You possibly will have noticed that the three examples of how my wife and I bridged the gap between an ESL/TESOL activity and sharing the gospel were with people whose language my wife and I already spoke. But what can be done if no one in your program speaks the language of the students with whom you want to share the gospel?
That presents a difficult problem for any church/ministry trying to use an ESL/TESOL program to share the gospel because all the evidence points to the fact that comprehension of the gospel is best when the gospel is shared in the “heart language” of the listener. However, this is not an unsurmountable problem. Let me share some suggestions.
One of the first things anyone involved in an ESL/TESOL ministry should do is begin to pray that God will bring people around their ministry who speak the heart language of most/many of the students that will be attending the classes. God can move His sons and daughters around to make them available to your ministry! These could be people who live in the area who are already Christians, even members of another congregation that speak that language. However, I would not recommend the use of non-Christian interpreters because you would not be sure of what they are communicating.
If you have a lot of Spanish or French-speaking students in your ESL/TESOL ministry, you might recruit some spiritually mature high schoolers who are studying Spanish or French to become resource people to work alongside the teachers when the personal relation with a native speaker of one of those languages develops to the point where sharing the gospel would be natural.
Another option would be to have one or two people in your group accept the challenge of learning the target language of those attending the classes. They would need to learn not only basic communication skills in that language, but also specific “religious” vocabulary in order to convey the truths of the gospel.
Do not overlook the tremendous value of what I call “body” evangelism. One example of this was mentioned in my wife’s description of the how several people from our church reached out to, and served Consuela and Ricardo when Consuela suffered a miscarriage. Those church members did not speak Consuela’s language, but they showed love and generosity and emotional support, even when they did not speak her language. Some of the best evangelism occurs when members of the Body of Christ, through friendship and serving others, break the ice by giving of themselves to a non-believer. Each believer has a gift God has given them to function in the Body. Some will be gifted in evangelism, others in generosity, others in hospitality, others in service. Evangelism is not just an “individual sport”, but rather a “body sport”. And the ones who are often “greater” in this ministry are precisely those who are more in the background.
Another way to, at least partially, solve the language problem would be to have a series of “question-and-answer” evangelistic Bible studies (like the studies we use based on the Gospel of John) in both English and the heart language of the student with whom you want to share the gospel. Even with limited English skills a person who has the printed Bible study and the Scriptures in his/her heart language can generally communicate in basic terms what he/she understands from the study. The Spirit can use the Scriptures in that person’s heart language to show him/her the truth, and in simple English the one witnessing to him/her can clarify any doubts.
In any case, the ministry should have on hand copies of at least the Gospel of John or perhaps New Testaments in the target language, and supplemental literature (such as gospel tracts and evangelistic Bible studies) in that language.
Lessons to be Learned
The most basic step to creating a bridge to sharing the gospel is to cultivate relationships with at least a few of the students in a TESOL, ESL program (or sports or women’s club, etc.). Relationships are what open doors, and without them, any attempt to share the gospel will most likely fail. Two people had the same opportunity to build bridges to the Fernandez [1] brothers. One condemned and separated himself from them; I sought them out, prayed for them and developed a relationship with them.
How that relationship will start has an infinite number of possibilities. How I did it, or how Wilma did it, might not work for you, but you must find some common ground with which to start a relationship. As you have seen in this article, even the topic of sex can be used by God to help build that bridge.
Although eventually the doctrinal aspects of the gospel will need to be highlighted, people need to get to know Jesus Christ as a person. They need to see how He interacted with people in the Gospels, they need to understand that He loves them. In short, they need to be put into prolonged contact with the Scriptures. The Spirit uses the Scriptures to draw them to God. It doesn’t matter if they don’t believe the Scriptures are inspired by God. The Word of God is still sharp and powerful as a two-edged sword and strikes to the heart of the person.
Our student ministry building was just across the street from the Dental School of one of the largest universities in the world, and their volleyball team needed a place to practice. We had a basketball/volleyball court behind our building, so when the coach asked if they could practice on our court, my answer was “yes, of course.”
What follows, as you can see, did not happen in an ESL or TESOL ministry, but it does illustrate how to take any circumstance and use it to open a door for sharing the gospel.
I often watched their practices and soon became intrigued by the fact that one of their best players on the team was a very short guy. After one of their practices, I introduced myself to that player and he told me his name was Iván[1]. One afternoon when the team was practicing one of the men in our Bible study group from our church came by to see me and noticed Iván playing volleyball on our court. His comment to me was, “What in the world is Iván doing here? He lives in the apartment just below ours. He and his brothers are wild, and I mean really wild party animals! They have wild drunken sex parties all the time!” I asked him if he had ever tried to share the gospel with them. “Share the gospel with them? Not on your life! They are troublemakers!”
When the university’s intermural volleyball competition began, I started attending some of their games, thinking I might find a way to witness to some of the players. After one of the games, I walked onto the court and struck up a conversation with Iván. I asked him how was it that he, a very short player, was one of the best on the team. He shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t know . . . perhaps his enthusiasm and commitment to the game. We talked a little about what chance he thought the team had in the league with other schools on the campus.
I finally asked him what he liked to do in his free time, besides volleyball. Iván brightened and said that he and his two brothers had a music group and they loved playing music. When I asked him what kind of music they liked most, he said Andean music, which was a little surprising because that style of music is not well known in that country.
I think Iván was a little surprised, but also excited, by my next comment. I told him that from time to time we have groups of American students come to our student center for a week to help us, and if they would be open to it, I would like to invite them to come play the next time a group came down (which was only a little over a month away).
That group of American students were coming to help us do evangelism on campus and in our student center. There was only one problem. Just before that group arrived, the university students went on strike and there was nothing for the American students to do because the university was completely closed. However, I decided we would have a party at our house and invite Iván and his brothers to provide music.
When the Fernandez [1] brothers showed up at our house that Friday night for the party they were about half drunk, and spent most of the night, when not playing their music, flirting with, and trying to touch or hug the girls. Fortunately for us, the girls in the group were spiritually mature enough to know how to turn the boys away without making them feel rejected.
The following Monday, all three of the Fernandez brothers showed up at my office. The American students had already returned to the U.S., but the brothers wanted to talk with me. They apologized over and over again for showing up half drunk, and I assured them that it was not a problem. To my surprise, they said they had a question about the girls. “In all our years and experience with girls, NO girl has ever turned down our advances! Not once! What was going on with those girls?”
I smiled and told them, “Let me explain something to you guys. Jesus Christ has transformed the lives of those girls and they now have a very different concept of sex. They have decided to save the beauty of their sexual experience for the special man God has for each of them in the future. They want to bring honor to God with their sex life.” That completely blew the mind of those three young men and they began peppering me with all kinds of questions and just could not wrap their minds around that whole concept.
I asked them if they would be interested in studying the Bible with me to help them understand what made those girls so different. They were somewhat non-committal, and it took us several months to get them to agree to study the Bible with us, but when they did accept, they asked if we would be willing to drive down each week to a small town south of the university to do the studies there, so their mother could also join the study.
Once a week for the next three or four months we met them at their mother’s house to study the Bible. We went through four studies based on the Gospel of John and another four studies called “Encounters with Jesus,” mostly based on Luke’s Gospel. The mother was the first to accept Christ, but the three brothers eventually gave their lives to Christ. They later lead their divorced father and his new wife to Christ.
[1] Names have been changed to protect these individuals’ privacy.
I met my wife, Wilma, in Costa Rica as a young, single missionary. Her university training was in teaching elementary students, but she has prepared herself extensively in teaching English as a second language. She taught ESL at the local community college for some eight years, until the COVID pandemic shut down that program. The following is her description of one of the ways she makes the transition from a secular ESL program to sharing the gospel. She writes:
During one ESL semester, the group of students was very integrated and got along very well. The size of the group was not too big nor too small: just eight students. Among them was Consuela[1], who was well along in a pregnancy. Sometimes her older daughter, who was bilingual, would accompany her to make sure she was fine. As time drew near to her due date and she was still attending classes, I suggested to the class that we give her a baby shower.
The students decorated the class, brought goodies, cake and presents. She arrived, as always, to find herself the center of attention as everybody yelled “Surprise!” And it was a real surprise! She was overcome with tears of joy and excitement. After delivering five babies, this was her first baby shower. The party went on for some time, and when it was time to go, I asked the students if I could pray for Consuela and her baby. Everyone agreed so I prayed a simple prayer for them. She turned to me and said, “That is what I needed.”
She gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and I went to visit them at their house. We talked about God and she had many questions, so I offered to study the Bible with her. She happily agreed, and I gave her a Bible.
The next week I arrived at her house we began a Bible study from the Gospel of John. It was a joy to work with her over the next three weeks and see the Holy Spirit work in her life. After the third study, when I asked her if she would like to accept Jesus as Lord she responded: “Yes, with all my heart!” I was so happy that there was a new child of God. There was joy in heaven!
We continued to meet and soon she started attending church. Her husband, Ricardo[1], was not at all interested so he stayed home with two of their children who were autistic.
Consuela and I prayed for her husband. As time passed, he started watching her and noticed her new life in Christ full of joy and peace. I gave her a little booklet that contained Christian truths. She left it on a table where he could see it, and one day, he finally read it. He surprised her soon after when he told her that he was going to visit the church with her the next Sunday. He was very impressed with the service and became very motivated to continue attending.
Sometime after, they suffered a crisis in their family: Consuela had a miscarriage and both she and Ricardo were very sad. But in this time of sorrow, several members of our church reached out to help them. Ricardo and Consuela were very thankful to have experienced the love and support of the church and through this experience they learned to trust God in every situation that He allowed to come into their life.
They continued being part of the church and were very faithful in attendance. After a few months, Consuela decided to obey the Lord in baptism. After the service was over, Ricardo came to my husband, Lloyd, and told him: “If the pastor had asked one more time, I would have gone forward to be baptized too.” Lloyd told him that the next Sunday there would be baptisms again and suggested he could be baptized then. Ricardo said that first he wanted to meet with Lloyd during the week sometime. He came to our house and Lloyd explained to him the meaning of baptism and who can be baptized. He asked Ricardo if he wanted to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He said he did. He was excited about declaring his faith in Jesus. The next Sunday He too was baptized.
Before the service started, Ricardo gave Lloyd a little box to hold. After the baptisms were over, he asked Lloyd for the box and went to the front of the sanctuary. The pastor told the congregation that Ricardo had some words to say. He told the congregation: “I have just been baptized, as you saw. I want to do what the Lord asks of me.” He went and knelt in front of Consuela and asked, “Would you marry me?” She was completely surprised, and of course very happy. The whole congregation started applauding with joy and everybody was crying with excitement.
Ricardo and Consuela had lived together for many years and they had seven children together, but they had never married. So, at that moment he was, for the first time, asking her to marry him. The church gave them a beautiful reception when they married a few weeks later.
That happened about ten years ago and they have been faithful to the Lord, and in these years have reared a beautiful family. One of their daughters just returned from her second mission trip to Guatemala in two years. This is a beautiful family that serves Christ in their church, and all this began with a baby shower in an ESL class at a secular university.
[1] Names have been changed to protect these individuals’ privacy.
When I met Alejandro[1], the first thing I did was get to know him on a purely social level, outside the religious context of the church. I could have chosen any number of activities from sports, cultural events, or inviting him to spend some time with my wife and me in our home. In this case, he and I chose to meet for coffee several times over a period of a few weeks. During that time, I wanted to get to know as much as I could about him as a person, as well as feel out his depth of spiritual interest and experience. Alejandro was a student at one of the local state universities, majoring in international finance. We talked a lot about political situations in Latin America and specifically about what was going on in his home country. His political convictions were quite different from my own convictions and there was a lot of back-and-forth discussion with him challenging my beliefs and me challenging his.
During these times together I asked about how he came to attend our church and I casually tried to ascertain whether he was a born-again Christian. Since he grew up in a predominately Roman Catholic country, his basic spiritual formation was Roman Catholic, but he had been attending our church for over a year. He told me he had given his life to Christ during that time. However, from our experience in working with Roman Catholic and evangelical university students in three different Latin American countries, we never take for granted that even “evangelical” students are actually Christians. So, after a few weeks I asked him if he would be interested in studying the Bible with me.
Even with pastors’ and deacons’ children we always begin by doing a series of four evangelistic Bible studies based on the Gospel of John . . . because we have had pastors’ and other church leaders’ children, after going through those studies with us, admit that they had never really given their lives to Christ. We sometimes discover little difference between Roman Catholic-background and evangelical-background students. Often, both have a religion, but not a relationship with Christ.
The leaders of that ESL ministry wanted to start a spiritual ministry to Spanish-speakers and to plant a Spanish-speaking church (or campus) sometime in the future. However, several years into that ESL ministry, there was no visible movement toward accomplishing that goal.
As we did the evangelistic Bible studies, it was evident that Alejandro had in fact become a believer, although his moral life had not changed much, and we spent time talking about some of his struggles in that area. He soon asked if he could invite a couple of friends to join us in Bible study. Those friends began to invite their friends, and within a few months we had our living room filled each Friday night with young people who came to study the Bible. During the next year and a half at least a third of those attending were non-Christians. What really blew my mind was that those non-Christians really seemed to enjoy the Bible studies. Never in all my experience in Latin America had I ever seen non-Christians who loved studying the Bible. Gradually some of those non-Christians gave their lives to Christ . . . while some others rejected the gospel and gradually distanced themselves from the group.
With a group of around 30-35 attending the studies (not all at the same time!) we began considering starting a Spanish-speaking campus for our church. At that point the leaders of the ESL ministry joined forces with us (though none of their students ever attended the once-a-month services with which we soft-launched the campus). Those 20-25 Christian students (several of them new believers) from our weekly Bible study became the core leadership group of the campus when we officially launched the weekly Spanish-speaking worship services.
I eventually came to realize that it was not so much that those non-Christian students and young professionals loved studying the Bible. I realized that all those young people were separated from their friends and families in Latin America and they felt drawn to our weekly studies because they longed for close friendships . . . and enjoyed the food we always shared together after the studies. They saw in those Christian students attractive examples of young people who knew how to enjoy themselves in wholesome ways, and were surprised to see Christians who accepted them, loved them, and did life with them.
Today that Spanish campus runs nearly 300 in attendance each Sunday and has grown way beyond a group of young people to include young couples, families with children of a wide range of ages, young professionals, day laborers, and even many elderly people.
[1] Names have been changed to protect these individuals’ privacy.
Has your church/ministry decided to start an ESL ministry with the hope of opening doors to share the gospel with non-English-speaking people in the community? If so, the million-dollar question is: how to move from just teaching English to using the ESL ministry to open doors for sharing the gospel?
When a church or ministry moves outside of what most would consider “normal” church activities (regular services, revivals, Sunday School, children’s and youth ministries, etc.), it has been our experience in over 50 years of sharing the gospel that churches tend to struggle with how to make the jump from less “religious” activities (like a n ESL ministry) to the desired goal of sharing the gospel. Whether that activity be a women’s club, a sports program, a tutoring program, or an ESL ministry, most churches struggle with knowing how to build the bridge to sharing the gospel.
A recent personal experience of mine will illustrate a solution to that problem. When we retired from our ministry as missionaries in Latin America, we began attending a fast-growing, soon-to-be multiple-campus mega church. The area where we live has a large immigrant population composed of many nationalities. However, the most visible effort the church had made to reach any of those immigrant groups was a small ESL program started and staffed mostly by dedicated young people that met in a different church’s building in an area of the city where many Latin American immigrants live.
The leaders of that ESL ministry wanted to start a spiritual ministry to Spanish-speakers and to plant a Spanish-speaking church (or campus) sometime in the future. However, several years into that ESL ministry, there was no visible movement toward accomplishing that goal.
Since most of our ministry in Latin America was centered around evangelizing and discipling university and high school students, one of the first things I did when we started attending the church was to look for any Latin American youth/students in the worship services. I finally spotted Alejandro, a Latin American university student and invited him to get coffee with me one afternoon.
To be clear, you will notice that my experience did not begin with a TESOL program, but what I didas I got to know that young man is illustrative of how to bridge the gap between a secular activity and our spiritual objective. My wife, further on in this article, will share her experience with a secular ESL program in our city and how she reached an entire family for Christ. Then I will share another example of how I used a sports activity to reach an entire family for Christ.
How far are the nations from your front porch? They’re closer than you think. The nations are all around us. To reach them, we must understand who they are. Just like us, internationals are not all the same. Here are just a few of the types of internationals among us:
International Students – Around 975,000 students from other countries are studying at universities in the U.S. Over 57% of them are from just four countries—China, India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Immigrants – The number of immigrants and their children born in the U.S. is approximately 80 million, or 25% of the total U.S. population. The number from Asia now roughly equals those coming from the Americas.
Refugees – As symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. has long been a target destination for people seeking refuge from troubled countries. In FY 2015, the U.S. admitted 70,000 refugees. More than one-third came from the Near East/South Asia (esp. Iraq, Iran, Bhutan, Syria, Afghanistan). Another one-third came from Africa (esp. Somalia, D.R. Congo, Sudan, Eritrea, Burundi), and one-quarter came from East Asia (esp. Burma).
How Can We Connect with the Nations in Our Midst?
Getting involved with the internationals around us is quite simple, but it requires intentional effort. If you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few ideas:
1. Start up a conversation with the clerk at a convenience store. If you go into a convenience store and the clerk’s name tag or appearance or accent gives you the impression they are from another country, they just might be. Introduce yourself and ask them where they are from. Decide to become a regular customer to get to know them better. Who would have thought that buying gas at a local convenience store could turn into a cross-cultural encounter?
2. Visit an ethnic market. In some cities (and even some smaller towns), you can find a grocery store or market that caters to international people from Asia, Latin America, Africa or the Middle East. Make a point to go shopping at that store and ask a clerk some questions about the international products. (Tea, coffee, and snacks are great conversation starters.) After the store owner or clerk recovers from their shock that a non-international would enter their store, they’ll be pleased to have you as a customer. They’ll be even more amazed if you try to build a friendship with them.
3. Befriend an international student. Many international students (some say 70-80%) never set foot in an American home. You can change this statistic. Universities often welcome volunteers from the community to serve as “friendship partners” with their international students. Go to the university’s website and search on “international student programs” to see what type of friendship programs are available. You might be just the friend that an international student is looking for.
4. Share a Meal Together. People all around the world love to eat, believe it or not. Inviting a student into your home for a meal can provide the context for fruitful discussions. Universities often have programs where you can bring an international student over to your house for a meal. NC State University, for example, offers a program called “Breaking Bread” through the Office of International Services to give students a “taste” of American culture. Internationals also love to share food from their country with Americans. Sharing a meal together might even give these students a hunger for the Bread of Life.
5. Help a refugee family. As illustrated in the article “Assisting Refugees Opens Doors for the Gospel,” (link to article on the PNDNC website) your church can demonstrate the love of Christ in practical ways to refugees. Organizations such as World Relief would love to have your involvement in helping a family coming to the U.S. from very difficult circumstances. The World Relief office in Durham, NC, for instance, has numerous ways to provide assistance. Serve on a “Welcome Team” to greet the refugees at the airport and welcome them to the U.S. with open arms. Recruit some other families from your church to form a “Good Neighbor Team” that will visit a refugee family on a regular basis. Become a friendship partner to assist a refugee in their adjustment to the U.S. Relatively small acts of service can make a significant impact on a refugee family.
6. Give the Gift of Language. Maybe you’re not a teacher (or maybe you are), but if you’re reading this you have a gift that many internationals desperately need: English. Share this gift by becoming a conversation partner with an international neighbor or friend. Some universities have “conversation clubs” where local volunteers can hang out and just talk with international students. You can develop skills in ESL (English as a Second Language) by attending a workshop or enrolling in a certificate program. Perhaps your church could start an ESL program to minister to the needs of internationals in your community. And what about learning another language yourself? Making the effort to learn another person’s language goes a long way in building relationships.
The peoples of the world are next door. To reach them, we just have to step off our front porch.
Billy has an M.Div. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) and an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Alabama. Billy serves as an adjunct instructor at in the ESL certificate program at SEBTS. He has taught ESL for Westminster Theological Seminary in the Mastering Theological English Program, for North Carolina State University in the Intensive English Program, and for Messiah University in the TESOL certificate program. Billy and his wife, Mary Jo, and their three children, lived in Taipei, Taiwan for nine years, where he served at Overseas Radio & Television, Inc., a Christian media ministry.
How does culture tend to shape our presentation of the gospel?
I have already touched on this some: we are much more direct in our communication style than many other cultures in the world, and we tend to think that this is much better . . . because we are used to being direct. But many cultures in the world, including Asian and Latin American cultures, are more indirect in their communication style. Our style is not necessarily better than theirs.
Probably one of the most difficult things for us to understand about our culture is the individualism that permeates the U.S. worldview. We have a difficult time adjusting to people from other cultures that tend to have more collective oriented worldviews. It is so much a part of who we are that it is difficult for us to see it or know how to filter it out when dealing with people from other cultures. I include myself in that statement. I understand that it is a huge part of our culture mostly because I have been told that it is true, not because I can easily identify it. Our individualism taints the way we understand the gospel, and this is one of the criticisms that other parts of the Christian church level against U.S. Christians (and to some extent Christians in other Western cultures). For the vast majority of us, salvation is a very individualistic thing. People from other cultures point to this as the reason why vast sectors of the Christian church in the United States cannot see that the gospel should make a difference in how gospel-believing Christians act in the face of injustices in our society. The problem is that we see the gospel in individualistic terms, but not related to injustices within our society.
It is probably true that some Christian groups have gone so far in rejecting individualism that they have lost what many of us would consider to be the soul of the gospel and become “social gospel” proponents. This conversation gets complicated by accusations of “socialism” or even “communism”, but as the saying goes, we need to be careful not to “throw out the baby with the bath water”. Hebrew society was always very collective, not individualistic. Faith in God had huge implications on how the poor, orphans, widows, and immigrants were treated. In the New Testament there are several examples of whole households (even Gentile households) who came to faith as a collective group. Most of us would point out that there are also many examples of individuals who came to faith without their families joining them, at least not immediately.
One of the areas in U.S. “evangelical” Christianity that merits evaluation in light of this individualism/collectivism difference between cultures is the almost universal belief on the part of U.S. church leaders that in many instances the best way to reach a family within our culture –and from other cultures – is to reach the children with the gospel first. However, numerous studies in Latin American cultures show that the chances of reaching whole families with the gospel increase dramatically if the parents become Christians first. Unfortunately, I do not know where to locate the statics from these studies. Perhaps another person involved in cross-cultural work can provide this information.
I believe that this same individualism/collectivism divide between cultures is at the root of a problem often seen in Latin American churches (where U.S. missionaries have done most of the evangelism/discipleship). Very often pastors will tell young people to disobey their parents if their parents prohibit them to attend church. Pastors do so without seeking to find out first why the parents made this prohibition and seeking solutions to the parents’ underlying reasons. We tend to think in terms of individuals, not in terms of families as a unit. More often than not, working with the parents to discover root causes and working out acceptable solutions will open the parents up to the gospel instead of slamming the door shut by counseling disobedience.
Reader comments would perhaps expand our understanding of other ways our culture shapes how we present the gospel.
This is the fourth article in a series on “Communicating the Gospel Cross-Culturally” by Lloyd Mann, D.Min.
Lloyd Mann has a BA in teaching languages in secondary schools (Spanish and English), an M.Div in theology and a D.Min with a focus in missions mobilization. He served as a missionary in Latin America for 39 years and is the author of two books and multiple articles and materials for use in university student ministry. With his wife, Wilma, he translated many more materials and books into Spanish and some into English.
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How is the Gospel Best Presented? If our Christ-given task is to make disciples, we also need to examine how we present the gospel. Do most of the long-lasting decisions that lead to people…
What Aspects of a Person’s “Being” Do We Need to Consider as We Share the Gospel? There are three aspects of every person’s being which need to be active in “believing”…
Has your church/ministry decided to start an ESL ministry with the hope of opening doors to share the gospel with non-English-speaking people in the community? If so, the million-dollar question is: how…
What Aspects of a Person’s “Being” Do We Need to Consider as We Share the Gospel?
There are three aspects of every person’s being which need to be active in “believing” or “having faith” in Jesus, regardless of cultural background.
One of those aspects is the intellect. The fact that I mention this first does not mean this is the first thing you need to focus on in transcultural witnessing. In most cases the first aspect that comes into play in the life of an individual who is investigating faith in Jesus are the emotions, which will be the next aspect I mention. But I mention the intellectual aspect first because that is where most Christians want to begin. Whether you are sharing with a person from the United States, Europe, Asia, or Latin America, whether you are working with an atheist, an agnostic, or someone from a nominal Christian background, the intellect is one of the areas on which you must focus. There are certain things a personal must eventually come to believe (and that is the intellectual aspect): God exists, Jesus was God in human form, sin is a problem he/she cannot solve, etc.
People from the southern part of the United States used to already believe all these “truths” generally speaking, but that is no longer the case. People from Europe may (but most probably will not) have a cultural background that basically accepts these intellectual concepts. However, people from South Asia, Asia and other parts of the world probably do not have a religious background that accepts these truths. For us, that makes our task that much more difficult because we must walk with them as they get to know Jesus of Nazareth and come to believe that He was God in flesh, that He allowed himself to be crucified so that we can have a relationship with God, and came back to life, etc. Again, when it comes to Latin Americans, belief in the basic truths of Christianity used to be part of their Catholic culture, but that is less and less true today, or those beliefs may have been distorted from the record we have in the Bible.
A quick, concept-based gospel presentation (think “The Four Spiritual Laws”) only addresses a person’s intellect: “believe these four or five truths and you will be saved.” The intellect, without any doubt, must always be involved when trying to bring a person to faith in Jesus Christ. But that is not all that must be considered. What areas must be considered will depend a lot on the answer to this question: How does the culture of the person we are talking with effect how that person interacts with others, and how they hear/understand what we say?
My area of expertise is with the Latin American culture, and within that broad range of Hispanic cultures, more specifically with the Mexican culture. Each of you will need to study the culture of the people you are trying to reach in order to discover the answer to the above question.
Latin Americans in general terms, but very specifically Mexicans, are much more indirect in their communication style than are people from the United States[1]. People from the USA tend to go directly to the point, and we don’t worry too much if that point make other people feel uncomfortable or attacked as a person. Latin Americans, on the other hand, tend to do a little dance around “the point” before getting to it. Part of the reason this is true is because they want to be very careful not to offend you or make you feel like a failure. Cultural courtesy demands that even in greetings (like on a phone call) they be much less direct . . . spending time talking about some common interest before getting to their “point”.
That makes a HUGE difference when you are presenting the gospel to a Latin American. Mexicans, especially, will almost never tell you “No” if you ask them to do something or invite them to attend an event, or to commit to something. They will tell you “I’ll do everything possible to be there.” (It took me two traumatic years to learn that that phrase basically means “No.”) If you make a gospel presentation and ask them to accept Christ, they will generally say “Yes” because they don’t want you to feel like a failure, or to “lose face”. They will say “yes” but will avoid you from there on out.
This is the reason Christians from the United States who go on mission trips to Latin America can almost always return with reports of huge numbers of professions of faith. I remember a large group of pastors from Texas who came to Mexico for an evangelistic crusade in multiple churches at once. A few of them were Spanish-speaking pastors, but most spoke only English. At the end of the week of meetings they returned to Texas to report 7,000 professions of faith, but not before criticizing to their face the American missionaries who had spent decades in Mexico, because (according to them) we were total failures. The pastors said they came and in one week had won more people to Christ than all the missionaries put together had won in more than a decade. But almost a year after that “tremendous crusade,” I talked with many (by no means all) of the Mexican pastors in whose churches those 7,000 had made “professions of faith” and asked them how many people they had in their church as a result of that crusade. Most I talked with said “zero”, only a few said “one or two”.
This is why, when trying to share the gospel with someone from a Latin American culture, it is very important to develop a relationship with that person first. Then from your life, from your verbal sharing of how Jesus has transformed your life and by leading them to know Jesus Christ through reading or studying the gospels you can discuss with them what it means to “believe” in Jesus.
The second aspect is the emotions. There must develop in a person a conviction that he/she cannot solve their problems on their own, that they need help. If a person does not feel aneed for God, if they are not conscious that they are a sinner, and that they cannot correct this problem themselves, they will never draw near to Jesus. The problem, especially in Latin America, is that often there are very obvious emotional attachments to religious icons (especially to the Virgin Mary) rather than to God, since Catholicism has reigned in those cultures for centuries.
What we should be trying to accomplish, without making a frontal attack on those idols, is to lead the people to know Jesus of Nazareth, His love for sinners, and His grace toward those trapped in sin. Just as happened in the Gospels when sinners came into contact with Jesus, the Holy Spirit can awaken within the people with whom we are witnessing the same awe and wonder as they get to know Him. A person who does not react in love and awe toward Jesus of Nazareth probably will not decide to open his/her life to Him.
One final word about the emotions: Rules and laws will never transform lives; “thou shalt not” was never able to break the power of sin over people. The Apostle Paul says that about all these can do is to show us how hopeless we are when faced with God’s perfect law. The only motivation powerful enough to pull a person out of slavery to sin is an amazed, awe-inspired love toward One who has paid the price for our sin and who loves people so much that He was willing to “become poor that we might become rich”. When a person really grasps how huge God’s love is for him/her, that transforms their life to such an extent that the best way to describe it is “being born again”.
But many people, especially those from Roman Catholic backgrounds, think they can check both these first two boxes. Most Latin Americans think they have loved God all their lives. They think they have believed in Jesus all their lives. They think they have had faith in God all their lives, and when you share the gospel with them, they will say “I’ve done that all my life!”
I remember one university student in the Dominican Republic to whom I was trying to witness over a period of more than a month. Every time I talked to him about “believing” in Jesus, or about “having faith” in Jesus, he would always tell me he had done that all his life. I could not find a way to get past that argument because my definition of “believing” and of “having faith” was mostly an intellectual concept. Since He believed that Jesus was God’s son, that He was God incarnate, since he believed that Jesus died for his sins and rose again, I didn’t know what more to say. But his lifestyle proved to me that he was not a born-again Christian.
One day it occurred to me to ask him, “Ok, that’s fine, but would you be willing to let Jesus come into your life and to radically change your life?” His answer, accompanied by wildly waving both arms back and forth in front of his chest was “Never! I won’t allow anyone to tell me what to do!” I knew in that instant I had stumbled upon an extremely important “something,” but it wasn’t until several months later that I realized what his answer screamed out about his “faith”.
The determining aspect is thehuman will. Salvation never occurs unless there is a surrendering of one’s will to God. The will stands at the very center of who we are and controls everything about our lives. Our wills show what our values are, they reveal our idols, and they determine which of our “selves” wins out when “push comes to shove” in our lives. Our will sits on the throne of our life and determines whether Satan and our sinful nature, or Jesus Christ will control our life. Faith and “belief” are not just intellectual exercises; nor are they just emotional responses. Faith and belief that are not accompanied by commitment to Jesus as Lord are not biblical faith or belief. Without the Lordship element, all you have is a cultural religion that is dead.
Don’t get me wrong, a person who in faith turns his life over to Jesus does not suddenly stop sinning. Not ever, for that matter! The process of the Lordship of Christ becoming a full reality in the life of the new believer may take some time. In my own case I struggled for a few years before I was really willing to give God control of my life. When I did, I methodically went through every aspect of my life, giving God the right to be Lord over that area. What I came away with from that experience was the assurance that sooner or later God would be Lord over each of those areas. Some areas came quickly under His Lordship; other areas took longer. Even in the lives of Jesus’ disciples He did not become Lord over their lives immediately, but there was a commitment to Him, a basic decision to allow Him to direct their lives.
[1] You will notice that generally I use the term “United States” rather than “American” to help you be more geographically correct. Everyone from Canada to Argentina/Chile are “Americans”. We cannot even use “North Americans” because Mexico and Canada are part of North America.
This is the third article in a series on “Communicating the Gospel Cross-Culturally” by Lloyd Mann, D.Min.
Lloyd Mann has a BA in teaching languages in secondary schools (Spanish and English), an M.Div in theology and a D.Min with a focus in missions mobilization. He served as a missionary in Latin America for 39 years and is the author of two books and multiple articles and materials for use in university student ministry. With his wife, Wilma, he translated many more materials and books into Spanish and some into English.
What is The Gospel? Any time a person decides to communicate the gospel there are always several things that need to be considered. Here are just a few: What is the gospel?…
How is the Gospel Best Presented? If our Christ-given task is to make disciples, we also need to examine how we present the gospel. Do most of the long-lasting decisions that lead to people…
How Culture Shapes our Presentation of the Gospel How does culture tend to shape our presentation of the gospel? I have already touched on this some: we are much more…
Has your church/ministry decided to start an ESL ministry with the hope of opening doors to share the gospel with non-English-speaking people in the community? If so, the million-dollar question is: how…
If our Christ-given task is to make disciples, we also need to examine how we present the gospel. Do most of the long-lasting decisions that lead to people becoming committed followers of Jesus come from five-to-15-minute concept-centered presentations of the gospel, or do they come from some other longer, relationship-based sharing of the gospel? Oscar Thompson, author of Concentric Circles, and Jim Petersen, author of Evangelism as a Lifestyle make convincing arguments for relationship-based, or friendship-based evangelism. Our own experience also led us to the same conclusion.
Near the beginning of our ministry in university student evangelism and disciplemaking in Mexico, we planned a 3-year on-campus evangelistic thrust. During the first year, we trained our Christian students in how to strengthen their own walk with Christ, in how to share their personal testimony, in how to present the gospel in a concise, visual format (the Bridge Illustration), how to use evangelistic Bible studies with friends and family and how to work with new believers to help them begin to grow spiritually.
During the second year, every two months we had a large on-campus evangelistic presentation by Christian scientists from NASA, or recognized professional people, or Mexican Christian educators. After each conference, we offered an opportunity for people to accept Christ or to talk with the conference speaker or our trained students about their questions concerning the Christian faith. We kept records of who accepted Christ, their contact information, in which school within the university they were studying, etc. We began working immediately with those who made decisions to give their life to Christ, helping them to begin to grow as new Christians.
The third year was dedicated to finishing the follow-up of the new believers and an evaluation of the results of the 3-year evangelistic project. The results of that evaluation totally surprised us and set the pattern for almost all our future evangelism not only among university students but also with adults.
We discovered that only 12% of all the professions of faith came as a result of those six on-campus, large-group conferences. The other 78% were either friends, fellow students, or family members of our Christian students whom we had trained in how to share the gospel. But the most telling statistics that came from analyzing the data were the following two facts: 1) we were unable to locate any but two or three of the 12% who “accepted Christ” in the on-campus conferences. (Almost all of them had given us fake contact information. The two or three who gave us correct information always had some excuse for not talking to us.) 2) Of the 78% who were friends, fellow students, or family members of our trained students, almost 100% were growing in their faith and were attending some Christian church. Evangelism among people with whom we have a relationship is much more successful at producing disciples than “cold-turkey” evangelism with people we do not know. Doing “cold-turkey” evangelism is useful because it can give Christians good experience in sharing the gospel but is not the best way to make disciples.
As a result of these results, we developed a multi-pronged evangelism training for university students that involved helping them develop a strong relationship with Christ in their own lives, helping them understand what the gospel is, teaching them how to share the gospel in a brief format both verbally and using the “Bridge Illustration”, helping them develop their personal testimonies and how to vary that testimony depending on the person to whom they were talking, teaching them how to cultivate relationships with non-Christians, and teaching them how to use evangelistic Bible studies with friends and families.
This is the second article in a series on “Communicating the Gospel Cross-Culturally” by Lloyd Mann, D.Min.
Lloyd Mann has a BA in teaching languages in secondary schools (Spanish and English), an M.Div in theology and a D.Min with a focus in missions mobilization. He served as a missionary in Latin America for 39 years and is the author of two books and multiple articles and materials for use in university student ministry. With his wife, Wilma, he translated many more materials and books into Spanish and some into English.
What is The Gospel? Any time a person decides to communicate the gospel there are always several things that need to be considered. Here are just a few: What is the gospel?…
What Aspects of a Person’s “Being” Do We Need to Consider as We Share the Gospel? There are three aspects of every person’s being which need to be active in “believing”…
How Culture Shapes our Presentation of the Gospel How does culture tend to shape our presentation of the gospel? I have already touched on this some: we are much more…
Has your church/ministry decided to start an ESL ministry with the hope of opening doors to share the gospel with non-English-speaking people in the community? If so, the million-dollar question is: how…
Any time a person decides to communicate the gospel there are always several things that need to be considered. Here are just a few: What is the gospel? (In other words, what are we trying to communicate?) How is the gospel best communicated? What aspects of people’s “being” do we need to consider as we share the gospel? How does the culture of the person with whom we are talking effect what that person hears/understands? How does our culture tend to shape our presentation of the gospel?
Unfortunately, very few “Great Commission Christians”[1] take the time or energy to consider these issues when they seek to witness within their own culture, much less when they try to share their faith with people from other cultures living around them.
What is the gospel?
We don’t have time here to analyze why, but Christians in the United States mostly have reduced the “gospel” to a series of concepts or truths to be believed – and if a person accepts, or “believes,” these concepts, he/she is born again spiritually. This approach has been enshrined in such gospel-sharing techniques as “The Four Spiritual Laws” or similar doctrine-centered approaches that for 50+ years have been the basis of most evangelism training in the United States (and in countries where our missionaries have taken such techniques). We need to recoup the New Testament gospel based on how Jesus and the Apostle Paul viewed the gospel.
The gospel in the New Testament was centered in a Person, not in concepts or even teachings. Jesus did not draw people to a set of doctrines, but to himself. Encountering and getting to know Jesus was what transformed people’s lives in the Gospels. Jesus never told Zacchaeus that he had to believe certain doctrines (man is a sinner, sin brings death, believe in Me and your sins will be forgiven, etc.). In the Gospel accounts He didn’t even tell him he needed to return the money he had illegally charged . . . but he did, just because he got to know Jesus. Just meeting Jesus, and getting to know Him, radically transformed his life.
Paul, when he preached, centered his presentation on Jesus, not Jesus’ teachings. In 1 Corinthians 2:2 Paul said: “2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” In Galatians 1:6 he said: “6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:” It was the grace of Christ that caught their attention at first, not doctrines.
Are there doctrines involved in a person’s salvation experience? Certainly! Everyone who comes to know Jesus personally will have to recognize that he/she is a sinner and will have to understand that the penalty for sin is death. They will come to believe that Jesus is God, not just a prophet or a good man. They certainly will need to understand that there is nothing a person can do to merit salvation because Jesus has paid the penalty they should have paid for their sin. But believing these things will not save them, will not transform their lives. Only the Person of Jesus Christ can do that, and a person needs to spend time with Jesus (through a study of the Gospels) in order to come to know Him and become convinced that He is the only Savior.
This truth, that the gospel is a Person, not a set of doctrines to be believed, will have a profound impact on how we evangelize and how we train people to evangelize. Rather than training people to present a concept-focused presentation of four or five spiritual truths, or even a graphic presentation of the gospel, we must train people in how to introduce people to Jesus Christ through spending time with them in the Bible, especially in the Gospels. Experience has taught us that life transformations that lead to people becoming disciples of Jesus mostly take place over a period of time when they are reading, meditating and studying the Gospels, or encountering Jesus Christ through gospel-centered preaching.
Can concept-focused presentations or graphic illustrations (like the Bridge illustration) be useful in evangelizing people? Of course, they can. That is why we train people to use them. But these usually are clarifying, later steps in helping people come to know Jesus Christ.
Can God save a person after a short concept-centered presentation of gospel truths? Certainly He can. God can do anything, and He sometimes does bring people quickly to faith in Christ. I have known people who were initially brought to faith in Christ by a simple “God loves you, man,” spoken in passing by a stranger on a sidewalk. But that is not generally how it happens.
[1] I use the term “Great Commission Christians” because I no longer believe that today the term “evangelical” is useful. Our culture has infiltrated much of what historically has been called “evangelical” Christianity and has diluted what it meant to be “evangelical”.
This is the first article in a series on “Communicating the Gospel Cross-Culturally” by Lloyd Mann, D.Min.
Lloyd Mann has a BA in teaching languages in secondary schools (Spanish and English), an M.Div in theology and a D.Min with a focus in missions mobilization. He served as a missionary in Latin America for 39 years and is the author of two books and multiple articles and materials for use in university student ministry. With his wife, Wilma, he translated many more materials and books into Spanish and some into English.
How is the Gospel Best Presented? If our Christ-given task is to make disciples, we also need to examine how we present the gospel. Do most of the long-lasting decisions that lead to people…
What Aspects of a Person’s “Being” Do We Need to Consider as We Share the Gospel? There are three aspects of every person’s being which need to be active in “believing”…
How Culture Shapes our Presentation of the Gospel How does culture tend to shape our presentation of the gospel? I have already touched on this some: we are much more…
Has your church/ministry decided to start an ESL ministry with the hope of opening doors to share the gospel with non-English-speaking people in the community? If so, the million-dollar question is: how…
