An ongoing need and a surprise hit. According to Tony Payne, Publishing Director at Matthias Media, those were the two main factors behind Matthias Media's newest training resource.
The ongoing need was obvious enough"”the need to mobilise, motivate and train everyday Christians for involvement in the Great Commission and, for Sydney Anglicans, the Diocesan Mission.
"This has always been a challenge for churches," says Tony, "and no doubt always will be. Most Christians seem to have an approach-avoidance response to sharing their faith. We all want to (in theory); we all acknowledge the need to (with varying degrees of passion); we all feel guilty about it (at least on occasion). But we also shy away from it, and feel embarrassed, inadequate or simply too busy to bother."
Of course, Matthias Media already has a very well-known ministry resource to address this need"” Two ways to live: know and share the gospel. Churches and student groups having been using the Two ways to live course for years to train their people to understand the gospel and to share it naturally with their friends.
"But the message we've been getting over the past couple of years is that something else was also needed"”something a step or two back from the Two ways to live course, something shorter and simpler, and a tad less demanding; something that every single congregation member could do without feeling too threatened or out of their depth, something to fire people up and get them involved in the church's mission"”even at the level of simply starting to pray for their friends and to invite them to events."
With that need in the back of their minds, along came Gordon Cheng's Six Steps to Encouragement (SSTE) course, the surprise hit of 2005-06.
"Of course, we knew SSTE was good stuff, and we thought it would be useful, but we've been surprised and pleased at how widely it has been used (and praised) throughout Australia and the UK. The Six Steps approach has struck a chord: a short, simple six-week course about a basic and important area of Christian ministry, easy to run in small Bible study groups, with a mix of video input, Bible study and practical exercises.
"It just worked. And it led us to the obvious conclusion"”why not another Six Steps style resource to provide some basic training in reaching out to others? The result is Six Steps to Talking About Jesus."
In the Six Steps to Talking About Jesus course, the "six steps' take participants through the basics of reaching out to a lost world:
1. Love"”the basic motivation for reaching out to others: the love of Christ for us, and our love for others;
2. Understand"”knowing what the gospel actually is, and how the gospel itself is the foundation for sharing our faith;
3. Pray"”the vital and primary place of prayer in all evangelism, because it is God who works in people's hearts;
4. Connect"”thinking about the people we meet and know, and how we can take small steps towards reaching out to them;
5. Invite"”how to invite people to a gospel event, or to read a Christian book;
6. Talk"”basic skills in talking about Jesus: sharing your own story, using a gospel outline, or simply expressing a Christian viewpoint in a conversation.
Running right through the six weeks, participants also develop and practice telling their own story about becoming a Christian.
"The aim of the whole package is to move people from spectators to participants in the mission of Christ in the world," says Tony Payne.
"To help people work out how they can reach out to others in their own circumstances, and with their own gifts and opportunities. The course recognizes that we're all different"”that some of us are great explainers and apologists, some are excellent inviters, some have lots of non-Christian friends (and others don't). But all of us are on the same team, and all of us can get involved and do our part. All of us can talk about Jesus in some way with someone."
The result is the kind of training resource that anyone and everyone can do. It is anticipated that, for example, if a church was planning a major mission or evangelistic push in August-September, they might run their small home groups through Six Steps to Talking About Jesus in May-June"”to fire everyone up, and give them some basic skills to be involved in the mission.
Simon Roberts has co-ordinated this latest Six Steps project for Matthias Media over the past 12 months. He recruited a namesake"”Simon Manchester"”to write and present the video input, and has also brought back Dave and Tony, the very popular dysfunctional role-players from Six Steps to Encouragement.
Matthias Media is hoping that Six Steps to Talking About Jesus will be an even bigger hit than Six Steps to Encouragement, and that it will help fuel the Diocesan Mission in Sydney Anglican churches.
Ian Carmichael is a senior editor at Matthias Media and regularly contributes insights into new publications for Your.sydneyanglicans.net readers
