| abstract |
The gospel is all about Jesus. In other words, the gospel is good news about
Jesus. Christians are those who accept His news as good news. The gospel brings
Christians joy and peace. However, Christians feel pressured when it comes to
evangelism. In fact, evangelizing is getting difficult due to negative thoughts regarding
Christianity in Korea. This is why many Christians are hesitant to speak about the good
news even though they are aware that evangelism is essential. However, people in the
Early Church were very successful in evangelism and shared the gospel with non
believers even with religious persecution at the time. It was very natural for them to build
relationships and share good news about Jesus with non Christians.
First of all, personal evangelism, suggested by Michael Green, is studied in the
thesis because it seems to be an effective way to evangelize both in the past and now.
Personal evangelism is the way to share the gospel with non Christians through intimate
and close relationships. However, I questioned why personal evangelism fails in the
current era even though it is still believed to be effective. It is because relationship and
communication issues tend to be based on our limited understanding of right or wrong.
Secondly, coaching was studied as an alternative to solve the problem that makes
personal evangelism unsuccessful. Coaching broadens a perspective to look at a non
Christian as a whole person first and then as a person that needs to hear the good news.
Our understanding of right or wrong will be surpassed with this perspective and new
relationships and communications are possible with non Christians. Therefore, coaching
helps to build relationships through one-on-one conversations, which is very similar to
personal evangelism.
In conclusion, I could develop a personal evangelical program using coaching
based on the two studies mentioned above. It consists of four steps. We focus on non
Christians from a whole person perspective for the first step. Once the relationship is
formed with an understanding of a non Christian as a whole person, in the second step we
can ask more curious questions. In the third step, we develop even more understanding of
a person's needs, with coaching leading to true and transparent conversation. In the fourth
step, we can see hunger from non Christians, which they cannot control. Then we fill that
hunger with Jesus Christ. After training the participants, I witnessed that strong
relationships and one-on-one conversations that we can develop with coaching with non
Christians in regular life works efficiently in delivering good news in personal
evangelism.
As we know the gospel is good news, so it gives a huge joy to those who both
share and accept it. I hope that this study helps Christians to deliver good news
voluntarily as in the Early Church.
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