1 877-431-4276Shawn Brann | Ignite Europe & Flower Evangelism
Shawn Brann assisted the sports chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys and was the Dean of Students at The King’s University. But he left it all in order to become a missionary in Zürich, Switzerland. He started Ignite Europe. Today we talk about what God is doing in Europe and you will hear about an innovative evangelism method using flowers.
Learn More About Ignite Europe: https://igniteeurope.com/
Buy Shawn Brann’s book Go & Tell:
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest, Sean Bran, and he is the author of Go And Tell. It’s a book about evangelism, and he is a missionary in Zurich, Switzerland. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast,
Shawn Brann (00:20):
My honor to be here. I’m so glad to be part of this podcast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:24):
So let’s just start out at the beginning of how you ended up in Zurich. Yes. Talk to me about how God got you There.
Shawn Brann (00:32):
Absolutely. So before I moved to Zurich six years ago, I was working at the Kings University at Gateway Church as a dean, the dean of students. And my wife kept telling me over and over that God was calling us to Europe to evangelize. And over and over I kept telling my wife, No way. I didn’t, I didn’t really fill the call to Europe. It wasn’t on my heart. It wasn’t burning on my heart to move to Europe. But over time, the Lord started making it very, very, very clear that this was what he wanted us to do. And so six years ago my wife and I took the step of faith. We gave away our cars, sold everything we own, bought one way tickets to Switzerland, and flew to Switzerland and said, Okay, let’s do this. And that’s where we’ve been for six years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
And in some ways, Europe has a very rich history of Christianity. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, but in other ways it is really territory that is very unreached and there’s lots of challenges there. Yeah. So what are some of the greatest challenges of ministering in Europe?
Shawn Brann (01:32):
Yeah, so I can for sure speak about Switzerland, and we’ve been all over Europe as well. But what you find is people generally think that the church is something that’s archaic. It’s old, it’s, it’s, it’s not updated. It’s not relevant for today. And so when you start talking about the Bible, it’s almost like telling someone about a Shakespeare play and, and saying, Okay, turn to play number four on the seventh page. And they look at you like, What are you talking about? Like, Shakespeare is long gone and dead. And you see that oftentimes in, in Europe and especially in in Switzerland, you, when you talk about the Bible, people look at you like you’re crazy. And so they just need to know that Jesus is alive. The Bible is for today. And whenever you just share the simple message of the gospel of Jesus, lives are changed. And that’s what we do.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:25):
You told me about an innovative idea that God gave you for reaching your village and telling people about Jesus. Tell me about that.
Shawn Brann (02:33):
Yeah, so when my wife and I first moved to Switzerland, we were there for about two weeks, and I obviously was there to evangelize. And so I went to the main station and the main train station, and I started to evangelize this guy and he thought I was crazy. And he scooted over like 10 foot from me. And so I go back, obviously the conversation was over. I go back to my wife and I said, Babe, pack your bags. We’re moving back to Texas. And I just kind of licked my wounds for a couple weeks. Like, Oh, what am I doing in Switzerland? What am I doing in Europe? Well, two weeks later, I decided, I’m gonna try this again. So I go on this, on the streets, actually, I go to the train station that was selling the tickets in the ticket box area, and I start telling this person about Jesus.
Shawn Brann (03:17):
And again, it just wasn’t connecting as hard as I was trying, nothing was happening. And again, I’m driving home just feeling defeated. But having this passion to share the gospel, not only to people in Zurich, but really to my village, my little town of 600 homes. And I got home and I was just, I just was so discouraged. I said, Jesus what can I do? And in my prayer time, one of the things the Lord told me that night, he said, Sean, I want you to be a voice, not an echo. You’re copying people. And you know, when you go to like the Louv in Paris, you, you go to see them on Lisa, and it is worth $300. But when you go outside, they have all these copies of the Mona Lisa that are $1. And the Lord was just saying, You know, I I, I don’t want you to be a cheap copy.
Shawn Brann (04:05):
I want you to do what I’ve called you to do. And I said, Well, Jesus, what do you want me to do? And so the next morning I woke up and the Lord reminded me that when we first moved to Switzerland, someone gave us a bag of vegetables, and they put them on our front porch, didn’t ring the doorbell, didn’t knock, just left them there. And I asked my neighbors, Why did they do that? And my neighbor said, Well, that’s a sign of affection that, that they care for you. This is how they showed that they’re glad you’re in the neighborhood. And and then all of a sudden the Lord told me, I said, Sean, I want you to give everyone in your town a flower. I thought a flower, Are you kidding? I’m from Texas, you know, like, I, like, I’m going to Switzerland.
Shawn Brann (04:45):
I want to be bunky, you know, not, not a flower evangelist. You know, like, what is this? I’m from Texas. You wish me carry guns. No. So I said, Are you kidding me, Lord? And he said, No, this is what I want you to do. And I’ve learned that God has created us to create, we are creative to create. He’s a creative God. He gives us creative ideas to get his gospel out. And so I said, Okay, Jesus, if this is what you want. And so we bought these really nice flowers around 15 US dollars per flower, The the whole, the whole thing. And in the flower we put a card that said, just as a seed goes in the ground and dies and rose again to this beautiful flower. So Jesus came to the earth, died, went in the ground and rose again for you to have eternal life.
Shawn Brann (05:30):
And then we had a website link on the bottom that says, If you want to know more, go to this website. And we went to our village and we just sat ’em on everyone’s front porch. We had some really cool divine connections where we were able to pray for people to get healed. And that was really neat. But generally speaking, 600 of the flowers really were just sat on the people’s doorsteps right outside their front door. And what happened was amazing, within 24 hours for every 100 flowers, we put out 300 people in the village, went on the website and read the gospel message. And it was amazing. Like my heart, my desire was to share, share the message of Jesus. And it wasn’t the way I ever would’ve expected I ever would’ve done, but it’s what the Lord had us to do. And so we did that for all 600 homes, shared the gospel, Everyone got to read or hear or had a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus. And now there’s a village beside us that’s over 15,000 homes that were, we’re now doing this thing called the Seed Project to those homes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:36):
And so you’ve heard of Holy Spirit power. Well, this is flower power with the Holy Spirit. Yes. And, and so people re they look at the, the website and you’re able to track that.
Shawn Brann (06:47):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:48):
Having a, a tremendous impact. That that’s amazing. Now, you wrote this book, it’s called Go And Tell, and it’s very innovative how you wrote it, because you, you went through the, the last 2000 years of church history and every century you pulled out a story in order to emphasize a little lesson Yes. On evangelism. Yes. Okay. So tell me some of your favorite stories,
Shawn Brann (07:16):
Facebook. Well, what started was, I was reading the, the gospels and Mark, Jesus said, Go into all the world and preach the gospel. And the Greek word for go is Pru. And Pru obviously means to go, but it, it’s also transfer. And it’s, and it’s a word that would be used whenever, like a runner’s transferring a baton, a runner’s baton to another runner. And so generally speaking, when Jesus was talking to these disciples and he looked at them and he said, Go into all the world, It wasn’t just, Hey, go, go, go. It was Jesus saying, I’m giving you a baton, like I’m now all authority and heaven and earth is being given to you. I am with you always to the end of end of the age. So God, Jesus was given us this baton to run with, and that baton has been, message has been passed down through all the centuries to where we are today.
Shawn Brann (08:07):
And so yeah. So I go through every Century 21 centuries, and I highlight a story and, and a need for evangelism, and then countering an excuse. So for example, you know, we say the Great Commission the, the early believers, they received the baton. And I talk about the Holy Spirit. It’s called the Great Commission. But if you really look at us, the Great Commission, it’s us doing ministry together with the Holy Spirit. And we can’t evangelize without the Holy Spirit working with us, doing it with us together. And so to be an effective gospel bringer, effective runner of the gospel baton, an effective deliverer, we must be men and women full of the Holy Spirit and fire. And you know, you look at the life of Peter, he, he couldn’t evangelize to, to three people around a fire when Jesus was being crucified.
Shawn Brann (09:01):
And yet, we read a few pages later, and he’s standing in front of crowds preaching the gospel. Well, what was the difference? It was the Holy Spirit living in him, equipping him, filling him, filling him up. And people say, Well, I don’t feel comfortable sharing the gospel. And as you and I both know, you know the Holy Spirit is a comforter. And so the, the second chapter here in the, in the first century, I believers, the very first thing they did was they were filled with the Holy Spirit and he comforts you and he goes with you. And so I go through all these different stories. Creativity is one. When the first bubonic plague hit the world the in, in, I think it was five, the five hundreds, the, generally speaking, the pastors and the leaders, they, they were afraid and closed the church doors.
Shawn Brann (09:48):
But it was the ordinary men and women who took the gospel out in, into the, the into Europe with creative ideas. And so God will give us creative ideas to share the gospel. And we all have giftings and talents that are needed and, and, and creativity that is needed. And, and God has given you these abilities to share the gospel that could be writing a poem and you put it on social media, you know, that that’s maybe the way God wants you to share the gospel. And so yeah. So we just go through, Yeah. 21 Centuries of Church History. It’s a, it’s a fun read. I think you’ll like it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:25):
So the book is Go and Tell by Sean Bran. And I really like your metaphor of passing the baton down. Yeah. My pastor Billy Joe Doherty, he once had a vision where he saw that a race track, he saw that we were in a race and Jesus took the baton, passed it to the first generation of disciples. Wow. Peter, James, and John. And then they passed it on to the next generation, you know, Irans and Telian, and yes, those great men have gotten in. So from century to century it’s been passed down to, to Martin Luther and now coming down to us and the, the baton has been passed to us. Yes. And we’re running. And then he saw in his vision that we are close to the finish line, and that we’re actually in the last lap of this marathon that the church has been running for Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:19):
For 2000 years now. And he saw that Jesus is coming soon and we need to make every single second count for God. And, and then the vision zoomed out. And he saw that surrounding the racetrack is a stadium. Yes. With all the saints who have died in gone to heaven. And he said that all of these saints, all these great men and women of God know Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Peter, James and John, and all these great heroes of the faith like you write in your book about Saint Patrick, and you know, these great evangelists that have gone out into the world. And he said they, they weren’t sitting in their seats. They were standing up on their feet and they were clapping and applauding and say, Go run faster. Jesus is coming soon. This is the greatest hour of evangelists. And and if you think about it, we have so many opportunities here today to evangelize that people in centuries past never had there’s actually more people alive today than have ever been alive all throughout history.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:25):
And there’s actually more Christians in the church alive today Wow. Than if you add up over the last 2000 years. And so, so the, the church triumphant is actually smaller than the church militant here on Earth. Wow. And so that means that the greatest harvest of souls in history will happen in just the next few years. And we have the privilege of of being a part of that. And heaven is on its feet. Heaven is cheering for us and watching and saying, You’re, you’re, this is the greatest Come on of church history. Come on. You’re gonna see thousands and millions of people come into the kingdom of God. And I, and I think that’s true.
Shawn Brann (13:06):
So good. I I’m like on fire right now because Absolutely. Yes. if you could grab the, the curtains of eternity and just pull it back as, as the writer of Hebrew says, We are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses and, and the, the Greek word cloud as the word that was used for like the nose bleed, bleacher seats of the, of the stadiums. And they’re standing there going run, run, run. And many of these people you’ll read about in this book, but many of these people, they died as a martyr. They gave their lives, they laid their life down for Jesus like they were killed because they told their neighbor or their friend about Jesus, and they’re in heaven. And they’re saying, Run, run, run. And the baton is now in our hands, the, the, the subtitles, This is your moment to run because this is your moment in history.
Shawn Brann (13:55):
This is it. And all of heaven is saying, Run, run, run, run, run. I went to a professional baseball game and it was the New York Yankees were playing the Texas Rangers. It was the first time the Rangers went to the, the World Series and it was the final game before the World Series. And the, the Rangers had played this great game all the way up to the ninth inning, and they bring in their, their closing pitcher. And I remember we all got on our feet and we were cheering cuz I was a Ranger fan and we was in Texas. I was cheering go Rangers. And this closer, he wound up through it, struck out Alex Rodriguez, the baseball player for the Yankees. And the stadium went crazy. And I was reminded about where we are in the timeline of world history, that we are closers, that we are on the final stretch.
Shawn Brann (14:42):
And they’re all saying, what? And it’s not about, it’s not about us. It it’s not like our generation is greater than any other generation. We just happen to have the privilege to have the baton in our hand, the ball in our hand when the game is coming to an end, the standing ovation. And one day we’re gonna stand before Jesus. And, and with all of our brothers and sisters who went on before us and let it be set of us that we ran, that we grabbed that gospel baton and that we, man, we gave, we gave it our very, very best because these men and women were not martyred for us to just have big churches and big social media channels. They were martyred. They lived their lives for the gospel so that we would push it through the, the finish line with the, with the good news of Jesus. And what an incredible time in world history to be alive. Amen. We, we are, we are, we are blessed. We are a generation. David Livingston installed in the future, this blessed generation who’s gonna reap this in time harvesting, I believe we’re that. I believe we’re that, that that generation. And man, what an honor, and I would just say run. And you’re running so hard, Daniel, we respect you and honor you for what you’re doing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:59):
Well, if someone wants to know more about your ministry or to, to find the book, what is your website? What’s a good way for
Shawn Brann (16:07):
Someone to Yeah. The website is called igniteeurope.com. Or for the book, go and tell Go and tell.online. And you can buy it if you’re in the US at Walmart, Target Amazon, Barnes and Noble. If you’re in other places, maybe in Europe, you can go to Book Depository, You can go to any bookstore and and buy it. It’s in, in pretty much most bookstores around the world. So. Awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:32):
Yeah. Well thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. I appreciate it.
Shawn Brann (16:36):
My honor. Thank you, Daniel. God bless you all.
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Daniel Liberek | Global Evangelists Forum in Europe
Daniel Liberek is from the nation of Belgium and he leads the Global Evangelists Forum in Europe. On today’s Evangelism Podcast he talks about how his movement is training lay evangelists within the local churches of Europe. He shares his insights for reaching people for Jesus in the European context.
Connect with Daniel Liberek: http://liberek.net/
Learn about the Global Evangelists Forum: https://uwm.org/projects/65475/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Daniel Liberek is from the nation of Belgium and he leads the global evangelist forum in Europe. On today’s evangelism podcast. He talks about how his movement is training, lay evangelists within the local churches of Europe. He shares his insights for reaching people for Jesus. In the European context,
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:31):
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 (00:55):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast on Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Daniel lek from Belgium in Europe. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (01:08):
Pleasure being here and pleasure meeting you the last few days.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:12):
Now you are helping to lead the global evangelist forum and you are raising up evangelist in the continent of Europe. Tell us, what is God doing in the area of evangelism in Europe?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (01:26):
Well, about 20 years ago, we discovered that evangelism had fallen into distribute almost. It was not the fashion. It was on the order of the day. And so with a few friends the global evangelist forum was launched. Now. It was called the <inaudible> evangelist because it was a French speaking venture out of Belgium and France and Switzerland Quebec joined it joined pretty quickly. And our goal was to help local church pastors identify mobilize, train, and deploy local church evangelists in Ephesians. The Bible says that God gave to the church, obviously apostles prophets, pastors teaches and evangelists. And in many churches, pastors don’t have time or don’t know how to train the local church evangelists. So what we do with the forum of the evangelists, we tell pastors, send us your evangelists. We will train them. And then you can have them back to minister in the local church.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (02:27):
We’re not trying to take anything away from the local church. We wanna invest in the local church. And so we started doing this through forums. These are times where we speak to the heart of the evangelists. We, we try to impart skills through workshops and we were doing this in Belgium, in France, in Switzerland. Then quickly, we moved to Africa in many countries in Africa, all in French. And we liked the specificity of having this in French for French speaking people, but then English speaking countries came knocking on the door and suddenly we became the global evangelist forum moving into some of the English speaking African countries. It was going great. COVID hit which has made it hard. It’s difficult for evangelists to be mentored, to be trained without contact evangelists. I, I think I could say are by nature very personal people.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (03:23):
They like contact. They like to be with people. And so not being able to mentor in a personal way was difficult, especially the forum also establishes mentoring communities. So we think evangelists need to be mentored, not simply trained, but mentored, not coached mentored. And we try to establish vertical relationships. So we try to pair an evangelist with a younger evangelist, but also horizontal mentoring relationship relationships. We try to get four or 5, 6, 10 evangelists that are about the same age do the same kind of ministries in a supporting group. And so they can share difficulties, problems, solutions. Sometimes they can share platforms and different things. In evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:16):
Now you are specifically working to help develop evangelists that are sharing their faith. One on one in the context of the, the local church. And, and, and tell us what are some of the, the methods that you teach them that you feel are so important for evangelists to learn, to be able to do that?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (04:40):
Well, it’s important for us to realize that doing evangelism should be natural. It’s not something that we put on suddenly that sometimes I, I interview missionaries or missionary candidates. And I, I ask them one of my first questions. When is the last time you share the gospel? Because sometimes you get in our minds. If I fly 3000 miles, suddenly I’m an evangelist. No, that ain’t true. If I’m not an evangelist here, why would, would I be an evangelist across the ocean? So we have to think that Evangel being an evangelist is a way of life. It’s like breathing now in the church. I, I distinguish between regular church, people who are witnesses of what Christ has done and evangelists, those that God has given to the church. He has imparted special gifts and he’s put a seal on them to be evangelists.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (05:36):
And it’s, it’s a fabulous vocation. My father was a pastor evangelist, and I guess I was infected because that’s what I became. And now our youngest son, Timothy is is an evangelist. Now he’s also a platform evangelist, but he’s an evangelist in his life. Always inviting people to his home, always trying to see, to share the gospel. It’s the way also I live now, when I go to my barber and I go to the same barber, I have gone to the same barber for over 20 years. Maybe I should change. Some people will say, but Hey, that’s the way I like it. So I, I just go there. He’s not a believer yet, but every time I go, I plan ahead in my mind, how am I gonna steer at this conversation? Which questions am I gonna share? Okay. Where have I been? So next time I’ll go.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (06:23):
I probably will talk about being in Portland, being with evangelists. And somehow I’ll try to have him ask me a question about what evangelists are. I want to be in charge of the conversation, but in a discrete way, always planning ahead. Now, if the weather’s very bad, what kind of greeting am I, am I gonna share? When I walk into a store, I’m gonna share something that will elicit a response. It’s like the Lord said we have to be salt. So I’m trying, how can I be salty and create a response from the people? It’s a way of looking at reality and everything we do to be an evangelist is always looking for the open door and trying to create the open window so that, that we can share. Now, the Bible says that we evangelists have been given to the church, not simply to evangelize outside of the church.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (07:19):
Efficient chapter four says that we have been given to the church for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry. So evangelists in the local church have the responsibility to partner with the, the local body of believers. And we should do team. I often encourage church members if they have a barbecue and they’re inviting friends, why not invite one of the church evangelists? Not so he can lay it on people. That’s not the goal. Evangelists ought to be very sensitive people. I remember a couple that came to, to Belgium. They were evangelists and they wanted to evangelize. They didn’t speak any French. And after a couple days I noticed they were going downtown and they would talk to people and they would corner them and they wouldn’t let them get away. I actually saw them push people into a corner and they were sharing the gospel to me.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (08:17):
That’s not evangelism, that’s proselytizing. Maybe it’s imposing on people. And it gave out George a bad name because we were not respectful. Evangelists ought to be very sensitive to where a person is at and lead them little by little. My barber is still not a believer. And it took about 15 years for him to ask me questions. Some people will say, well, he’s a very bad evangelist. Well, Barbara’s, you know, Barbara’s, they can talk about anything and they never take a position. And that was my barber. He would cut my hair and we’d talk about politics. We’d talk about everything under the sun, but he’s always very neutral. And that was the way with faith. But finally, after about 15 years, he started asking questions and I’ve had the opportunity to share the gospel, not once, but several times. And I’m longing for, for the day when I’ll call him, my brother and Christ might take another five years. Might take more, but I, I I’m. I will be there gently prodding, gently pushing to share the gospel with him.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:25):
Let’s talk about evangelism in the local church, because not only do you lead the global evangelist forum, but you also pastor a local church there in Belgium, how can a pastor empower the believers in the church to do evangelism and to share their faith?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (09:48):
As I said, it’s all a matter of partnership. I’m the local church pastor. Now, for example, on Sundays after the sermon, I will be at the door, shaking hands and greeting people. I mean, it’s like 30 seconds, 25 seconds with all the people that come by, because there’s always a cue and people want to get out. What, what I’ve done is I know my evangelist in the church. And if there’s a visitor, obviously I will have gone ahead of time. Introduce myself. I, I will have met the person, tried to get a bit of information, but as the person is coming out, we serve coffee. After church and tea, they don’t wanna stay. They wanna get out. They’ve had their first dose of Christianity and they just wanna get out where it’s safe, but I’ll call one of my evangelists and I’ll say, Hey, John, meet Peter here. It’s the first time. And suddenly there’s another link and we have trained them on what to do. You know, you can ask, you ask a few questions about their life, where they work and this and that. And they say, can I ask you a, a more personal question? Is there anything I can pray for you about
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (11:00):
Praying even for regular needs, from physical needs for medical needs touches the person in his heart, because someone cares enough to ask and to pray, but you, if the person says, well, you now have this medical appointment on Thursday, or can I call you on Friday to know how it went? What have we done created a link. We get a phone number and it’s all this partnership. We have a large food bank at the church I pastor. So we have a lot of people who are doing administrative stuff. They are taking names of people filling out the forms, giving out the, the boxes. But we have evangelists who will come. They’re not involved in any of the administrative stuff. They’re just walking around. They’re on the street where the queue is formed and they’re talking to people. So we wanna strategically place our evangelists in the position where they can be very helpful.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (11:53):
We also tell our church people, Hey, you’re talking to your neighbor and you’re not making any headways. Talk to one of our evangelists, go to some of the church evangelists and ask them, do you have any, any any clues for me? Do you have resources? So while I I’m talking to this atheist and I, I just don’t know how to go. Oh, I read this book it’s called that reason is not enough. Oh, why don’t you read it? So we try to always encourage partnership between those who are witnesses, the regular church people and the evangelists. And obviously as a local shorts pastor, I will often say things from the pulpit. My, my sermons will be into sports with anecdotes, some of my mistakes. And I sure make many mistakes as an evangelist. I, I missed, I miss open doors. I remember one Sunday. I, I went to get food at a store and I do that before the service, I have to pick up all the leftover bread day, old bread and all that. And the lady knows I’m a pastor I’ve, I’ve seen her weekend, week after week. And she asked me a question. She said, what is the difference between your view of extreme function and the Catholic church’s view of extreme function?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (13:20):
And immediately the theologian in me said, oh, I’ve gotta prove I’ve got my doctorate. So I, I formed this this speech in my mind. And I shared with her the difference and how James chapter five or 13. And she was quiet after that greeted her went, and it was, I got back to the church, unloaded the car. And it was like, the holy spirit hit me with a two by four. Why did she ask that question? Was she looking for the theological answer? Very few people are looking for a theological answer theologians mainly but regular people. They have an existential question and the holy spirit told me go back. So I told the guys, if I’m not back start the service it’s okay. People are more important than the service aren’t they? So I went back to the store and there she was.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (14:15):
And I said, Hey, I’m so sorry. I, I missed something. Why were you asking this? And she started sharing about her grandfather, who was at the point of death, started crying there. And I was able to share a little bit with her of the gospel, who cares about extreme when we have extreme salvation <laugh>. And so it opened the door. I was able to I had brought with me a couple gospels. So I, I gave those to her and we’re continuing the dialogue. I see her a few minutes every Sunday, except the summer she’s on vacation. So I’m looking forward to September, her grandfather passed away, but the grandmother is open to the gospel. She’s been reading the, the new Testament. I mean, it’s a matter of listening to the voice of the spirit and partnering for evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:06):
Let’s talk about Europe. Some have said that Europe is a post-Christian continent, but I say that Europe can once again be a Christian continent with people full full of people that love Jesus and, and, but methods are different in EV every nation. And so when we go to Africa, there’s certain methods that we use for evangelism, but tho those methods are different in, in Africa or in central America. What do you see that will work to draw European people often very well educated, sometimes very skeptical often atheist or and, and don’t want anything to do with organized religion. What can an evangelist do to, to reach out to these people in Europe?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (15:58):
We have to live it. That is the first thing my father was an evangelist. He helped to plant several churches and we would go in with a popup tent. We had what we call the mobile chapel. It was on a trailer and we’d pop it out and we’d, we’d have a chapel. And so we would go to a town where there was no evangelical witness. And we still have towns in Belgium where it’s not a single church. I mean, that’s in, in the middle of Europe, we would go preach for three weeks, four weeks, do an extensive crusade. And then hopefully there was AEUs of 10, 15 people. And the church was born nowadays. If I go on the town square and I put up a big screen and I say, Hey tonight, we’re gonna have a the showing of a movie people young, because they have Netflix, they have 25 channels.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (16:49):
They can have movies day in, day out, all day long. If they want it doesn’t appeal. Or if we come and say, well, we’re gonna have a preaching of the gospel tonight. Not interested. We’ve had scandal up on scandal in Europe as in the us with one church or the other. It doesn’t matter. It affects all of us when there is a scandal. So what we’ve in many, in many places, what we’ve done is to transform the local church into a powerful evangelizing tool. Now there is room for crusades, and I I’m so glad that you are involved in these powerful crusades, but it has to come on the back of regular witnessing by the local church. If the local church says we’re gonna do evangelism, let’s have a crusade. It doesn’t work that way. We have to sew and water for the reaping to happen. So we try to set up the life of the church as a witnessing pulsating life, everything in the church. I, I look at every every message, every service will the gospel be presented today. It might be through communion. It might be through some of the songs and the introduction, introduction to a song, but the gospel is gonna be presented every time we meet. I mean, sometimes I joke, you know, even in the bathrooms, you can have a sign, don’t forget to flush. Remember your sins can be flushed away by the
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (18:20):
Let’s try to have everything. I remember a lady that came to Christ through one of our prayer meetings. She, she realized that on, on the street where she lives, there was this group meeting every Wednesday morning, there were mothers of teenagers. She had concerns. She came and through a prayer meeting, she came to accept the Lord. So if we infuse everything we do with the gospel, it is a powerful witness. Now I don’t condemn any method. As long as it’s biblical ethical. And the gospel is clearly presented, but I think the life of a body, the community of believers as we live the gospel out is one of the most powerful tools. And then as we intentionally make friendships, where in the lives of people were concerned about them were giving were just unusual. I remember one day I was I was leaving and this big car came next to mine and I thought, he’s blocking me, come on, get out of the way I need to go. Window rolls down. And it’s the mayor of our city.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (19:28):
Now he’s not in the faith. He’s strong, socialist, pretty much. Anti-Religion says, I want to thank you, pastor, because of all that you’re doing, we don’t know what we be, what we do in our city without you and your food bank, our works are being seen, and they’re creating a platform to share the gospel. Our words come on top of our works. And as we share it is noticed in our city that’s the value O O of a local church that is intent on sharing the gospel. I often tell people know the church doesn’t exist for us. It exists for those who, who are not part of it yet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:11):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. If someone wants to find out more information about the global evangelist forum and get connected to what you’re doing in your training what is your website? What is a way for them to be in touch with you?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (20:28):
Probably the easiest way would be to go to my own personal webpage and send us a message. It’s L I B as in boy, E R E k.net, L I B E R E k.net.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:41):
Wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing. And I am praying for Europe to be saved in Jesus’s name.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (20:50):
Amen. Made the Lord move powerfully like he did in the past. I mean, there were dark days. I remember even in Belgium when the gospel was destroyed by persecution and the inquisition, but during the, after the first world war, there was a powerful movement. The second world war stopped it. So I’m looking for another powerful move of God in Belgium.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:13):
May it be Jesus in Jesus’ name? 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 it 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 Host (22:34):
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.