Here is a practical and theological question for you:
If you needed to distill the Gospel down to something that would fit into a 2 x 3.5 inch space on a piece of paper (such as a brochure), what would you include and why? This space would allow you to write "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" 12 times without any formatting, so we are dealing with a very limited space.
I am the type of person who generally spends at least a half of an hour with explaining the Gospel when I deal with a person who expresses interests in salvation, so this "distilling" is a little difficult for me and I would like to enlist the wisdom of other believers.
What aspects of the Gospel would you include?
What verses would you include?
Would you write the points in your words and include references or would you have less points and quote the verses that you did use instead?
A couple of things to clarify as we begin:
1. If you choose to actually include the whole thing you would place in such a space, please do so - warning, if I like enough, I might steal it.
2. If you want to indicate which elements that you think are essential or at least most important to include in this type of situation, please do so. Feel free to even argue about why you think they are most important or necessary. However, once you have made your point and/or counterpoint, let's not take the thread down long rabbit trails.
3. In your comments - and in your responses to other people's comments - please remember that no one is claiming that things not included are not important, we are trying to work with a limited situation.
I would love to hear your thoughts,
Frank
Comparing the Scandinavian Countries
4 years ago
5 comments:
Many people talk about going to heaven when they die, but few realize why heaven will be an enjoyable place. The lack of sin, sickness, and sadness will be wonderful, but the real focus of heaven will be (and the focus of our gospel presentation should be) knowing God and his Son Jesus (John 17:3).
But "It's all about Him" is foreign to those who want it to be "all about me."
Know what I mean?
Frank, I wonder if a tract that simply emphasized the sinfulness of sin with a couple of questions at the end
... Does your sin bother you? It should. Do you want to know how your guilt can really be taken away? Write/call here...
Sometimes we can't say it all, and sometimes in trying to say it all we say nothing. Perhaps it might be better to point on the essential problem, and invite them to write/call for more.
I don't think you would get a lot of calls with that approach, but if you got any at all, they might well be fairly serious inquiries.
regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Andy and Don,
Thanks for your comments. For some reason, blogger is not sending me the notification regarding comments, so these got missed.
Andy,
I agree with your sentiments. Evangelism is often presented with a focus on man rather than a focus on Christ.
Don,
I like the idea of using this as a "whet the appetite" type of approach since the space is limited. I may end up using that, although it was not my original idea.
I guess I should clarify how I was using this (although I kept it purposely ambigous at first to see what kind of thoughts might be generated).
I am re-designing our church brochure so that it can be fit in a shirt pocket. I have already cut a lot of things out and I have one panel's worth of space for a gospel presentation (was going to be titled Our Message - like Our Services, Our Location, etc. in the brochure). In our current brochure, I did not include a Gospel message (it was full size and we generally hand them out with a tract). In the brochure before that, the Gospel presenation would have filled one whole side of this brochure.
Anyway, I am still thinking.
In Christ,
Frank Sansone
Hi Frank,
Well, I know there are many different ways to do this. I am going to try something this summer (I hope) that will attract some attention in our local area. More than anything I want what I hand out or how I use advertising in print media, etc., to be different from the usual. I especially want to challenge the status quo and hopefully get lost people to think about spiritual things. I want a response, good, bad, or indifferent, but some kind of real response.
Sometimes we get into a mode of doing what we do the way everybody else does, but little comes out of it. If I am going to get 'little results', I want my efforts to at least be different! I want to differentiate myself from everyone else.
BTW, I will preach my last messages from our Thru the NT series on Sunday. It has been quite an adventure. I am going to do a few messages this summer in a "Reflections" series, looking back at what we have learned from the 'big picture'.
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
How about an artistic rendering of the new creation showing Jesus and His Church in the center surrounded by the nations of the world and then a chasm and then - for emphasis - a single person on the other side of the chasm in a desolate land who is looking on at the joy of the other side but is not able to participate. Obviously, one expects, though not hopes, that there will be more than one person in the lake of fire but the "solitariness" of the one person will help paint a picture of the isolation of hell. Of course you might have to commission an artist to draw such a picture but then maybe there is someone within the congregation who has such a talent.
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