{"id":70989,"date":"2024-01-31T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T06:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=70989"},"modified":"2024-01-31T00:07:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T06:07:52","slug":"pre-evangelism-building-relational-trenches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=70989","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Evangelism: Building Relational Trenches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">One of my kids\u2019 favorite pastimes is building trenches on the beach and watching the waves fill them with water.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Pre-evangelism is like building trenches in the sand, giving the water of the gospel a channel to go in.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I get to teach on evangelism often. When I mention skills to build relationships, some Christians think, \u201cDoes this really need to be said? I\u2019m here to learn how to share the gospel. I want to see people converted. I\u2019m not here to learn how to build friendships.\u201d<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Do \u201cpeople skills\u201d matter in evangelism? I think they do, especially in today\u2019s world. Why?<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">First, the Bible promotes friendship.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Paul says that elders\u2014those men expected to be models for the whole church\u2014are to \u201cbe well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil\u201d (1 Tim. 3:7). I trust part of the elder\u2019s witness is that he has built meaningful relationships with non-Christians who see him as a man of integrity.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Second, our technology prevents friendship.<span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559738&quot;:120,&quot;335559739&quot;:120}\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I work with college students and see it up close. Americans have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do \u201cpeople skills\u201d matter in evangelism? I think they do, especially in today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":876,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-70989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-evangelism-gospel","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70991,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70989\/revisions\/70991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}