GCC Reach Your Neighbor/LEADS Retreat 2025

Georgia-Cumberland Conference

Ann Thrash-Trumbo

The Cycle of Evangelism

Well, let's have a word of prayer as we begin.

Dear Jesus, thank you for your love to us, for the amazing grace that you have given us in letting us participate in this work of winning souls.

Oh, Lord Jesus, what a gift, what a privilege, and what a joy.

We ask that you would just guide our minds today, that you would be our teacher.

Well, as we begin, I'd like to thank Elder Jim Howard from the General Conference for his work in this area of church growth and the cycle of evangelism.

I really like them and I thought why should I reinvent the wheel when I like what he did.

So today we're going to be talking about the sequence of evangelism.

When I first heard about this concept many, many, many years ago, it was called sequence evangelism.

But I prefer the term cycle of evangelism, which is what we're calling it now, because I think that better expresses the idea that evangelism is an ongoing cycle in our churches.

It's not just an event or a sequence of events that just happens every now and then.

It's an ongoing circle, a cycle of evangelism.

As you will notice as we go through this concept, these graphics are all based on an agricultural model.

How many of you have ever grown a garden?

When I was a kid, my dad always grew a huge garden.

Actually, we did have an acre out behind our house where he grew corn and watermelon and peas and stuff like that that takes up a lot of room.

But our kitchen garden, we grew everything we ate except for bread, sugar, water, salt, you know that kind of stuff we had to buy.

But I can tell you that this agricultural model is not only true in nature, it works in the church.

Starting at the top, there's prepare the soil.

And then the second phase is plant the seeds.

And the third phase is cultivate the plants, and the fourth phase is harvest.

So let's just talk a little bit about each phase.

You build trust by showing love and kindness in the community.

This is where we provide community service, events, compassionate love, health ministries, that kind of activity.

This is what Ellen White says in Christ's Object Lessons, page 57.

She says, the sowers of the seed have a work to do in preparing hearts to receive the gospel.

The love of Christ revealed in personal ministry may soften the stony heart so that the seed of truth can take root.

So those preliminary kinds of things that we do are very important in preparing hearts.

Phase number 2 is plant the seed or plant the word.

This is talking about when we start engaging in spiritual conversations with people.

We invite people to events that we have at the church, spiritual events, not just our health events and preliminary events, but this is where we start to invite people to spiritual events in our churches.

And this is what Ellen White says in Christian Service, page 68.

She says, the dissemination of truth, of the truth of God, is not confined to a few ordained ministers.

I am thankful for that because where would I be?

Where would you be in this whole business of sharing the good news of Jesus if we had to be ordained ministers to do this?

The truth is to be scattered by all who claim to be disciples of Christ.

Something that I think is interesting and important to note is, and maybe I should say it this way, did you know that witnessing is not a spiritual gift?

Did any of you go to Noah's class yesterday on spiritual gifts?

Or did it affirm something you already knew?

No matter what your spiritual gift, you can use it to win souls.

In fact, at what point does a native talent, let's just say you're really good at cooking or you're good at teaching or you're good at making people feel comfortable and at home, somewhere a gift of hospitality.

At what point does a native talent shift over into a spiritual gift?

What identifies something as a spiritual gift?

Because God takes our native talents, the things he created in us before we were born, and he uses those to win souls.

How do we cultivate that little plant that's starting to grow?

Well, we do by giving ongoing Bible studies, bringing people to small group Bible studies, or even to evangelistic meetings.

Now what is this that's on the screen here?

I know it doesn't look any different from the funnel you've got at home or in your garage, but I'm going to show you how This is a soul winning funnel.

I know it doesn't look any different from the funnel you've got at home or in your garage, but I'm going to show you how this is a soul winning funnel.

All kinds of ways that people are introduced to the church.

We minister to their needs through cooking schools, church socials, concerts, community services, VBS.

So we're ministering to their social needs, their physical needs, their kids, all these kinds of different things.

And of course, this is not a complete list.

I'm sure you could toss out other events that we can do here to introduce people to our church.

Someone may come to the church through a cooking school and they may never attend a concert.

It's not like somebody has to go to all of these things.

Someone may bring their kids to BBS and never attend a church social and that's fine.

But everyone who's going to become a baptized disciple needs to go through the neck of that funnel.

So the question is, what is the neck of that funnel?

And I think I'm singing your song right now, all of you who are here, because that's why you're here.

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The Cycle of Evangelism

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