Why We Started GodTools Club
One of the striking statistics in the church across the world is how few Christians are actively involved in evangelism. Barna reported that only 19% of Christians were pro-active in looking for opportunities to share their faith. Many Christians feel that they should be sharing their faith more, but for a variety of reasons are not. A survey from Jesus Film found that the biggest factors are fear, lack of opportunity, and “nothing”.
There are lots of reasons why evangelism may sometimes be hard – fear of rejection or hostility or feeling unequipped are significant hurdles for many when it comes to sharing one’s faith. Sometimes some of the people we want to share our faith with have been hurt by the church, or have misunderstandings about the gospel which mean that they can react negatively or with strong emotions. Sometimes the ways that people have encountered the gospel message have pushed them further away from God, and we can all probably think of examples when we have seen that happen. It is understandable that we don’t want our good intentions to share our faith to unintentionally push people away from God, and this can sometimes make us fearful of sharing our faith. Sometimes we can look at people’s lives and think that they would not be interested in the gospel and so back away from sharing with them. Sometimes we are worried that we don’t have the skills to adequately share our faith and worry that we may be asked a difficult question that we don’t know the answer to. All of these are natural reasons that may make us hesitant to share our faith.
That is why our new initiative is to form groups where people can together be equipped to become active in evangelism. We believe that good things are better when they’re shared, and when we, who have experienced the good news of Jesus Christ share it with others, it is better for us all.
These groups are for people who would like to be more active in sharing their faith. It doesn’t matter if you have years of experience or if you have never shared your faith before. It is for people who experience any of the barriers we have talked about, whether fear (of rejection, hostility, or anything else) or even if your barrier is “nothing”. We want to give you a boost to share your faith!
God made us for community. In Genesis 2:18, God said that it is not good for us to be alone. It has been demonstrated that forming habits (or eliminating bad habits) is much more effective when it is done with other people instead of on our own. Again, good things are better when they’re shared, and learning together how to share God’s good news can help us all learn from each other and even have fun in the process.
One of the constant pieces of feedback we receive about evangelism is that many Christians don’t feel equipped to share their faith well. We want to address that issue for people so that people can be confident to share their faith with others.
We have all had the experience of reading an article, or watching a video, or attending a course that had great content, but we never put it into action. The purpose of these groups is not so people know how to share their faith, but to help people actually begin the practice of sharing their faith. We know that there are going to be difficulties encountered along the way, and that is one of the reasons that we are doing this in groups. When we are in community we can pick each other up and encourage each other when we encounter these difficulties. Knowing we are not alone in this initiative is vital to help us become active. Not only do we have God’s Spirit inside of us, but we have each other spurring us along on the journey.
We have seen how people have grown in their faith as they have begun sharing their faith in our field ministries, and want to make that available to as many Christians as possible. We also know from experience that the journey to becoming active in sharing our faith is much better when we have others going on the same path with us. With today’s digital technology we can offer a way for Christians from Kaitaia to Invercargill and everywhere in between to join such a group and learn together.
If you are interested in being a part of the GodToolsClub or finding out more, click below.
