This is an excellent resource for sharing the gospel. Here’s why I like it, and how I think it could be used effectively.
A friend pointed me to this high-quality evangelism course called Christianity Explained. It is based around the Gospel of Mark.
A training manual
I was thrown off a little bit by them calling it a “course.” It’s not a course in the normal sense, where you order books for everyone and go through it together. Instead, it’s a training manual that is meant to be studied and then taught in your own words.
It’s kind of a blend between a “course” and a training manual for how to teach the concepts of the gospel.
You could divide the book into three main sections:
- About half of the book is training and considerations on how to teach the course.
- Then it goes through each of the six sessions in detail, with notes about how to teach the lesson.
- In the back there are printable handouts that accompany each of the six sessions.
There are also helpful illustrations, and a section on common questions that come up from the Bible text.
The tagline of the book is “Share the Christian message one to one from the Gospel of Mark”, but it’s clear that the course is also meant for other uses, like small group study.
I think this is a great resource and would be a good tool to use, especially in a church class or small group setting.
A Bible study at its core
In contrast to an evangelism course like Alpha (which doesn’t have very much emphasis on direct study of the Bible text), Christianity Explored is designed to go directly through the Gospel of Mark. This is an important distinction. In fact I think it might be more appropriate to call this a “class” than a “course.” The sessions even assign Bible reading homework to the attendees.
Whereas a video-based course like Alpha might be better suited to people on the fringes of the faith (or with shorter attention spans), Christianity Explained goes deeper and would be great for people who are ready to dive into the rich concepts of the Good News.
If I have one criticism, it would be this: although it seems to be pitched towards a layperson, I don’t see the course as something that most believers would find accessible to teach, to be honest. I could be wrong, but I think the thought of teaching this course would be intimidating to 95% of believers in most churches, due to its complexity.
One only reason I say this is because I think we need to guard against the idea that you have to have a lot of knowledge in order to share the gospel. That simply isn’t true, and many times the newest believers are the most compelling and ready witnesses, despite their lack of knowledge.
Truth be told, this course would certainly benefit longtime churchgoers! It would clarify and solidify truths of the gospel.
This looks like an excellent evangelism course!
Get the course
View the manual at thegoodbook.com →
Download for free at christianityexplained.com → (don’t write off this course based on their ugly website!)
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