I recently had the privilege of partnering with a local church in equipping their members to be intentional, effective ambassadors for Christ. The equipping tool that I used at this church was Mark Mittelberg’s course, Contagious Faith-Discover Your Natural Style for Sharing Jesus with Others.
Mark Mittelberg, the founder of the Contagious Faith course, makes clear what the goal of the course is:
I saw first hand just how effective the Contagious Faith course course is as the attendees discovered their natural evangelism style, which in turn, gave them confidence to initiate spiritual conversations with friends, neighbors, colleagues at work, etc. Many found this new found confidence to be liberating in dispelling the fears that they previously had about reaching out to those around them with the Gospel.
We worked our way through the six-session course over six weeks. The course format includes a 20-25 minute video for each session in which Mark Mittelberg introduces and unpacks one of the five evangelism styles. He explains in a down-to-earth fashion several key skills to develop for talking about Jesus effectively, illustrating his message with real-life accounts of ordinary believers who applied these principles for extraordinary impact. Each video presentation includes Mark’s own personal witnessing testimonies as well as guest evangelists (such as Lee Strobel), which assists in conceptualizing and demonstrating the application of each style. The Contagious Faith Study Guide was essential in maximizing the impact of the course as it included Group Interaction/Activities in which the participants paired up and practiced the evangelism style presented at that session. These exercises were instrumental in the class participants gaining confidence in initiating and navigating spiritual conversations that would lead to the presentation of the Gospel.
Contagious Faith introduces five approaches to evangelism that helps you determine which of them fit best with your unique personality and style:
Selfless-Serving
Story-Sharing
Reason-Giving
Truth-Telling
I highly recommend Contagious Faith, as it will equip you and your church to share God’s love with others in a way that is authentic, comfortable, and impactful.
As disciples of Christ, we are called to share the gospel, but few of us are naturally comfortable with evangelism. We wrestle with internal fears, a lack of preparation, and the sense that reaching out to others might force us to act like someone we’re not. Contagious Faith is a helpful resource for learning to leap the hurdle of fear and replace it with confidence to reach out to others.
With inspiring stories, fresh approaches, and timeless biblical wisdom, Contagious Faith will equip the church to make a spiritual impact in the lives of the people around us—even in our increasingly resistant culture.
(NOTE): As there are Q & A and discussion segments throughout the course, I would suggest that the person conducting the course be someone who is an experienced evangelist who can navigate the Q & A time as well as having their own evangelism experiences to draw on.
Traits of the 5-Faith Sharing Styles-Contagious Faith Video Series-Mark Mittelberg
