The Four P's of Evangelism

In marketing there are some basic principles of marketing a product from start to finish, entitled the Four P's.  I have adapted these to marketing the best product of all ... Jesus! 

1. Prayer.

Everything in evangelism and marketing Jesus starts with prayer.

"Talk to Jesus about your friends before you talk to your friends about Jesus." - a wise person

Matthew 9:35-38 - Jesus teaches us to pray first.

2 Ways to Pray:

a. Pray for non Christians to find Christ

b. Pray for Christians to Share

Statistics (from 2006) show that 82% of non Christians are willing to go to Church if invited by a friend.

However, 21% of Christians invited someone to Church.

This second prayer (prayer b) is the most important.

2. Permission.

I once witnessed for several minutes before realizing a guy didn't speak English!

It's essential to get Permission to share Christ with others.

Mark 10:46-52 - Jesus asks a blind man what he wants!  He could tell he was blind, but didn't assume to know what he needed ... asking questions is essential.

Learn about where people are at spiritually, before you try to preach at them.

Care about each person you talk with as an individual, very important to God.  Care about their feelings, opinions and questions.

Ask if you can share what Jesus has done in your life.

3. Passion.

Passion invades all areas of our lives, whether we're young and we play video games all day - at first, we're not very good, but we love the game and keep playing until we are.  If we're adults, we may have lots of problems in a new job, but we want to make good money, so we work through all those things.  Passion is essential in sports, school, etc.

Passion works the same way in spiritual things and in evangelism.

Mark 2:1-12 - Several friends couldn't get their paralytic friend to Jesus through the crowd, so they lowered him through the roof!  Jesus saw "their faith" (and passion) and healed the paralytic.

What's in the way of your friends finding Jesus?  Passion is persistent.

4. Pain.

A year and a half ago I experienced several months of being very afraid to share Jesus with others, because I didn't want to "turn anyone off."  I didn't want to share Christ and push someone further away from being saved because I was cheesy, annoying or unintelligent. 

Then ... I read about Paul - 2 Corinthians 11:23-30.

When was the last time I was beaten for sharing Christ?

Paul had many enemies, people hated him for his message, yet he reached hundreds of thousands.

Success in evangelism is ... simply sharing.

Expect Pain.  This is normal and essential.  No Pain, No Gain!

1 Peter 4:12-16

2 Timothy 3:12

On the news, 2 days ago the family of Michael Monsoor was given a Medal of Honor on his behalf by President Bush.  News reports say Bush had tears streaming down his face.  This young man would've turned 27 this past Saturday.  He grew up in Garden Grove, CA.  He loved Johnny Cash and his Corvette.  He was a devout catholic, a star athlete in school and grew up in a military family.  He became a US Navy Seal specializing in gunning.  3 quarters of his missions in Iraq were under heavy fire.  The official US summary of action is "an enemy fighter hurled a hand grenade onto the roof ... the grenade hit (Monsoor) in the chest and bounced onto the (ground).  He immediately leapt to his feet and yelled "grenade" to alert his teammates of impending danger, but they could not ... escape harm.  Without hesitation and showing no regard for his own life, he threw himself onto the grenade, smothering it to protect his teammates ... Monsoor's actions could not have been more selfless or clearly intentional."

He gave his life as a sacrifice so others could be saved.

We face pain (fear, rejection, physical harm) so others can be saved for eternity. 

Our pain is others gain.