Prayervangelism

Prayervangelism is a portmanteau (“A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two different words”) that has great significance. It emphasizes the need for prayer BEFORE we do anything for the Lord. Certainly we need to ask for God to move BEFORE we share the Gospel.

My wife gave me a short pamphlet entitled, “The Secret Power of Evangelism” from the Billy Graham Library. On page 2 of the pamphlet there is a quote which summarizes the 10 points in the pamphlet:

“God has sovereignly forged a link between effectual praying and effective evangelizing.”

This past Tuesday, we shared the Gospel with college students on a local campus. I asked a friend of mine who is house-bound at the moment to pray for our interactions with students. It was a great day of conversations and prayers for students. One student I spoke to, Daniel, although he said he went to church his whole life, he had never prayed to receive Jesus as savior. I shared the Gospel with him one more time and asked if he would like to mark that day with his decision to trust in Christ alone for his salvation. I showed him this basic Gospel presentation and he prayed to receive Christ!

After working at the campus for several years, there are just a few times where we have had the privilege to lead a student in prayer to receive Christ. This week was one of those times. The Apostle Paul requests prayer for evangelism in the book of Ephesians:

“Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.” (Ephesians 6:19)

So, I will continue to ask my friend (Rick) to pray for us when we evangelize again. I shared with him the good news of the salvation of Daniel (he’s on the right in the picture below). Our role is to just share the Gospel but God does the saving. PRAYER WORKS BECAUSE GOD WORKS THE INNER TRANSFORMATION IN PEOPLE’S HEARTS!