3133 Edition
March 12-18, 2012
Church Ministry News

Reported by Sam Lee

Written by Lydia Ma

Shou-Shan Presbytery in Kaohsiung is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and launching “4050 Evangelistic Movement”. This movement will be promoted alongside the PCT General Assembly’s “One-leads-One, New Doubling Movement. To equip local congregations for this movement, the presbytery invited Rev. Soong Hsin-le from Tingchin Presbyterian Church to speak on the topic of personal evangelism. Soong placed special emphasis on sharing the gospel through friendships and introduced an easy-to-use “Five Fingers Tool” for explaining the gospel.

The 4050 Evangelistic Movement is a 10 year plan beginning this year, the year of the 40th anniversary, and culminating on the year of the 50th anniversary. The presbytery’s Evangelism Committee has already planned 11 seminars to equip churches and each seminar consists of an “internalization” component and an “outreach” component. “Internalization” refers to Bible reading and devotional times and “outreach” refers to actualizing the “One-leads-One” movement and inviting people to church.

From his experience pastoring a local church, Soon said that he has witnessed individual church members lead more than 10 people to Christ. He has also witnessed couples lead many people to Christ through home visitations. He is convinced that every Christian is able to share the gospel and “One-leads-One” is a good church growth strategy.

Quoting a survey conducted in the US, Soong said that 79% of people become Christians because a friend invited them to church or shared the gospel with them. He said this to underscore the importance of witnessing to friends and added that whenever he sees a member of his congregation bring a friend to church, he openly praises that person.

From his own observations, Soong noted that PCT members tend to be attentive listeners whenever a pastor preaches, but lack the faith and fervor to act on what they’ve heard. He doesn’t attribute such behavior to laziness or unwillingness, but rather, to feelings of inadequacy, fear, and unfamiliarity with how to witness to someone, invite someone to church, or share the gospel publicly.

For these reasons, it is important to train and equip congregations to share the gospel and witness to friends in addition to encouraging them to always study the Bible and pray, Soog said. In this manner, they will be able to easily incorporate their faith in their conversations with friends.

Christians should also avoid using Christian lingo when sharing the gospel with friends, Soong said, which explains why the “Five Fingers Tool” is great. This strategy uses each finger to represent a component of the gospel message. The thumb represents God; the index finger represents sin; the third finger represents Jesus’ death on the cross for humanity’s sins; the ring finger represents human fragility, and the little finger represents the role of the church in nurturing God’s children.