Evangelizing Your Community - Lesson 3

By Stafford North

Practice in Sharing God's Eternal Plan

Background information for the Teacher

Objectives:

The student can tell the story of God's Eternal Plan in ten steps.
After a student has been told the story, he/she can tell the person who has led the study one thing that he/she has done well and can make one suggestion for improvement.

Preparation:

Be sure to have plenty of paper and pens or pencils for students to use in sharing God's Eternal Plan.
Develop a plan for pairing the members of your class appropriately for each person to be able to tell the story. If there are people in the class who were not present at the last class session, pair them with someone who was so that person can tell them the story first. Put people together who will be comfortable in working with each other.
Arrange the room appropriately for two people to share God's Eternal Plan with each other. This may mean using tables. It works best if the two people sit at right angles to each other so they can look at each other and still see the paper on which they are working. If they sit across the table from each other, one has to read upside down. If they sit side by side, they can't look at each other very well. If you have chairs with a tablet arm, these can be placed appropriately around the room in pairs. If all you have are regular chairs, then the students can place them at an angle to each other and they will need a book or other hard surface on which to write. Plan carefully to have the best situation you can for the place where you will meet. If your class is sitting in pews, they will have to sit side by side and use a songbook on which to write.

Theme:

We need to learn to share the story of the Bible and the story of our relationship with God in a meaningful way.

Lesson Plan for Conducting the Class

Introduction: (7 minutes)

Call the roll. Introduce any new people. Remind the class that these sessions are to help us be able to share the gospel within our own community.
Sing a song of evangelism-"Rescue the Perishing" or "I Want to be a Worker for the Lord" or "Lead Me to Some Soul Today." The latter song would even be a good theme song for the class.
Prayer for the members of the class and the congregation to be evangelistic.

Learning Experiences: (35 minutes)

Start the class with a brief study of Acts 20:17_38. Read the passage to the class and then ask them to be prepared to share what we learn from this passage about evangelism from Paul's work in Ephesus.
Explain to the class the plan for this session. Each person will have an opportunity to tell the story of God's Eternal Plan to someone else in the class. Each person will have twelve minutes. Even if they are not through, they will need to stop at that point when you call time and let the other person tell the story. (Teacher: You can adjust the time limits as necessary for your situation.)
In telling the story, each person should draw the picture and ask his/her partner also to draw the picture as have shown. (This means that each person would have a pen and paper for each time the story is told.) The two people should then discuss the meaning of the picture and write a short sentence that capsules the meaning of the picture before they move on. The person telling the story should have the partner to read at least one passage of scripture about each point as they discuss its meaning.
Tell them when you call time, the person being taught should tell the other person one thing he/she has done well and offer one suggestion for improvement.
Tell the students you will be available should they have a question as they go along. Then ask the persons who will begin to start.
After twelve minutes, tell the class it is time to switch, even if they are not through, and ask the person being taught to comment on one thing done well and to offer one suggestion.
After twelve more minutes, indicate that time is up and give the one being taught a chance to mention one thing the teacher did well and one thing on which he/she could improve.
If you have time, ask the class for any observations on what they have learned from this opportunity.

Application and Assignment (1 minute)

Sometime in the next week, find someone with whom you can share this lesson, preferably someone who needs to hear it personally. You can just tell the person that you have learned something in Bible class about how to tell the story of the Bible that you would like to share with them. If you can't find someone like that, then share it with a friend or family member. It is important to go through this plan again while it is fresh in your mind.

Back to Evangelizing Your Community

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.