V. What to Avoid
We have a tendency to commit the following mistakes while sharing the gospel:
- Treating pre-believers as mere objects or souls to be cornered or captured (targets)
- Rushing through the gospel presentation, thereby compromising on the quality. This may cause the pre-believer to miss out some key aspects/not fully understand the meaning of the sinners’ prayer. This can result in the pre-believer saying the prayer without a genuine conviction of sin.
- Brushing across the issue of repentance, which may cause pre-believers to take repentance lightly/ not fully understand what it entails.
- Painting a perfect or rosy life for the pre-believer
- Leaving out the commitments that comes along with receiving Christ / becoming a Christian. This may give new Christians the wrong impression that they can still continue living their old lives.
- Pressuring the pre-believer prematurely to make a decision to accept Christ on the spot
- Sharing without tact/ being insensitive to the person’s feelings
- Eg 1. threatening 'Repent now!' or 'Heaven or hell? Choose ye this day.'
- Eg 2. A customer walks into a shop and he asks the owner of the shop, “Hi, what’s new?” And the owner replies “Nothing’s new, except the Good News that Christ died to save sinners, which by the way, includes you”