Issue #35
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Servant Evangelism: Advice From a Pro
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| E2: Empowered Evangelism | |
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 Are you looking to try something radical with your next outreach event? Consider doing E2 to challenge your more experienced volunteers and revitalize your approach and attitude towards outreach.E2. . .put simply is the next stage in Kindness outreaches. When we practice this type of outreach we are looking to blend the natural with the supernatural. Now at first glance, this may look like a project doomed for failure because of a perceived lack of preparation. You need to resist the urge to control and plan the activities and locations. Instead, invest the time, energy, and money into a fantastic training experience, and the ability to be flexible and fluid as the Holy Spirit prompts and leads. You will be creating highly mobile and tactical teams of evangelists from ordinary folks. Done properly it can really spark your outreach events and help raise new leaders and draw more volunteers into the outflow lifestyle because after only light front loading from a staff member or facilitator, the  E2 event lends itself to cause ordinary participants to take more ownership over the types of outreach you do and the places and people you will be targeting. If you are familiar with the teachings of John Wimber, it leans heavily on the notion of "Every Body Plays" and down plays the focus of an expert or paid staff member leading the outreach. This puts folks in a position where they learn how to be creative and design their own outreach activities as they press into the practice of hearing God and follow his prompting to love their neighbors into relationship with Jesus. Done improperly, it can be as difficult as herding cats.Essentially you are condensing the process you probably go through right now when planning and selecting a site and designing an outreach that meets a felt need in your community, and delivering that to your entire body of volunteers. This is a way to equip a crowd of people with "expert" outreach skills and more importantly bolster the discipline of waiting for God's guidance. If you do this regularly, you will multiply the deacons (in the truest sense of the word) in your church. You will motivate the pew sitter to become the "stirrer of dust" as they enter into the Outflow Lifestyle. The idea here is to teach ordinary folks how to hear God's voice and begin to process the directions and impressions he gives us into actionable logistics. This usually works best as a weekend intensive or multi-day workshop, but it can be done in one day, if needed. There are three components to E2:  1) Clinical Training Session: Depending on the core values of your church and your current comfort level with spiritual gifts with a prophetic edge you will craft a few short teachings, discussions, and drills that encourage people to dial down their own thoughts and yield to God's voice and promptings. You are going to teach people it is okay to practice with each other at hearing God's voice. A very powerful dynamic occurs when folks learn that while we practice, God actually delivers. This will involve a blend of exercises that teach neophytes how to dial down and pray for wisdom, discernment, and even prophetic insight as the craft their outreach plan. It is also helpful to model and teach people how to approach and connect with strangers and then talk and pray with the new friends they meet during an outreach. 2) Logistics Session: During the phase we blend intercession with targeted listening and waiting. There are several ways to do this. The key is to encourage folks to be quiet and listen to God rather than do all the talking while praying. In other words you are teaching them to pray silently with a pen and paper to capture what God wants to do. Jesus modeled this approach in the gospels. He simply said: ". . .as the Father sent me so send I you. . ." and "I can do NOTHING of myself, but only what I see my Father doing." You are going to  be helping people process what God gives them during this portion of the event sans the normal filters and thought processes. There are several ways you can facilitate this, but boiled down, you are hoping folks can walk up to a city map and push a pin in the area they think God wants them to focus on and that they have begun to imagine the types of practical ways they feel prompted to demonstrate God's love in that geographical area. Often this will even come with specific images, pictures and names of people. I watched a group of teenagers tune in to the point that God even described the scenario the person they would meet was experiencing and that word of knowledge, delivered by innocent kids, was very powerful. It caused the person experiencing the powerful kindness to become aware that not only was there a God, He loved and knew her situation and broken heart.3) Field Study: At this point you will help folks pair up with others that are headed to the same part of town, or have a shared vision of people or types of outreach so t  hat they can form teams. This is where a great deal of advance planning will have been needed. While you may want to have several "just add water" outreach kits ready to go, it is important to also always be on the lookout for something new God wants you to try out. The pay off is, that this type of event lends itself to intense creativity. When people tap into the Creator, they become creative. Don't be suprised if your church comes up with several new outreach ideas that have never been tried before. Each group can either fund their own small outreach, or perhaps you can do a special offering or make the registration part of the outreach funding, but essentially if each group has about $80.00 to $100.00 to spend, along with some of the various outreach supplies you will have prepped and ready to go, they will be more than effective as they go out for an hour or two, wherever He sends them on the map, to love people and spread his kindness.  If we use the metaphor of fishing, E2 is like angling school. We spend a few moments learning about the bait and tackle before we start practicing our casting skills. Then we move into the deeper water. . .looking for the fish. Sometimes it comes as simply a picture, impression, or deep cognitive knowing. Other times it comes as detailed as a grocery list, or schematic. It really depends on how God speaks to you and how you usually perceive and communicate it. The trick here is to help folks to learn how they can translate these images and impressions into plans that lead to deep impact outreach. It boils down to surrendering to God--noticing him, if you will, and then asking him to help us notice people. The last stage is to then help those people notice God. He shows us where to cast the nets and what bait and tackle we will be using that day (form of outreach). We just need to resist the urge to be like Peter and start trying to lecture him on how the nets work and where the best locations are. Just row out to where he tells us, and let the fun begin.  Ken Glassmeyer is the Editor of Serve! Magazine. He has been doing SE outreach in the midwest for over twenty years. Ken is the author of a number of PDF guides available at Kindness Resources including the latest: "Tactical Kindness." You can contact Kindness Resources LLC for more information on having him come to your church to coach, speak or consult. To learn more about Ken, visit his site: SERVACITY | |
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