Transitioning to the Gospel using Different Topics

Nova in Bosnia shared with me in an email something I'd like to pass on. (By the way I had misspelled her last name previously.)

She said that at the briefing last year there was a seminar in the EE AOA time on "Transitioning to the Gospel using Different Topics". Nova said it was extremely helpful, but noticed that we didn't do it this year. She said they use it all the time in Sarajevo. So I asked her to summarize it for us.

So here goes... At the '05 briefing, for this seminar, they sat by teams at tables. Each team/table was given a slip of paper that had one word or phrase on it. The topics were: relationships (guy/girl), friendships, family, values (love, trust), traditions, holidays, art & literature, future/success, worldview, health, and sports. Each table discussed for 10-15 minutes different ways to transition to the Gospel from their topics. Then, they came together as a large group and each table shared their word or phrase and how they would transition to the Gospel.

In Sarajevo, they have a weekly evangelistic meeting. Some of the things they do are: Story of the Soul (on the STINT CD), showing a movie with small group discussions that leads to the gospel, a series on a topic where the content builds from week to week, etc. So, sometimes the Gospel is shared from the front with the group as a whole. Other times they are in small groups, and they have someone from their team in each group to lead and guide the conversation.

Nova says they are constantly transitioning to the Gospel in their individual appointments too. If they are not already having a Gospel conversation, they make sure to steer the conversation there. Sometimes students in Sarajevo like to change the topic to talk about the war, so when that happens, they use it as a bridge to the Gospel. So they used the lessons learned in that seminar pretty much in their evangelism all the time.

Since it was not at this year's briefing, she and Graham lead their team through this training this year. If you have more questions you can email Nova. There is also an article on page 97 in the 1st Year Playbook on 'Questions to Transition to the Gospel' . That might be helpful in kick-starting some ways to helping train your team to naturally transition to the gospel, no matter what the topic of discussion is.

Feel free to do like Nova did and pass on any ideas you have on ministry or leading your team.