Jordan Chanin works for Share Word Global, the Canadian version of Gideons International. For many years they have been known for putting Bibles in the night stand in hotels around the world. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, Jordan tells us about how ShareWord Global is training local churches in evangelism. We discuss the four core skills that will help you with your outreach conversations.

Learn more about Share Word Global: https://sharewordglobal.com/ca/

Information about training local churches in evangelism: https://events.sharewordglobal.com/ca/ignite-evangelism

Summary: 

Jordan Chanin works for ShareWord Global, the Canadian version of Gideons International, which has been putting Bibles in hotel rooms for over 100 years. ShareWord Global is now training local churches in evangelism, focusing on four core skills:

1. Connect with people by being intentional, finding common ground, and looking for ways to serve and bless them.
2. Tell your personal faith story, sharing the “before, how, and after” of how Jesus changed your life.
3. Share the story of Jesus – his personal life, relationships, credentials, and the key events of his life, death, and resurrection.
4. Give people God’s word, using resources like the Hope and Spark magazines, digital content, and the New Life Bible app.

ShareWord Global offers these evangelism training events for free to local churches to help equip and mobilize believers to share their faith.

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Jordan Chanin works for Share Word Global, the Canadian version of Gideon’s International. For many years they’ve been known for putting Bibles in the nightstand in hotels around the world. On today’s episode of the Evangelism Podcast, Jordan tells us about how Share Word Global is training local churches in evangelism. We discussed the four core skills that will help you with your outreach conversations.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:43):
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

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:05):
Daniel King. Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus Today I have a very special guest with me, a Jordan Chanin from Share Word Global. Thank you for being with me.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (01:20):
Yes indeed, Daniel. It is a huge privilege to be here. Thanks for having me.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:23):
Well, let’s start by looking at Share Word global. If you have ever traveled anywhere around the world and seeing a Bible in the nightstand next to your bed in the hotel, it was probably put there by a ministry called Gideons. And so Gideons has been for over a hundred years, been giving away Bibles and share Word Global has its start as the Canadian branch of Gideons.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (01:54):
Yeah, that is a perfect history lesson. That’s exactly it. We are a ministry that has had the name Sherwood Global for 13 years, but we actually carry with us an over 111 year, or actually maybe even more so by now. But anyways, over well over a hundred years of ministry experience.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:11):
That is absolutely amazing. And I love the passion that Gideon’s has for sharing Bibles all over the world. And so now the Canadian ministry has changed and rebranded to be share word global. So it sounds like you still have that same basic passion for sharing God’s word.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (02:32):
Yeah, 100%. I mean, it’s in our blood, it’s in our DNA as a ministry. We believe that the word of God will speak to the nations, that God has given us this word for all people. And so we want to do whatever we can to get the word of God into people’s hands so they can ultimately encounter Christ and receive salvation.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:51):
I saw that you have taken God’s word and put it into a really beautiful package as a magazine. And so I have it in my hand here, spark Magazine.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (03:04):
Yes. And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:05):
Just tell us what is in Spark Magazine.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (03:07):
Yeah, so the Spark Magazine is actually our magazine for young people. We created it for the age group of around nine to 12 years old, although we do give it to children younger than that as well. And to be honest, a lot of adults that we give it to as well almost prefer it to the Hope Magazine, which is our other one. But

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:26):
So Hope Magazine is more for the adult,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (03:28):
Correct? Yes. Teenagers, adults, and plus they’re very similar magazines. The main difference is the first half. So the Spark Magazine targeted towards younger people primarily the first half contains 12 truths about God. So it starts with God created you, God loves you, you have value, but you were broken. And so we made it in a way that really speaks to children. We have little games and pictures and things that can engage a child’s imagination and also keep their attention.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:02):
Wow, that’s amazing, Jordan. So how did you get hooked up with share word global?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (04:08):
Yeah, it’s actually a really crazy story how it all worked out. So I was actually serving as an itinerant preacher in Brazil for a few years. And so God essentially led me to various churches around the country just to preach, encourage them, and it was always my heart to mobilize the church to do the work of evangelism and fulfill the great commission. That’s kind of all my sermons. Were coming back to these key themes of repentance. Of course, I believe, and I know many others, share the conviction that without repentance there will never be revival. We got to become full before the Lord and beyond that that we need to do the work that he’s called us to the Great commission. So I was doing that for a few years and it was amazing the things that God was showing me and allowing me to be a part of, but I knew that it was also quite limited and I really wanted to do something deeper and something more sustainable with the long-term.

(05:09):
And so in this process of me traveling around the country preaching at all these random churches, interdenominational Evangelical, Sherwood Global was just launching their Brazil project to open up in that country about six months after me. And so the funny thing is, of the many tens of thousands of churches in Brazil, they just so happened to visit churches that I had previously preached at being a Canadian organization. Naturally, when they went there to share about who they were and to preach at their services and people heard they’re from Canada, they said, Hey, do you know Pastor Jordan from Vancouver? And our director, he’s a Brazilian man, but he lives in Toronto, in the Toronto area right now. He said, no, I’ve never heard of Pastor Jordan Canada’s big country. I don’t know anyone from Vancouver, I’m sorry. And it happened about four times in four different states.

(06:03):
And so eventually he was like, who is this Pastor Jordan from Vancouver that everyone knows and I’ve never heard of? I need to meet this guy. Well, sure enough, one of my main partner churches in the south of Brazil, I was a preacher there, but I was also doing a men’s ministry there. They happened to Sherwood Global, planned a visit to that church the same day that I was there. And during that time, the director, his meeting got canceled with the lead pastor. He had nothing to do now for the afternoon and he was a little disappointed and he said, I guess I’ll go meet with some other people and connect at this church. And then a pastor said, Hey, if you’re available right now, I have a friend from Canada who I want to introduce you to. His name is Pastor Jordan from Vancouver.

(06:46):
I think it’d be great for you, get to know him. And he said, that must be why I came here. So we met, he was surprised to find out I was a young single guy. He was expecting some old retired, married guy traveling around the world, living his days out. And so we grabbed dinner, we talked, he shared about the ministry, what they do. I said, man, that’s literally what I’m doing just without the resources and the backing that you guys have. And he said, well, let’s pray about it and maybe in the future we can work together. After eight months of talking and praying and seeing where our ministries were going, the timing worked out perfectly. And I started with Share Word Global at the beginning of 2024.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:26):
Outstanding. And one of the things that Share Word Global does is ignite evangelism training events in local churches.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (07:36):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:36):
And so let’s talk about that a little bit. What happens at one of these Ignite Evangelism training events?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (07:44):
These are some of the most exciting things that we get to be a part of because we love to serve the local church. We exist to equip and mobilize the local church to evangelize. And so we host these training events. They’re training in relational evangelism or a conversational evangelism. We call them our Ignite events because we want to gather not only a local church specifically, but also other churches in the area, anyone who wants to come and grow in their ability to share the gospel, we invite them. And so we partner with a local church, they host it, we get the word out there, the people come and we begin to go through a three hour interactive seminar about relational evangelism. And so yeah, we have some of our materials here with us today just to show what our workbook is actually that we go through to accomplish what we would consider the basics of sharing the gospel in your personal relationships.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:40):
So if there’s a pastor of a local church that would be interested in having evangelism training, what would be a good way for them to find out more information?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (08:52):
Yeah, well definitely go on our website. It’s www.sharewordglobal.com, and you can be directed to whatever area of interest you have that our ministry offers. And I would also say get in touch with me because I work in Canada and United States, but also we work in 48 countries around the world and we’re actively serving churches, thousands of churches every year in those countries. And my email isJordan@sharewordglobal.com. And just to clarify it’s word and not world, I know a lot of people think Share World global, but it’s actually share word as in the word of God, global.com.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:34):
That’s wonderful. Alright, so let’s look at this literature, the training worksheet that you would give out at one of your evangelism training things. And so you start out by looking at different levels of conversation, four different levels. Talk us through what those levels are and how that would apply to witnessing.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (09:58):
So that’s the model that we work with. It’s ultimately, we know a lot of people don’t feel called to preach on the streets or whenever someone brings up the word evangelism,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:08):
Get a bullhorn and go out in the street and

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (10:10):
Shout at people. That’s only for the advanced lessons. No, just kidding, just kidding. But a lot of people have that

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:16):
Fear, that approach kind of turns people off often. Exactly. They think of evangelism and they think of someone who’s obnoxious, who’s out on the street yelling at people and they’re like, I could never confront people like that.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (10:30):
Totally. And a lot of people discount their ability to evangelize because of that. They have that picture in their mind or the extremely extroverted person who goes out and they can strike up conversation with anyone and fearlessly talk about Jesus. They say, that’s not me. That’s okay. That’s not most people. Most people feel shy or maybe even insecure sometimes about their ability to share their faith. And so we want to make it really simple and we use this relational conversational model. We acknowledge that there’s four main levels of a conversation within a relationship. So it usually starts with small talk, very superficial, how’s the weather today? What about those gas prices? Just establishing a point of contact. You might talk about things like scores on a Super Bowl game or something like that. Things that aren’t too controversial, not too personal, just kind of keeping the conversation going. And that’s really where all relationships start. It’s just that point of contact and having an interaction with a fellow human being. Next up, we want to go to the personal talk. So this is when you take the small talk and you make it a bit more about the individual, their feelings, their desires, what’s going on in their life. And that’s really when the relationship begins to take root and there’s a more meaningful something.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:56):
So an example of small talk would be, how’s the weather? Or how are the Edmonton Oilers doing something like that where you’re talking about weather or sports. And then personal talk would be Tell me about your family.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, totally. It could be that. And you can also connect the personal talk to the small talk. How about the weather? It’s really hot today and the person says, oh yeah, no, I hate that. It’s so hot out today. Oh, okay, well that could open the door to a personal question then. Oh, what’s your favorite type of weather? What makes you like that more than that? And then you can go from there to where would you like to live if you could live anywhere. And you start to know them on a more personal level. So we’re trying to find where’s the point of contact and what doors is God opening for us to go deeper in the relationship?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:47):
Alright, what’s the next level?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (12:48):
Next level is spiritual. And this is often a step of faith. This is when you generally have some level of personal connection with the individual. There’s a degree of trust that’s been established. And then we want to talk about things that pertain to those bigger questions in life. Spiritual matters. It could be what do you believe, what faith background do you come from? Even if it’s no faith at all, or what they would say is no faith. Or it could be things like what gives you hope in life? What gets you excited about your future and what do you think life is about? The things that go beyond the day-to-day and kind of touch on the meta level of life and sort of reveal what people’s core convictions actually are.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:36):
Then you listen to them talk about where they are spiritually and that what you hear them say will probably help you in going into the fourth stage of talk. Yeah,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (13:49):
Exactly. Which

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:50):
Is

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (13:51):
Gospel. We ultimately are going in the direction of the good news of Jesus Christ, and we want to get there at the pace of the relationship. So it’s really easy to jump right there and confront people with the gospel and give them an ultimatum more or less. But we know that many cases that doesn’t work in our favor. So if you can do it in five minutes, great. If you can do it in 50 years, that might just be the pace of that person’s heart being open to Christ in you. But the gospel conversation is where we make the full explicit presentation of what it means to know Jesus and to receive him as your savior.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:35):
So having conversations with people is a very biblical strategy. We find many different conversations that Jesus had with people. What are some of the principles that you pull out of the different conversations that Jesus had with people?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (14:50):
Yeah. Well, I think the main one is what you just touched on, different conversations. He related to everyone at their level. He didn’t have a prepackaged one size fits all, gospel summary, but he got to know the person and even through the revelation of the Holy Spirit to have a deeper insight into what that person’s needs were. And so one example I love of course is the woman at the well.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:18):
Yeah, from John chapter four.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (15:19):
Yeah. Just a famous example of the compassion of Jesus, the boldness of Jesus, but also his willingness to engage with this woman, with what she understood. And being a Samaritan woman and having their own religious system and the huge tension and division with the Jews, Jesus was willing to go there and to not only hear what she said, but also to guide her in the ways that she was misunderstanding and point her towards himself, but the true Messiah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:50):
And then Jesus really went through these different stages of talk. He started

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (15:55):
With

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:56):
Small talk. He said, Hey, would you give me a drink? He’s sitting by a well, so what would be more natural? Then say, give me a drink. And then he goes into personal talk and says, go call your husband. And then he has this word of knowledge. You have no husband, the man you’re with is not your husband. And then he takes them into spiritual talk, talking about living water. And she says, where can I find this living water? And then she says, I’ve heard that Messiah is coming, and he reveals himself to her, says I who speak to you, am he?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (16:26):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:27):
And so he takes it to the gospel.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (16:31):
That’s exactly it. That’s perfect. And we’re really not reinventing the wheel by setting things up the way they are. We’re just using the example of Jesus and the way that God has created us as humans, how to truly get to someone’s heart in the timeframe that we don’t know how long it will take, but we trust that God as we’re seeking him, will lead us there and show us which steps to take along the way.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:55):
And so how did Jesus differ in some of his other conversations? What did he do differently?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (17:01):
Yeah. Well, again, back to the point that every person’s coming from a different place. And so we think about the religious leaders who should have been the people who would recognize him first. This is the Messiah we’ve been waiting for who was spoken enough in the scriptures, but they didn’t. They were perhaps the hardest in heart. And Jesus was confronting their hardness. And you can imagine a modern example of that would be people in the church who have grown up in the church, they can recite Bible verses and you’re not convinced that they actually know who Jesus is. There’s no fruit. There’s no passion to live for Christ’s glory. But there’s resistance, perhaps hostility. Sometimes we have to confront those things with the truth. And we don’t always flip tables or whip people with cords as Jesus did, but we do have to know this conversation’s going to start at a different point. Whereas the Samaritan woman, she’s coming from another place, Nathaniel a guy who is a doubter, and Jesus just makes an open invitation for him to follow. But he also speaks to something that’s true in Nathaniel that other people weren’t picking up on. Jesus knew that this is a man in whom there is no deceit. And Jesus had some revelation from the Spirit, of course, to show him things about Nathaniel that he was like, how do you know this? That’s crazy. But yeah, there’s a bunch of different examples.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:34):
How do you know this? I’ve been telling everyone I never lie.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (18:37):
I know and here they are doubting me. No. But yeah, Jesus was patient. I think he took the time to know the people and meet them where they were. He was never rushing through a gospel presentation, but he was very clear in that he wanted to get there.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:54):
And then you have the example of the sinner in the sycamore tree. Zach,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (18:59):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:00):
Who’s up in the tree. Jesus looks at him and calls him by name and just says, Zacchaeus, I’m coming to your house today.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (19:07):
And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:08):
The crowd was stunned because they knew that he was a thief and that he had been overcharging people on their taxes. And so they wanted Jesus to rebuke him, to wave his finger at him and say, you good for nothing thief. You’re going to hell. But that’s not what Jesus did. He says, Hey, I’m coming over to your house. Let’s have dinner together.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (19:27):
And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:28):
The Bible doesn’t really give us much of the first part of their conversation, but Jesus must have said something significant because by the end, Zach Kieus completely repented and said, if I’ve ever stolen anyone from anyone, I’m going to give it back four times.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (19:44):
Yeah,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:45):
Totally. And so Jesus just showed he cared by listening to him and eating with him. And I think sometimes just having a meal with someone is a great way to be able to open up a deeper conversation.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (20:01):
I’m a huge believer in that, and I think that in this generation, specifically in Western countries, which are individualistic, young people are so disconnected and they’re just dying to have a loving community around them, but they don’t know what that looks like anymore. And I do believe hospitality will save the West that the more that Christians see that and practice it and live it, which is uncomfortable, it’s risky, it’s costly. You don’t know when you invite strangers to your table or people from very different walks of life. It’s going to be an investment emotionally, financially and whatnot. But the more that we are able to do this, the glory of God based on the commands and the guidance that God gives us in scripture, hospitality will win the hearts of those that no one else is winning. Right now,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:00):
You have identified several different spiritual conditions

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (21:04):
To

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:05):
Look for in relationships. Talk us through some of those different spiritual conditions that we might find people in.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (21:12):
So that’s one thing. We use kind of a grid of six main categories of people that we will encounter as we’re sharing the gospel as we’re going through life and opening up to these spiritual conversations. The first and the most distant would be the disbeliever. The person who understands Christianity to a degree, they’ve heard about the gospel, but they are hostile against it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:40):
So this might be the hardcore atheist, someone who is actively, maybe they were in a church when they were younger

Speaker 5 (21:48):
And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:49):
They’ve decided that it’s all hogwash and they’re sometimes very bitter and just say, I hate God and I don’t even believe he exists.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (21:58):
Yeah. It could be that, and it could also be the softer agnostic who says, you know what? That’s great. I had some time in the church and I realized it’s too narrow. It’s just not for me. And I don’t think it will ever be Jesus, but you, we get a lot of that in today’s culture as well.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:17):
Yeah, that sounds very Canadian too.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (22:20):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Very Canadian and very postmodern.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:24):
You do you I’ll do me. Just don’t bother me. Definitely don’t

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (22:27):
Proselytize. Keep it to yourself. And so the disbeliever often seems like the most difficult person to reach, and many times they can be. But also we’ve seen with enough sharing of the gospel that oftentimes it just takes attention, care, and love, and the hard exterior begins to come down and they realize that you’re not against them. The people we maybe in the past who they’ve known. So that’s the first person that we talk about. The next is the doubter. This is the person who’s maybe a bit more open-minded, but they have so many ideas contrary to Jesus and the gospel, that they just have too many questions, too many unresolved things in their own experience of life and faith and the teachings of Christianity just don’t make sense to them. So yeah, they’ll talk about it, but it’s always from a position of trying to find the holes, trying to see how Christianity might not be the way. And I really like these people because they’re oftentimes very honest. They’re not dismissive like the disbeliever, but they’re also not just going to believe anything you say.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:42):
Okay,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (23:43):
Yeah. What’s next? Then we have the observer, and I think we see a lot of these people, well, we used to see a lot of these people in our churches physically, but now we see them more online and more in those conversation spaces. Maybe Christian clubs and universities or Christian events that happen in public, they’ll go and watch because interested or they’ll listen to sermons. They’ll even listen to worship music online. I see that a lot, atheist or agnostics that just feel this draw towards what Christians offer as far as teaching and music and all that. And they’re interested,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:22):
And they may even label themselves as Christian without actually believing in a lot of the things that Christians would typically believe in.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (24:31):
I would say. So yeah, that would be an observer who’s a bit more plugged in where they feel like they belong to the Christian community. So they identify with the title, but it could even be someone who identifies as a Muslim or a Buddhist, but they say, I’m really interested in what this Christianity stuff is all about, and I think I’ll stick around and learn, but don’t expect me to get up after an altar call or anything like that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:59):
And then your next level would be the seeker.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (25:02):
Yes, the seeker. And this is the individual who is noticing that there’s something missing in their life and they’re trying to find whatever this higher power or experience or truth is that can satisfy. And they’ve often gone through a variety of other belief systems or even substance use things to try to connect them to something bigger than themselves.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:30):
So maybe they spent some time believing in astrology or crystals. I’ve met a lot of people like that. They’ve tried out different that they’d say, I’m very spiritual. I don’t really know what’s out there, but I want to believe, and I’m very spiritual.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (25:47):
That would be a person. But the seeker for us would also be someone who’s a bit more intentional about going in the direction of, tell me more about this Jesus. Because there can be people who have that disposition who are more doubters observers, spiritual, not religious, but the seeker. They’re going after it. They’re putting in the work. And I love to disciple those kind of people because they’re coming at you with so many real honest things and they truly want to get to the bottom of it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:21):
And then you have the believer.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (26:24):
So that would be the person who knows that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, the person who has received and seen their desperate need for his forgiveness of their sins and is alive in Christ, filled with the spirit and living a life that is in the direction of glorifying God. Now we know there’s a whole spectrum of perhaps the most lukewarm, I don’t know where the cutoff line is, only God does to the most zealous and the most committed, but the believer is the person that we understand is a brother or sister in Christ who we will live together forever with.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:06):
And then your final stage is the disciple.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (27:09):
Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:11):
Describe an ideal disciple.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (27:14):
It’s interesting that we kind of separate the believer and the disciple because in many senses, the believer might be going in the direction of unbelief, and they’re not really that invested in their faith, but they still believe they’re still in it. But the disciple is the person who we see that is actively daily desiring the apprenticeship of Jesus to become more like Christ. And so this is the person who sees well, who reads the word of God, who builds their life on the foundation of God’s truth, and they want to live out what the word asks of us. And so an ideal disciple to me is just simply someone who’s humble, who you can tell they’ve died to their selves and they want to learn and grow to be more like Christ. It’s very simple. It has a million implications, but that’s just the core essence of what we’re hoping for.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:11):
As I’m thinking about these different spiritual conditions, I really remember the parable that Jesus told about the farmer who went out to sow seed in different fields. And there’s a lot of parallels there. Some of the seed fell on hard ground. Maybe that’s the disbeliever, and Satan is coming and stealing the seeds.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (28:33):
And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:33):
Then some people, there’s been thorns, so they’re like a doubter, but these thorns have grown up around them and caused these doubts. But then you have the good ground, and this is someone who might be a seeker. And then with the good ground, you have some that produces 30 some, 60, some a hundred fold. And so you have those different levels of people that are responding to the gospel, becoming a believer, then becoming a disciple.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (29:05):
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that’s a really, really good parallel for sure. And we see it going beyond that too, that even in the believer’s life, God could be depositing seeds of the kingdom, but in that stage of life, they’re just closed off. And that truth or that calling from the Lord will not bear fruit even though they’re a believer. And then the other disbeliever could actually have gone through a season where they’re so broken by something or something massive changed in their lives, and now they’re open to this idea of God, and then the seed comes at the right time. It could be you could be me, it could be anyone listening to this podcast that God uses to see a disbeliever become a full fledged disciple very quickly because they were ready. And I think that’s why we have to be ready no matter who we’re meeting on this scale or these categories, just be ready to scatter the seed. That I think is the biggest takeaway.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:03):
God doesn’t call us to grow the harvest. He calls us to be farmers, to go out and scatter seed

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (30:09):
And be surprised at the growth. It is a miracle. We plant someone else waters

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:15):
And then God gives the

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (30:16):
Growth and we’re just amazed by it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:18):
Alright, and so then there are four core skills

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (30:22):
That

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:23):
You teach that help people with their outreach conversations. So first you want to connect with people, then you want to tell your faith story, then you want to share Christ’s story, and then you want to give them God’s word. So let’s talk through these four core skills and how you help people to develop in each of those skills.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (30:44):
Sure. Yeah. So the first skill connect, very simple. We go with what’s called the grid model. It’s kind of like who are the people that you are already connected to and them personally, you know them by name, they’re probably people you see on a weekly basis, maybe biweekly at minimum. And we want you to know who these people are who don’t know Christ, so that you can see the way that God has intentionally put you in their lives. I find it really interesting. There’s often a lot of people that we know that we’ve never really considered them as someone that God wants us to share the gospel with. I’ve been a young adults pastor and I worked with a lot of university students, and a lot of them never really saw their classmates or especially their teachers as someone that they could ever share the gospel with. Why would God want me to share with them? Maybe my youth pastor or someone else will do it. A Christian club leader will do it, but me, it’s like, yeah, God has given you a grid. He’s given you favor, he’s given you trust, and it’s our responsibility to use that, of course, to lead people to Christ.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:59):
So your first skill is to connect with people. How do you recommend that people start to connect with people?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (32:05):
Yeah, the central skill with that is be intentional. Know the people, identify the people and be intentional with them. We also have some questions for people to get started if they think, okay, well yes, I know them. Yes, we talk. So what’s next? Well, what do you have in common with them? Begin to build a more connected, deeper relationship based on things you can do together. Shared experiences, how can you pray for them? That’s another question. Do you actually know what’s going on in their lives? To the degree that you can pray specific prayers for them, whether it’s for their family, for their work, for their mental health. There’s so many ways. The next is how can you serve them? God has given all of us gifts and abilities, and we are called to use that to bless others. And so look for ways that you can go out of your way to bless them. Finally, what can you give not only tangible assets, but also what gifts? What spiritual strengths has God given you that you can share in their lives, ultimately leave their lives in a better place because of your investment? We would say those four simple questions. If you can answer all of those and act on them with any individual on your grid, you’ll be in better shape than most people. As far as building a healthy, intentional relationship.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:33):
When I think about connecting with people, I think of some of our friends who live here in Tulsa, who are from Afghanistan. We had a lot of refugees from Afghanistan that came here, 800 different families. And so we started to develop relationships with some of them. And when they first came as refugees, we were helping them to find jobs and get driver’s license. And there was one girl who was pregnant, so my wife was helping take her to the doctor for her appointments, for her baby. And so we were looking for ways, what did we have in common with them? How can we pray for them? How can we serve them? And then looking for ways to give to them. And so building that connection. And in these Afghans, they’re all Muslim,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (34:19):
But

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:19):
We’re looking for ways to connect with them,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (34:22):
Putting yourself out there. And it’s actually beautiful because Muslim people who move to North America, they’re often shocked by how individualistic we are and seemingly disconnected, and they’re used to a very warm, very familial culture. And so when they can come here and see that we as members of the church, as part of the body of Christ are willing to go outside of our comfort zone, our cultural norm, and be like a family to them, it’s amazing. It completely surprises them.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:58):
The second skill that you teach is tell your story. How do you help people to tell their gospel story?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (35:06):
So you can imagine you’re deepening your relationship from small talk. Personal talk is getting to the spiritual level. People seem to be open to hearing about what you believe, what gives you hope in life. And so we want to equip people to show the proof is in the pudding. We don’t just believe in God because it makes sense intellectually, but we actually have a story. We have experiences with God that verify that he is real and that he is worth believing in. So we make it really simple for people to share their story. First, we talk about this big idea. What are you trying to convey to this person? We talk about telling your story. For most of us, we’re trying to show that there was a point in my life where I did not know Christ or I was far from Christ. And through some means I was able to get to know him personally, and he changed everything.

(36:01):
So God changed my life. That’s kind of the big idea we want people to know. So we break that down into three different stages. The first stage is your life before Christ. So why did you need Christ? What was your life like? What major problem or challenge or confusion were you experiencing? And then we give people a list of words to help describe that in one word. What would you describe your life as before Christ? Secondly, how did you come to Christ? We all have a story of the time or day or process by which we knew that Jesus is Lord. And so how did that happen? We give people again, a list of words and small sentences to describe how you came to know Jesus. And then thirdly, what difference does he make today? So what is your life like now because of Christ?

(36:55):
And then one word to describe that. So once people choose this word or short sentence for each of those stages, they can break down their story into honestly a 10 or 15 second thing, which is enough to grab people’s attention and allow people to identify with you. For me, I say my life before Christ was addicted. I had so many addictions, so many things going on, but I came to know Christ through a crisis as a result of that crisis, and me realizing that Jesus is Lord and him saving my life today, my life is pure. It is just full of the purity of God. And those sound like three pretty disparate things like addiction, crisis, purity that doesn’t really add up. And so that 10, 15 second presentation can open the door into a longer development of each of those stages and telling the full story if you have enough time.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:51):
Yeah, I really like the idea of telling your story because no one can argue with it. It’s your story.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (37:58):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:59):
If you give them a verse or a fact, then there’s room for argument. But you say, this is what happened to me.

Speaker 5 (38:05):
That’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:06):
Your experience. Your life is what you know. And so you are able to share with people in a way that there maybe won’t be so argumentative. And then one of the things that you say that I really like is that it’s better to spend most of the time actively listening to the other person in order to understand. And so I think one of the mistakes a lot of people make when they’re witnessing is they get this script and they have these stories going to share and they just jump into it. And it’s actually a really powerful technique to listen to people, to hear where they’re at, and then allow the Holy Spirit to guide you in what you say to their situation.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (38:51):
Yeah, that’s perfect. And that’s definitely the deeper, more intentional level that we want people to get to. So you have your basic story, how you would tell it. Generally speaking to any group, if you were just asked on a whim, tell it. Okay, here’s my main points. However, we know that our stories are far more complex and beautiful, but also there’s a lot more going on that we could share about. And so if you know have a variety of struggles in your past that Christ set you free from, or Christ healed for you, and you’re meeting someone who’s really struggling in one of those particular areas, it wouldn’t necessarily be the first one that you’d share. But you also have experience there too. Well, God just opened the door for you to show how the same way that he met your needs, he can also meet theirs.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:40):
And when you listen to someone, you’re actually earning the right to be heard.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (39:48):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:48):
Here in the United States, we have the first amendments, which gives you the right to free speech,

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (39:54):
Which

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:54):
Is great, but just because you speak doesn’t mean anyone’s going to listen to you. Often they don’t want to listen to

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (40:00):
You,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (40:01):
But by listening to them, then you earn the right to be heard. When you start to share your story, you show you care for people. Someone said that no one cares how much until they know how much you

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (40:12):
Care.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (40:12):
And so by listening, you are showing that you care about their story, and you earn the right then to share your story and what God has done in your life.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (40:21):
Yeah, a hundred percent. And that’s why I think this relational conversational model, it’s so essential for every follower of Christ because that’s built into it. To have a relationship, you have to hear people, you have to know who they are, what they want, what makes them happy, what gives them what makes them feel fearful. And when you get the accumulation of all this knowledge and connection with them, you’re way better equipped to talk about Christ rather than a really professional summarized portrayal of Jesus. You’re going based on the individual’s needs.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:02):
Alright, then skill number three, you want to share Christ’s story?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (41:07):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:07):
What does that look like?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (41:09):
Yeah, so more important than our own story is of course the story of Jesus because we wouldn’t have a story if it wasn’t for him. We wouldn’t have life if it wasn’t for him. So how do we become good at sharing Jesus? The big thing

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:22):
For, I really like the story of Philip, the evangelist in Acts chapter eight, when he was with the Samaritans. It says he preached Christ to them and then he meets the Ethiopian eunuch on the road. And again, the story specifically points out that he spoke about Christ to him.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (41:40):
And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:40):
So you start with your story, but then there has to come a time where you bring Christ into this story.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (41:47):
Yeah, exactly. Who is this Jesus that saved you? And we really want to make it a personal telling of Jesus that we’re not just communicating theological truths or summarizing biblical stories or even quoting that many Bible verses, because a lot of people doesn’t really matter to them. We know there’s power in the word of God, but we of course have to prepare people to want to hear the word of God. So we want to share Jesus as our best friend, as the most important person in our lives, the person of Jesus, and talk about him and how we relate to him on a personal level. And so on our worksheet, we go through what are five categories of Jesus’s life that will help express how he can be a best friend and not just a theological idea to other people. So we talk about his personal life.

(42:39):
Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He lived in a specific region of the world. He was born into a family where his father was a carpenter and he himself learned the trade. Jesus was a person. A lot of people can relate to that. I worked as a carpenter. Relationships. Who did Jesus have in his life? He had siblings, he had family, he had friends. He had his community, his Jewish community. I mean, there’s so much you can say about him, his influence, his credentials like Philip did. Philip gave the prophetic truth about Jesus and Isaiah and through the whole scriptures for telling who he is and the major events of his life. What did Jesus live through? What did he do historically verifiable so that we could know who he is on a personal level,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (43:31):
And then Jesus is coming again. And so you talk about that. Are you ready for when Jesus comes again?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (43:39):
Yes, exactly. And there’s of course a lot of really important details about Jesus’ life that proves or tells that he’s our Lord and Savior. We talk about his miraculous birth, we talk about his ministry, the miracles he performed and how he amazed so many thousands, tens of thousands of people during his life. We talk about his death, how significant his death was on a Roman cross and what it meant for us on a spiritual level, the forgiveness of our sins, the perfect sacrifice that the sacrificial system could never provide or fulfill. And then his resurrection and ascension and how all of these things together show that he is actually the one true God. He is the way, the truth and the life. He is one with the Father. And that no other religious system or worldview could provide the, it’s more than security, but that could provide just the comprehensiveness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to build your entire life on it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (44:46):
And then how do you bring people to a point of decision

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (44:51):
To

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (44:52):
Where they’re saying yes to Jesus?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (44:55):
Yeah. So we as a ministry, we have our resources that we talked about earlier, the Hope and Spark magazine. And in the back of those magazines we have this summary of what it means to receive Christ as your savior. It’s literally on the back page. It goes through these three main ideas that God loves you. Everyone has to know that God loves them to be drawn to God of course. And what he did for us, we talk about how all are sinners, which is also very much a part of the Romans road approach to summarizing the good news and what we’re being saved from. And then we talk about God’s plan to save us and what God did by sending his only Son Jesus to actually make a way for us to be with him. And so we know that people are going to present the gospel in a variety of ways and use particular scriptures that they’ve come to love and have significance in their lives. But we just really want to make sure that when people present the gospel, that they do talk about this desire, this longing that God has always had to be with us. What prevented him from being with us was our sin and what he did to take care of that problem so that we could be freed from death and give an eternal life.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (46:17):
And so I like the word commitment. You ask people

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (46:20):
To

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (46:20):
Make a commitment to follow Christ. And then the fourth skill is to give God’s word. And this is something that your organization excels at.

Speaker 5 (46:31):
You’ve

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (46:31):
Been giving God’s word for decades, and so you love giving God’s word. But what are some of the resources that you have that can help people give God’s word? I know you have an app and some other ideas and ways that people can give more of God’s word to people.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (46:50):
Certainly. So as we already covered these hope and Spark magazines are kind of our two flagship resources that we give to virtually every church that we work with uses them. There are a few unique cases where we work in some closed countries that they can’t actively distribute the word of God the same way. So we work with audio Bibles and other things and partnership with other ministries, but we also have resources for things like prison ministry, working with people who are living in addiction or people who are unhoused so that we have a deeper look into the book of Romans justification. What does it mean for God to declare you innocent, even though you might be seen as guilty by the world? We also have a magazine called The Light and where we talk about Jesus being the light of the world. And we found that certain cultural backgrounds, particularly indigenous peoples, people from India, even certain groups, Chinese groups, that talking about this true light, this pure light, the goodness that is represented by it, it really resonates with them culturally speaking.

(48:01):
And so it allows us to share the gospel more effectively. But we also have our digital resources. We have currently nine short articles addressing very specific topics like depression, anxiety, loneliness, greed, things that people wrestle with on a personal level. And we show how the word of God speaks to that through these articles that you can easily download on your phone and send to someone in two seconds all the way across the world if you want. Beyond that, we have our New Life Bible app, and that is the complete Bible, and I think it has hundreds of languages right now. We also have on that some kind of topical Bible studies and even a find a church near you so that churches that we partner with that we’ve seen as trusted and true places to get discipled, we include all that in there so people can have a kind of one-stop shop application.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:00):
And so for the app, if they go to the iTunes library or on Android, how can they find it? What would they type in?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (49:11):
Yeah, just type in New Life Bible app. It should come up. It’s the icon of it is this kind of black square with a few other colors in it. I’ll pull it up on my phone right now just to, it’s been a long time since I’ve searched for it, but I’m assuming it’s still the top one that comes up.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:32):
Yeah, that’s always important to be able to find apps that people have. Alright, well those four skills. Connect with people, tell your story, share Christ’s story and give God’s word. Absolutely tremendous. And I think giving God’s word is really the answer to the question is how do you follow up on a new believer?

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (49:53):
Well,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:54):
The key is getting them into God’s word.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (49:57):
Yeah. And it’s been amazing, even these spark books that we have, we have such a desire from young people, from children and preteens that are so curious and interested about learning about God. They want to keep meeting with other kids and go through this book together. So we’re starting to see these little clubs forming like we want to call them Spark clubs or Spark groups, that we can gather children locally so that they can come to know Christ. And then many times their parents who drop them off also want to listen in. We’re seeing this happen all across Latin America and a lot of other nations, even in North America now and beyond who are requesting, can we do these spark gatherings as well? We have all these kids that want to learn, but where do we gather them? And so many, many things are happening. I mean, I could go on for ages about the miracles that we’re seeing and God opening up governments in previously closed countries, communist countries that are asking us to give our resources to every child in the country, millions of scripture resources that we are printing to distribute for those needs.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (51:06):
Well, tell us again how to find out more information about Share Word global and how people can get connected with you.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (51:17):
Yeah, so www.sharewordglobal.com. That will be the first and best place to go to explore it and see what we do there. Please, if you’re interested in anything that I said and bringing this to your church, because we offer our training for free, it’s a service that we love to give to the local church to mobilize and equip your people. I myself was a pastor and I wish I knew about Share word Global while I was pastoring because I would’ve loved that for our people. But yeah, you can send me an email, jordan@sharewordglobal.com, and I can answer any further questions you might have in any way that we can come and serve your church.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (51:58):
Well, Jordan, thank you so much for sharing the depth of expertise that you have on evangelism. It would bless any local church that wants to get their people fired up about sharing their faith. So Jordan, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Jordan Chanin – ShareWord Global (52:17):
Yeah, it was a huge pleasure. Thank you for the time, Daniel, and just for being an amazing, gracious host.

Evangelism Podcast Host (52:22):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to 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’s 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 altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry and much more. If you want to 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.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (53:24):
Thanks 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. 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 (54:45):
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.

 

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