Reaching out through small groups, social networking, and "person of peace"

The gospel spreads, first and foremost, through relational lines. While I am not opposed to "broadcasting" and mass media/mail efforts--we use several of these in our outreach efforts--the most effective and most inexpensive form of outreach is relational--the spreading of the gospel through relationships.

One common church planting method that many church planters are using is the "person of peace." This biblical concept, based upon Luke 10:1-7, is that a missionary finds a person of peace--someone who is open and receptive to the gospel--and the missionary stays in that house, using it as a base of missionary operations.

By doing this, the missionary can then use the person of peace to reach out to his or her family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. This works best, obviously, in cultures that are tight knit. Generally, this is in third-world countries, not the US.

Still, I believe that this is an under utilized outreach method in the US. Recently, I have been asking some of our visitors at High Pointe who have a fairly nominal church background to serve as a "person of peace." That is, I'm asking them to serve as a host for an evangelistic Bible study, opening their home and inviting their circle of family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers--most of whom probably will be unchurched.

In our Intro to High Pointe class on Sunday, I laid this concept out and asked those in the class to consider this. I already received three positive responses to this! If they follow through with these invites, there will probably be anywhere from 20-30 unchurched people studying the Story of Redemption.

I am excited about the potential here to reach many people for Christ!

Have you used the "Person of Peace" methodology? What experience have you had in evangelistic small groups?

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Its a great principle. I'm talking with one right now about opening his house up for this contacts. They are coming to him with questions. . .

On April 21, I'll be doing a webinar with another evangelism coach about this and a spiritual conversation tool that can help people talk about their journeys.

http://www.evangelismcoach.org/2010/webinar-a-tool-to-discover-spir...

Webinar is free.

If the date doesn't work, register anyway to get access to the replay for up to two weeks afterwards.

Chris
EvangelismCoach.org
Hey Chris. That sounds like a great webinar! If you add this as an event (look at the front page and click + add new event), I'll promote it. Looking forward to watching this.
That's so good to hear, James! Thanks for the encouragement and example and questions.

My answer, . . . I'm sort of living by the person of peace methodology, yet haven't begun a Bible study. I find my setting to disparate (right word?) for a lonely person of peace to gather a group. So perhaps I'm trying to be the person of peace myself. Little by little I'm asking sinful, tax-collecting friends if they'd be interested in a Bible study if I started one. Not much experience yet except there is some interest. It seems like none of those who are interested so far are (very) connected to each other. So I don't feel I can call any of them a person of peace. I find the whole person of peace methodology both helpful and very subjective.
My experience of using the “person of peace” approach is that we are not aware; we are disconnected with the un-church people. They are everywhere and around us. Once we make the decision to look for them, we find them at the grocery store, in our neighbors, at the park, where ever you come across with people, you have a chance to find a “son of peace”.

Also in my experience, after a time of looking for “son of peace”, I have more “sons of peaces” that I can handle. This is a great challenge to have.
Done!

James Nored said:
Hey Chris. That sounds like a great webinar! If you add this as an event (look at the front page and click + add new event), I'll promote it. Looking forward to watching this.

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