for them and share more. If they are not open, then we
need to respect them and wait.
o
They are ready but still
confusion/concerns: we need to understand the barriers and work with them to
overcome those barriers.
o
They are ready: lead them to
salvation prayer.
Crossing the Line
·
relax
·
do not struggle for prayer
·
pray together in loud
·
ask them to pray
5.2 Getting Beyond the Line: Nurturing
a)
Meet
personally and teach the basic truth of Christ.
b)
Introduce
them into your mature cobeliever and pastor
c)
Invite
them into a care cell
d) Invite them to the church
e)
Build
them as a mature believer
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