The gospel should be at the center of all that we do as evangelists. Every evangelist’s number one priority should be knowing how to preach the gospel and preach it well. So in today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to practically preach the gospel as an evangelist.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
The gospel should be at the center of all that we do as evangelists. Every evangelist’s number one priority should be knowing how to preach the gospel and preach it well. So in today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to practically preach the gospel as an evangelist.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:26):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now, here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:50):
The first thing we’re gonna talk about is how to preach the gospel. So imagine you’re in Nigeria, you’re on your way to a crusade. What are you going to do? Well, first of all, be prayed up. I remember before I did some of my first crusades I, I actually went on a a period of, of fasting in prayer, just praying, say, God, I want to be your voice. And I still try to remind myself as I’m driving to the crusade, you know, I want to be in tune with what the spirit of God is doing. And I’m praying on my way. And, and I’m praying that God would fill my heart with the same compassion that Jesus felt when Jesus looked at the crowds, he had compassion on them. And I want to have that to be my motive for preaching. I want to have the heart of God for people.
(01:44):
And even sometimes when I’m driving to the crusade, my, my heart breaks because no matter how much advertising you do, no matter how much organizing you do, sometimes on the way to the crusade, I’ll see people that are walking in the opposite direction. I say, God, how can we reach those people? When you preach, you don’t need to use lots of fancy terms. I believe in education. I got a degree from Oral Roberts University, then I did my master’s degree at or o u, and now I’m about to finish my doctorate of ministry degree. So I believe in education. And so, you know, I read Greek and Hebrew and, and all that stuff. But in a crusade setting, you don’t need to use complicated theological terms. You don’t need to tell people what different Greek and Hebrew words mean.
(02:41):
You’re, you’re dealing with cross-cultural situation. You’re translating into a different language. And it’s tough enough to go from English into the language that they’re speaking there in Africa without throwing another language. Like, let me tell you what, the original Greek, they may have never heard anything about the Greek language. They have no idea. You just tell ’em. You can do the research, do the know what the word means in Greek, but just tell ’em this word abundant means that God wants to bless you a lot. You just keep it simple. You gotta be clear and concise. Keep your message simple enough that a seven year old can understand. I got started in ministering, ministering to kids. And so these parents would drop their kids off at the service and give them a coke and a candy bar before they’d drop ’em off. And so they’d be all hyper.
(03:34):
They’d be going all over the place like this. And, and, and, and so somehow you gotta capture the attention of that seven year old child and and minister to him, communicate in a simple enough way that that child can understand. And I found that a lot of the principles that I learned as a minister to ch children apply cross-culturally, that if you can keep the attention of a group of kids, then you can keep the attention of a group of people in a, from a different culture, a different setting. I like what Reinhardt Bonky says. He says, I know the X, Y, Z, but I preach the ABCs. And so that’s what we gotta do as evangelists. We preach the simple basic gospel. When you get up to preach, you don’t need to comment about a political situation. You don’t need to say anything about local politicians.
(04:29):
Sometimes you’ll have local politicians that will come. They might even greet the crowd. You don’t need to say anything about the local politics. You don’t need to get up and say anything about Donald Trump. If if you do, you know, half the audience might be mad at you, half the audience might like what you say. But you, you’re there to preach the gospel. You’re there to lift up Jesus. Not to say anything politically when you’re speaking, hold the microphone close to your, your mouth. I I see a lot of beginning ministers, they go out, I’m gonna share my testimony with you today. And, and no one can hear you have a sound system. Praise God. You have a sound system. Why don’t you use it? Keep that microphone close to your mouth. Yep. And make eye contact with the audience. I learned this from I was reading a book about a famous magician.
(05:18):
He says, I would always pick someone in the back of the crowd, and I would look them in the eye, and I would speak directly to that person. And if I knew if that person attention would be captivated, that I was captivating the entire audience. And so you don’t wanna look down at the stage like this, turn your back on the audience, you know, keep your head in your, your Bible. Come on, look someone in the eyes, connect with them and look, look them in the eyes and capture their attention. Yeah. These are just some basic speaking points. These are not things that they teach in a school. In school. They teach you lytics how to preach, and you got three points in a poem. But these are like real life application that, that you just gotta, and the best way to learn is just by getting lots and lots of experience.
(06:14):
Yeah. or Roberts, he used to say that you had to preach a sermon 50 times before it became a good sermon. Yeah. And, and so the more you preach, the more you practice. And this is difficult for evangelists sometimes, because, you know, if an evangelist is doing like one or two crusades a year, he gets like four nights a year to preach, or six nights a, you know, it takes a long time to preach a sermon six nights. So, so what your guys are gonna be doing in Nigeria, this is going to accelerate your ministry because you guys are gonna be going and doing like three services a day. Yeah. And, and, and for, you know, extended period of time, you’re, you’re going, going to accelerate your learning by being able to, to do. And so this is just such a wonderful opportunity.
(07:02):
When you preach, use your, your Bible as a prop, not a crutch. Sometimes people, they look at their notes and they’re using their notes in a, a way that it, it becomes a crutch. Like, oh, what was I supposed to say next? Let me see. Where’s that verse? I know there was a verse about something. I was gonna share it with you. I can’t remember what it was. Let me just, no. By the time you get there, you’re preaching the gospel. You don’t have time to be figuring out what verse you’re gonna share or anything. Really, you should have your sermon memorized. Yeah. Oh, when I did my first crusade, I was going down to Honduras. And I, I remember my family used to live on a, a cotton farm. And I got all my notes, all my sermon, and I went and found a, a flatbed truck that was parked next to the, the field on this cotton farm.
(07:53):
I got up on the flatbed truck and I preached to those cotton plants. I preached every sermon I was gonna preach. And I said, you know, and, and then I gave an altar call for the cotton plants. And I got all those cotton plants saved. And I was out there preaching and practicing. And it, it really came in, in good because at my first crusade I was, I was praying for someone and they had pink eye, and it’s a real contagious. And some of it got on my finger, and then I rubbed my eye. And so the second night of the crusade, I had pink eye and my eye swelled all up. I couldn’t see, I had to wear a dark pair of glasses. And so I was preaching with my eyes closed. I couldn’t use my notes, but it was okay. Cause I’d memorized it preaching to the cotton plants.
(08:35):
And so I’m there preaching and just Jesus is gonna heal you. And meanwhile, and the funny thing is, is that there were blind people that were healed that night. And here I was, I couldn’t see myself. And then I was interviewing people, they came up on the stage. I said, you know, what did Jesus do in your life? And I put my microphone and a couple of poor people, I bumped into the face with my microphone. But it’s a good thing I memorized my sermon because I wasn’t able to see my notes that night. So, so memorize it, learn it, practice it until you can do it like this. When you preach, be loving and kind, you know, the gospel is good news. Everyone say good news. Good news. It’s not bad news. And there’s two types of evangelists, and, and I know both types.
(09:21):
There, there’s some evangelists, they go out in the street corner with their megaphone. You’re going to hell, you’re sinner. And, you know, and so what’s, what’s what, what I call finger wagon religion, they’re, they’re wagging their finger at people. You’re such a horrible person. You’re, and, and really, honestly, I don’t think that’s very effective. The Bible says it’s the goodness of God that draws all men to repentance. And you’re, so, you’re there, you’re preaching. Good news don’t be mean at people. Yeah. People are sinners. Yeah. People have made mistakes, but God loves them. God loves people so much. He sent his only son. God gave his very best for them so that they could be saved. And so don’t be mean to them. Be nice, be loving, be kind. That’s how Jesus was. Yeah. Your words can work miracles. When God created the world, he used his words.
(10:15):
He said, let there be light. And suddenly there was light. Your words are the only weapon that you have in your battle with Satan. How do you overcome Satan by speaking, using words? How can you convince someone to give their life to Jesus? It’s through your words. You can’t go and point a gun in someone’s face and say, you need to be saved. That that’s not gonna work. No. You use your words to convince people. And God’s words in your mouth is just as powerful as God’s words in his mouth. Yeah. And so when you speak God’s word, it can change people’s lives. And so use your words carefully. Don’t preach too long. I was with one evangelist, and he preached a good three hour sermon. And we started out with 20,000 people. And by the time he gave the altar call, there were about a thousand people there. People just got tired. They wandered away. They had to get home. The, the, the buses were going home at a certain time, and he was preaching a good sermon. Like he preached like four or five good sermons that night. But you don’t need to preach too long. You just, you know, keep it short. Keep it simple. Communicate. but don’t run off on these rabbit trails all over the place. Use your words carefully. Every word that you speak is valuable.
(11:50):
It costs a lot of money to do crusades. And so when I get up on the platform, you know, I’m spending 20,000 or $30,000, and if I have 30 minutes to speak, and I’ve invested $30,000 in that crusade, I think every minute of my time on the platform costs a thousand dollars. Yeah. And so I have no business running off and wasting two or three minutes on a rabbit trail. That’s not gonna help someone’s eternal destiny. I don’t know what all the C fan crusades cost, but I mean, you probably a, it costs a thousand dollars a minute, probably, or a thousand dollars a word. I don’t <laugh>, you know, and so you gotta, you, I mean, so, so don’t waste time. Don’t tell ’em about your kitty cat back at home. Yeah. Preach the gospel. That’s why you’re there. Tell people about Jesus. Point them to Jesus.
(12:47):
You don’t need to be attacking other people, denominations, other religions. There’s no need to offend people unnecessarily. The gospel is offensive all by itself. You don’t need to offend them. And so when I preach to people from different religions, I don’t spend any time attacking their religion. Yes. in, like in Nigeria, you’re going to Nigeria, approximately 50% of Nigeria is Muslim. And, and so up north there’s a higher percentage down south in Port Harcourt, you probably have a lower percentage, but I guarantee there’s, there’s gonna be Muslims in your services there in Port Harcourt. And so if, if you say something like you know, attacking their prophet or attacking the Muslim, what it does is it, it shuts a door. Yeah. And they’re not open to receiving from Jesus. Correct. And so there’s no need to say anything negative. Your job is to lift up Jesus.
(13:47):
Yes. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw. Yeah. All men onto me. And, and so you, like, there was this one evangelist, and he got on television down in Argentina. And it was a really big deal. He got a, a, a statue of the Virgin Mary. He says, you shouldn’t worship this. The Virgin Mary, he took a hammer and beat the statue up. And man, that evangelist was kicked outta the country. He’d never go back there again because of what he did. And, and you know that, that’s the mother of God. You just beat up there. And you know, it’s a great, he was trying to make a point, but, but really it was, it came across so offensively in a nation that was predominantly Catholic, that it completely removed the effectiveness of, of his ministry. And so, you don’t need to say anything negative, just say, you don’t have to say something bad about their prophet.
(14:39):
Just say, I serve Jesus. He’s the prophet of all prophets. Yeah. I, I serve Jesus. He, he’s the son of God. He heals people. He saves people from their sin. No one else can do that for you. He’s the only one who died on a cross. That’s good to pay the price for your sins. So practice what you preach. One of my great heroes is, is pastor Billy Joe Doherty victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s great church there. And he died a few years ago, but since I was six years old, he was my pastor. And he, he was also an evangelist. He did lots of crusades. And I remember seeing him preach one time thousands of people, people saved, people healed, just tremendous. And then as he came down off the platform, there was this little old lady.
(15:25):
She was crippled and, and she needed healing. And so he had his, his bodyguards and the, you know, the bodyguards are making a way through the audience and, and everything. And, and I just remember he, he saw this little lady waiting for prayer, and he stopped and told, you know, and, and walked over to her, just placed his hands on her head and, and spent two or three minutes just ministering to that one lady in the midst of the big crowd. Why? Because you, yes, you minister to the crowds, but you got it. It’s not about just being in front of a big crowd, sometimes being evangelist. People look at ministering to big crowd and think that’s, you know, real sexy. You’re up there on the platforms, really amazing. But it, every individual counts. So you gotta keep, if you’re gonna preach on compassion, make sure you fill your heart with compassion.
(16:15):
Preach with passion. The great evangelist Daniel Kalinda wrote on Facebook, I follow you on Facebook. He says, that evangelist asked me how to know what he should preach. My advice is preach what burns in you. If you don’t feel it, no one else will either. Yeah. Yeah. And so it’s gotta burn inside of you. You gotta preach with fire, preach with passion. Why are you there? Come on, do it. Do it with passion. Amen. I practice your sermon before you preach it. I would encourage you later in the day Daniel is going to do some demonstrate for you preaching some sermons, and give you some sermons to preach. I would say take those and practice them between now and the time that you go to Nigeria. Practice them. If you can find some place to preach them before you get there, that would be awesome. Go, go find a, a group of kids, or, or find a, you know, a, a halfway house. Somebody that you can practice and even just go in your mirror and, and practice the story, you know, and, and get it down good. So that, and, and that will make it much easier once you get to Nigeria because you’ll, you’ll, you won’t be wondering about what you’re gonna say. You’ll have that down firm. You’ll be able to deal with what’s going on in the context of, of where you are.
Evangelism Podcast Host (17:33):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations, and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner. How to give an alter call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Daniel King (18:34):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today, I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (19:55):
For more information about how to share your faith, or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
