A few years ago, two friends (Wes Holland, Mike Adams) and I started a non-profit called New Hope Discipleship Ministries, to launch discipleship groups and evangelism efforts in rural Appalachia.  We are really happy to sponsor Beau, to invite you to hear from him so you can be blessed and equipped to encourage your people to share their faith naturally!

WHO: Beau Crosetto
WHAT: Getting Beyond Awkward in sharing your faith
WHEN: Monday Nov 13, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
WHERE: Morehead United Methodist Church, 227 W. Main Street, Morehead, KY
COST: $10 if you want us to provide lunch for you!
RSVP: Aaron Mansfield, 859-552-7203 or pastor.aaronmansfield@gmail.com - Please let me know you are coming, so we know who to prepare lunches for!

I would like to invite you to an evangelism training event that has paid dividends in my church:

My church has 44 professions of faith this year.

We have spent $0 on evangelism.

Now, that does not mean we have not spent money on programs that led to evangelism.  But that is the important shift, introducing evangelism to pretty much everything we do.  More than that, encouraging and equipping people to be evangelistic in their everyday life.

I remember where it started.  It was during VBS 3 years ago.  A rising 6^th grader asked me something about the Levitical priesthood (Yeah, I know!)  I knew that boy was going to accept Jesus Christ! He did, and we baptized him!

I am pretty extroverted so I am always ready for conversations like that and sometimes even start them!  But I started wondering how do I encourage others to do the same?  Turns out I did not have to look too hard.  I met Beau Crosetto at an Exponential Conference.  I was intrigued by his website, “Release the APE” ( www.releasetheape.com )I got his book, “Beyond Awkward,” and realized that I did not have to reinvent the wheel.  Here is a guy who is not selling an evangelism plan or a flow-chart of how to get saved.  Instead, Beau first encourages people to see that God has given them many opportunities to have conversations and encounters that can lead to faith.  And then he helps equip people to share their faith naturally.

Here’s where it gets interesting, or maybe where the fruit is apparent.  Our professions of faith have always been decent.  But I could always point to the person being baptized as someone I had made the first contact with.  Or any new visitors were people I had invited in the community.  This year and a half or so, most of our first-time visitors are people I do not know.  They were invited by others.  And some folks who are professing faith in Christ—it’s someone in our church who shared their faith with them!  Members are helping people come to Christ because they were bold enough to get beyond the awkward stage of a conversation about Jesus and find the ways that they are uniquely qualified to talk about Jesus to their friends and family.