Sharing the Gospel with Pastor Todd

To wrap up our series on Doing Life Together and more particularly the study Sharing Your Life Mission Every Day, six sessions on Evangelism, we invited Pastor Todd to speak to our group about Sharing the Gospel.

We sometimes think that in order to share the gospel we have to have academic credentials or be an expert in the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, sometimes a seminary degree makes understanding anything but clear. Todd showed us (seminary degree not withstanding) that we can shape our message by the language and methods we use. Todd’s simple but effective approach made this somewhat intimidating command one that each of us can easily embrace and use in our daily lives.

First–Know your story (5 minutes or less) what led up to your salvation? Who? How?

Second–Be aware of providential relationships – the prompting of the Holy Spirit. God put each of us where we are to be a light. We can share the gospel by our very presence -- how we act, what we say or how we treat others. The Holy Spirit will be working with you so look for those clues.

It can be as simple as praying each morning for God to place someone in our path -- God please place someone in my life today with whom I can share your love. or Do the Dot: Place a sticker dot somewhere where you will see it each day and throughout the day each time you see the dot, pray for the person you have chosen to receive Christ.

Todd then gave us the best intepretation of John 3:16 I have ever heard.

God loved
God gave
We believe
We receive

What could be easier than that?


Todd continued by retelling the story found in Matthew 14: 13-21, the feeding of the 5,000 pointing out Jesus’ command to His disciples, “YOU give them something to eat…” Can you imagine their distress? (Note: other than the resurrection of Jesus this in the only miracle story contained in all four gospels; it must be important and have a significant truth we need to understand). We have 5 loaves and two fishes and you want us to do what? Man, you have got to be kidding. Obviously they missed the point -- trust me, I will give you the means to do it. How often do we do the very same thing? Remember this simple truth -- If God commands it, I can do it!


I have read this story countless number of times and missed that one sentence that is so very important “You give them something to eat” The disciples must have been totally overwhelmed with the size of their problem, how do you feed all these hungry people? You've been directly commanded by Jesus to do something, you want to be faithful, to obey, but good grief, feed 5,000 with a few loaves and a couple of fishes? Are we sometimes like the Disciples, overwhelmed with the numbers? God commands us to Go, to feed the hungry, to love our neighbor, to serve, and give graciously, however the numbers are greater than our resources, so in our frustration do we just give up? Don’t give up! We can stand on God’s promise – He will give us everything that we need or He would not have commanded us to do it.

Todd then journeyed with us on the Roman Road with simple tips to make this path easier to remember. Open your Bible, turn to Romans 3:23 – in the margin write down 6:23, turn there, in that margin write down 5:8, so there and write 10:9-10, and once there mark down 13. All you have to do is ask.

Billy Graham once said, “I am convinced the greatest act of love we can ever perform for people is to tell them about God's love for them in Christ. “

Thank you Pastor Todd for giving us simple, easy to use tools, to effectively follow God’s command to “Go”