In DISCIPLESHIP this Basic Textbook teaches the student:

1. What Discipleship is and how to Disciple a New Christian.

2. How we relate to Jesus for the answer to our needs.

3. The Importance of Daily Time in the Word of God.

4. The Importance of Weekly Fellowship in a Church.

5. How to successfully manage their time during the week so they can also include at least two hours a week to go out and share their faith with others.

6. What the Bible teaches about the Constitution and Personality development of man.

7. How to Discern What is Truly Jesus’ Voice.

8. How to Know and Succeed in Jesus’ Plan for Your Life.

9. How to Experience Jesus’ Forgiveness Daily and how to teach this to others.

10. The Different Kinds of Faith that there are and the Faith that pleases God.

11. What it means to Love Jesus with all your Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength.

12. The Cost of Discipleship and what walking with Jesus truly means.

Principles of Discipleship are very important in an Evangelism Training Program because most Christian’s problems that are binding them up can be traced to a lack of knowledge or practice of one or more basic Biblical discipleship concepts. The training in this Basic Textbook of Evangelism will give the trainee the ability to communicate these principles simply and clearly to the person being counseled on the field.

In APOLOGETICS this Basic Textbook covers

1. The Claims of Jesus Christ which addresses and corrects most of the Christological heresies taught by many of the leading Christian cults in America today.

2. The Bible’s Teaching on the Constitution of Man verses Secular Psychology.

3. Witnessing ethics: what and what not to do in Evangelism.

4. The Issue of Predestination verses the Importance of Evangelism.

5. The different ways in which we determine what is true and how the Bible meets these criteria.

6. The reliability of Old and New Testament manuscripts.

7. Evidence for Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch.

8. Why Genesis and Evolution are not compatible.

9. Evidence for the Literal-Historical Reliability of the Bible God’s Word in the areas of historical, cosmological, scientific, theological and redemptive fact.

10. Major Old Testament Prophetic predictions concerning Jesus and His fulfillment of them, amazing fulfilled prophecies in the past fifty years and Hebrew Codes.

11. Testimonies of Evangelism on the field that deal with tough questions one encounters on the field.

12. The literal absolute reality and existence of Heaven and Hell.

13. *Quick Reference sheets for the Internet and any other kind of Evangelism on the field.

When sharing the Gospel with a non Christian, just sharing the simple Gospel may not be enough to release the individual’s faith to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord because of false assumptions about the validity of the teaching of Scripture or the Christian faith. Jesus said that knowing the truth will set a person free (John 8:32). In order for a person’s faith to be released these strongholds of the mind, as Paul calls them (2 Cor 10:3-5), must be removed. This is the discipline of Apologetics. In this Basic Textbook the student is taught what most of the major arguments are against Christianity and the Bible God’s Word and how to respond to these negative assertions in a way that will release the faith of the person being witnessed to so that they see that Jesus really is the only answer to their life and needs and that the Bible really is the absolute Word of God and absolutely reliable to base life and society on. Again, the teachings of Apologetics in this textbook were developed as a result of 30 years of ongoing weekly Evangelism on the field and the questions encountered on the field as current as the copyright of this book. As a result, Chapters in this Basic Textbook on Apologetics cover and answer most of the questions one will encounter on the field. All of this Apologetic material is also the result of 30 years of reading and research by the author to find these answers and so is fully documented in each case covered.

To lead a person to Jesus Christ requires:

1. First, Explaining to a person what it means to be a Christian and how to become one which is EVANGELISM and SALVATION.

2. Second, teaching a New Christian how to discern what is truly Jesus’ voice to him in the different areas of his life and then encouraging him or her to obey what Jesus tells them to do which is DISCIPLESHIP.

3. And third, giving honest answers to honest questions about the validity of the Christian faith which is APOLOGETICS.

This Basic textbook on Evangelism, Salvation, Discipleship and Apologetics gives the Christian more than an adequate foundation in these three areas for successful Evangelism and any Ministry work.

The second stage to becoming an effective Christian witness is learning how to communicate the Gospel to each other in class in a non-hostile environment until one can do it comfortably and unself-consciously. Some people feel this is putting the Holy Spirit into a box, but 30 years of Evangelism and discipleship training have taught me that a person cannot even begin to understand what it means to be led of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism or Ministry until he first overcomes his self consciousness and self-focus. The student cannot overcome his self-consciousness and self-focus until he becomes so familiar with the message that he no longer needs to think about what he is going to say and how he is coming across. This is accomplished in this Basic Training Program through seven weeks of in class practice of sharing the Gospel with other Christians before ever going out on the field and sharing the Gospel with a total stranger. During this time the student does go on the field, but only as an observer to learn from an experienced Christian witness, not actually engaging himself in witnessing.

Evangelism is a skill learned like any skill and is perfected through repeated practice. Proverbs 14:23 states, "In all labor there is profit." When a student is well prepared for Evangelism he finds it enjoyable. When he is not prepared and does not know what to say, he becomes embarrassed on the field and develops a hatred for Evangelism, leaves it, and then becomes next to impossible to recruit for further Evangelism in the future. He argues as follows: I do not have the gift of Evangelism! I believe in Friendship Evangelism. I only believe in Holy Spirit led Evangelism (while the Holy Spirit never does seem to lead them). It is the goal of this Basic Training Program of Evangelism to make Evangelism an enjoyable experience for the student so that when he finishes the training, he will continue regular ongoing Evangelism and Ministry Outreach as a lifestyle.

*Part of the in-class training also includes mock demonstrations of sharing the Gospel and Discipleship concepts under similar circumstances you would encounter on the field or in someone’s home. These mock demonstrations are given in the Evangelism: The Time Is Now! Teacher’s Manual.¹⁷³ This is part of the Apologetic training and teaches the student how to respond and answer the questions he will encounter on the field.

At the end of seven weeks of training the next stage required for an effective Evangelism Training Program is to overcome the fear of talking to a total stranger on the field. Half the Battle of overcoming the fear of witnessing on the field is knowing what to say and how to say it. This is why the first and second stages are absolutely essential before going on to this third stage. But no amount of knowledge and in class training eliminates all the fears of witnessing. On the field training has its own set of fears to overcome.

The first fear to overcome is going out on the field itself. I had a student once who after going through the first two stages called me up in tears, petrified with fear about going out and talking to a total stranger, and told me she just could not do it. I never force a student to witness to a total stranger until they are ready because if they are not ready, forcing them to do it could destroy their potential of ever being a witness at all. Instead I told her that she did not have to go out and witness but that she did have to go out and observe. A lot of people’s fears about witnessing are in their heads and not in reality. She went out with me the next day and watched me witness to several people. The end result was that she saw her fears had no basis in reality.

The next week she went out witnessing with another student and the two of them led two people to Christ. She will be witnessing the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the rest of her life because it is a joy to her not a fearful experience. This Basic Program of Evangelism is designed to consider the individual. It does not make Christian student witnesses a herd of cattle.

After the student gets over the trauma of just walking up to a total stranger or stepping into a stranger’s home on the field he then needs to overcome the problem of self-consciousness and self-focus as he witnesses to the stranger. This takes about six weeks or more depending on the individual. There are few positive results in this stage because the student’s self consciousness and self-focus hinder him from showing genuine love and concern for the person being witnessed too. The lack of self-confidence communicated to the stranger hinders him from accepting the genuineness of the message. Ecclesiastes 10:4 states, "If the ruler’s temper rises against you, do not abandon your position, because composure allays great offenses." In other words, unflinching confidence convinces a person of the validity of what you have to say.

Finally, as the self-consciousness and self-focus began to dissipate, genuine love and concern for the individual come through and positive responses begin to result. This is because the fruit of the Spirit is love and so when a person is ministering in love he is beginning to learn what it means to be led of the Holy Spirit in witnessing and in ministering, but there are no short cuts to getting to this place of maturity in witnessing. It can only come about by going through the discipline of these three stages. Any honest Minister will have to admit this was true in the development of his own ministry work. It was true in mine.