Coming back to Saint Vincent I carried a bag in my hand containing four bags of chick tracts (a little over 400 total). These tracts are very fun to pass out because they share the Gospel, and are enjoyable to read. People after learning I have them will go through and pick their favorites, even passing them out to others after reading.
I take great joy in passing out tracts…..
but remember that is just the first step in evangelism.
The Apostle Paul immediately after his conversion in Acts 9 displays the steps of evangelism. He Proclaimed the Gospel (Acts 9:20) by preaching Jesus was the Son of God. He Applied the Gospel (Acts 9:21) by following up the Salvation with fruit to show it was genuine. And he Proved the Gospel (Acts 9:22) by defending from Scripture Jesus was God’s son.
From this passage we see three steps of Evangelism
- Preach the Gospel (publicly proclaim Christ)
- Live the Gospel (practice what you preach)
- And Prove the Gospel (defend the foundational truths of Scripture)
Notice that passing out tracts isn’t part of this!
Gospel tracts are one of the greatest blessings for evangelism, and at the same one of the worst things. A blessing because we can easily share the Gospel, but the worst because we often stop with that tract.
To apply this in basic terms a tract is like the very first ingredient in a recipe…..
but it is not the last!
Imagine promising someone fried chicken for lunch. Then taking the chicken, cutting off the fat, seasoning it well, and then putting the raw chicken in front of them to eat. Nobody would do this! Seasoning the chicken is just step one of a recipe. There are many steps left!
In the same way, we must keep in mind that tracts are just step one of the recipe of evangelism.
Can God save someone with a tract? Of course He can!
But God doesn’t want us to stop with the tract just like we don’t stop after seasoning the chicken.
It’s becoming more and more apparent today that the church is doing a very poor job of evangelism. There are many ways we can reach the unsaved better, but one of them is to simply do more than giving them a tract.
Johnhwilburn.org 
One response to “The First (not last) Step of Evangelism”
[…] the subject of Evangelism by saying it takes more than sharing a tract (you can read that post here). My point was a tract is the first (not last) step in evangelism, it with prayer opens the door […]
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