Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast. My name is Kosti Hinn and I am joined today by Brett Skinner, our executive director, and an exciting, wise, and incredible guest who I'll introduce in just a second. But first want to remind you, our ministry is all about sound doctrine for everyday people. We've said a lot in the first few episodes. We're all about bringing the cookies down from the top shelf. We're simple people preaching a simple message about an incredible, amazing, redeeming God. And so welcome again to the podcast. If you haven't already subscribed, be sure to do that on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere else that podcast platforms are found. And then don't forget we're on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and yes, even TikTok now, where 500 million people are every single day. We don't do any weird, crazy dance videos. You're not going to find those on our page. You will find a lot of gospel truth, though. And so you can find us there as well on that mission field. Today, I want to welcome Lee Strobel to the For the Gospel podcast. And Lee, thank you so much for being on with us today.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm so glad to do it, Cossi. Thank you. Congratulations on your new podcast. I hope it uh serves people well in encouraging them to share Jesus with others.
SPEAKER_02Amen. And a big congratulations, or I guess uh a big praise God moment for you. You celebrated your spiritual birthday last week. How long have you been, quote, saved?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, well, it was November the 8th of 1981. So what is that, 39 years or whatever that I can't do the math in my head, but uh November the 8th, two o'clock in the afternoon, November the 8th of 1981, is when I uh completed my two-year investigation into the evidence for Christianity and um bent my knee to Jesus, and my life has been totally transformed ever since.
SPEAKER_02Amen. I feel like that's how how Christians respond when you talk about your spiritual birthday. Big smile like you have right now. And you're just laughing. Oh, I love that. Brett, also our executive director for the gospel.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for being here, brother. Oh, I'm so happy to be here. This is gonna be a conversation that I know uh will be a blessing to me and and many others for years to come. Wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Well, let me read a little bit briefly of Lee's bio. It's very long, not because Lee uh has a big ego or talks about himself a ton, but really because of all the ways that God has used him. And publishers will send this my way or have you know authors and different people put this out so you can hear about the background. I want to read to you some highlights from uh Lee's ministry in life. He's an atheist-turned Christian. Uh, he's a former award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, and that is important because it will be a little bit of uh what we talk about today in his background. Uh, New York Times best-selling author of more than 40 books and curriculum. Uh, and he is the founding director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. Here's why I want to mention that. We have a lot of next generation people listening to the show right now. If you are thinking about college, university, what's next, you want to grow in your calling as a believer, but also some of you want to prepare for ministry or you don't know what's next. Seriously, go apply to Colorado Christian University and go sit under teaching at the Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics. Grow and then be unleashed by the Lord on the culture today. We need you. I want to say more than ever because the gospel has always been needed, but it is an incredible era for evangelistic ministry. So prepare yourself for that. Lee uh has done a lot of great writing. One book in particular, The Case for Christ, uh, accompanied by a movie. It was an award-winning motion picture. And then his latest book is The Case for Miracles, and he is a faithful, faithful minister of the gospel. And then probably most importantly, Lee, you and your wife Leslie have been married for 48 years.
SPEAKER_00So that sounds like such a long time. I told Leslie I said it feels like five. Uh seriously, it feels like five years, and it's been uh almost 50, you know, 48 years. So it's funny how marriage works that way.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. I'm gonna have to set in my calendar my two-year reminder text to send you the congratulations. Thanks. You know what we'll do? In two years, we'll have you back on to talk marriage. Oh, yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_00I hope I know something about it by then.
SPEAKER_02Well, you it'll be especially uh encouraging for us if you get to 50 and you go, hey guys, here's the wisdom for the podcast. I still am figuring things out. Like that's right. At least it'll make us feel better. Yeah. Love it. Your uh your daughter Allison's a novelist, your son Kyle is a professor of spiritual theology at Talbot School of Theology at Biola. And so a lot there. Lee, honestly, summary on your bio. Thank you for your ministry. Thanks for your faithfulness and your humility.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate that. I spoke at a church in Texas, I think in the Dallas area not long ago, where you had spoken recently. And um, they were just so excited about the ministry that you had there and the uh uh response of people, and uh they said, Oh, you got to get to know Cosby, he's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you're too kind. I I'm I was concerned I was gonna hear, yeah, and after, I mean, they said you're a great guy, but I had to clean up your mess, Cosby. Do we? No, no, not at all. That's why they had you after me, though. You bring Strobel in after to fix everything.
SPEAKER_00No, not at all.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, I am wanting us to jump right in. And if you could give us some background. Our podcast generally goes 40 to 50 minutes, but I don't there are no time constraints for you. You're our guest, and we want to open things up. So as much time as you need or is little. Uh, we have plenty of other questions for you as well. But could you give us some of your background for those who haven't read Case for Christ, they haven't seen the movie, which you should go watch, by the way, if you're listening. Give us your background. What has led up to this amazing uh, you know, four decades-long conversion and now a ministry? What was it all before?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was an atheist. Um, my background's in journalism and law. I was legal editor, as you mentioned, of the Chicago Tribune. Um, so I lived a very um immoral life, sinful life, um, narcissistic life. Uh my attitude is uh was at the time that if there is no God, if there is no heaven, if there is no hell, if there is no judgment, then the most logical way to live life would be as a hedonist, uh someone who just pursued pleasure. And that's what I did. And uh to the detriment of myself and my family. What people saw was me winning awards for investigative reporting, um, but they didn't see the other side, which was me literally drunk in the snow in an alley on Saturday night. So um, my wife uh met a woman. Uh, if you've seen the movie, you know is a uh a woman who was a Christian who was a nurse. They became best friends. Uh her name in real life is a different name in the movie, but uh, her name was Linda. And uh she shared Jesus with her. She invited her to church, and Leslie came up to me one day and gave me the worst news any atheist could get. She said, I've decided to become a follower of Jesus. And uh the first word that went through my mind was divorce. I was gonna walk out. Um, but I stuck around and there were a lot of positive changes to her character and her values and so forth. But uh at the same time, I wanted the old Leslie back, I wanted her old life back. And so I decided to take my journalism training and legal training and investigate is there any credibility to Christianity or any other world religion? And um with the hope, uh I wanted to be as objective as I could in that investigation. So I really was after the truth, but my hope was I could rescue her from this cult that she got involved in. And uh so I ended up spending two years of my life um investigating the evidence, um, focusing largely on the resurrection of Jesus, because I realized that's a linchpin of the Christian faith. It's all based on that. And um ultimately on November the 8th of 1981, coming to the conclusion that in light of the avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, it would have taken more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. Wow. In other words, the scales just tipped uh decisively on that day. And uh that's when I uh confessed my sin, um, received forgiveness through Christ, and um then my values, my character, my morality, my attitudes, my priorities, my relationships, my marriage, uh all these things over time uh began to change for the good. And then I ended up leaving journalism. I was gonna stay in journalism as a Christian. I thought it was important to have the voice of a Christian in the newsroom, but um God called me clearly uh to take a 60% pay cut and to go work in a church. And uh I did. And uh it wasn't I I had no intention of writing any books. Um, it was not for a number of years later that I wrote The Case for Christ. And um uh now uh my passion is um people I had a guy, uh Gary Habermass, who's one of the great scholars in the area of the resurrection. I was with him the other day, and he said, if you had one word to sum up your ministry, what would it be? Would it be um apologetics, would it be evangelism? You know, what would it be? And I said, clearly, it would be evangelism. Uh I only use apologetics or evidence for the faith as a tool to reach people with the gospel. My passion, my giftedness, my um entire ministry is built around um leading people into a personal and uh life-changing and eternity-altering relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Lee, that's amazing. Well, evangelism is the reason we wanted to have you on today because um it's one of those topics that has become challenging, I think, for a lot of Christians today, a lot of professing believers. But as as we see in the Bible, it's pretty clear that that the church is God's, you know, we'll call it, you know, quote unquote, plan A for the world. We see that in Acts 1.8, we see that in the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Um, but unfortunately, a lot of our churches, a lot of our people, um, you know, end up being more of the frozen chosen, if you want to say, than the plan A. They're not out there living their faith and sharing their faith and preaching the gospel. You know, what what would be what are some mindsets maybe or strategies that could help us inspire a missional culture in our churches, in our own lives?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that is a great question. And I think you're absolutely right. I think the church is the key to revival in our nation and in our world. And uh that's where evangelism ought to originate, ought to, ought to um emanate from. Of course, we're each involved in that. But um, what we've done, um, Costini mentioned our new Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. One of our passions there is how to revitalize the evangelistic culture of local churches. And we've developed a six-stage process that um has been tested, it's been studied by PhD students. It works because it's biblical. And um, I'll ripple through it really quickly and then we can discuss whatever parts of it you might want to go deeper on. But um we believe that there are six six stages that a church can go through, six steps that uh will increase the church's evangelistic effectiveness. The first is that the leaders of the church, starting with the senior pastor, must own and model the value that lost people matter to God. Uh the senior leadership has to model evangelistic values. Um, one of the biggest reasons that churches are less evangelistic these days is that um its leaders are less evangelistic and values are not taught, but they're caught. Uh, one study by George Barna showed that only 53% of pastors in the previous six months had shared their faith in any way. Uh, and so the truth is that pastors set the high watermark for the evangelistic uh fervor of their church. Um speed of the leader, speed of the team. So we've we've got to help, and we could talk about how to do that, but we need to help pastors recapture that personal passion for the gospel. Secondly, um, we need to help pastors to instill that evangelistic value into the congregation. Um, we need to help Christians understand that it is normal, a normal follower of Jesus Christ should be an evangelistic individual. Um you know, I just flew in the other day from uh I did the convocation at Liberty University, and um um I I was flew in from um um switch planes in Charlotte, uh uh North Carolina. If I had arrived in Charlotte and there were no other planes and no people and and nobody coming and nobody going, I would say, hey, something's wrong. An airport is designed for people to come and go by airlines and airplanes. And we need to help people understand it is not normal to sit in the pew of a local church for 30 years and not care about lost people. Come on. So we need to help pastors. How do we instill that value? We can do that through informal ways and formal ways. So that's second stage. Third stage, and this is the critical, I think this is the missing ingredient in local churches. Um leaders must empower a point person to lead the evangelistic charge. Nothing gets done in the local church unless there's a name assigned to it. And uh so this is not a person who does evangelism for the church. This is a person who equips the entire church to do evangelism. I have a friend who's a wealthy businessman, and he said to me, Lee, you know, all that a company needs to do to be successful is two things. I said, Really? Just two things? He said, Yeah, just two things. I said, What are they? He said, number one, we need to keep you need to keep your present customers happy. And number two, you need to find new customers. And then he looked at me and he said, Who is in charge of new customers at your church? And the truth is, if you call up, go to you know, go to the phone book and and and just call up a local church and say, Who's your senior pastor? Oh, that's Bob Jones. Well, who's your um children's ministry director? Oh, that's Margaret Smith. Um, who's your um high school ministry director? Oh, that's so-and-so. Who's your evangelism leader? Oh, um, well, I I don't know. I guess Bob does that a little bit. I'm not sure. You know, they don't even know what you're talking about. The senior pastor of a church cannot do it all. He needs help. He needs someone who can carry that uh value day by day. And that he so he needs someone to work with him. And that is the evangelism point leader. That's one of the things we're doing at our center, by the way, is creating and and and producing these evangelism point leaders. And then the um fourth stage, and this is critical too, the first thing that point leader does is he trains 100% of the congregation on how to naturally and effectively share their faith. And both words are important to be uh effective uh in sharing their faith, but to be natural, what we find is there are at least six uh styles of evangelism that are portrayed in the New Testament. And when when people understand, you don't have to do it like me. I don't have to do it like Costi. Um, you know, I don't have to do it like Brett. I can be Lee, and God can use me to reach my friends with the gospel. And when people realize that, they come alive in terms of their desire to share their faith. The fifth stage, then, one of the other things the point person does, is he coalesces the gifted and impassioned um evangelists of the church. Um, some people have a gift. I believe it's a spiritual gift. Some people don't believe it's a spiritual gift, they believe it's just an enablement or a passion, and that's fine either way. But clearly, some people have a divine enablement to lead people to faith. I mean, God just anoints them with a personality. You know, I think of my friend Luis Palau, the great evangelist, and God just gave him an incredible personality and anointing to share Jesus and lead people to faith. We need to maximize them because they're going to have a disproportionate impact. And then finally, the sixth stage is the point leader helps the church develop um uh ministries and events to reach the community for Christ. Um, and these can be a variety of different kinds. They can be uh it can be a food pantry. Um, in 2011, more people came to faith at the food pantry at Saddleback Church in California than they did uh through the weekend services. Um a food pantry can be evangelistic if it's done right. Um, it can be, and this is another big area I'd love to talk about, a small group for non-believers. I believe this is the wave of the future. We've tested it, we've seen it work. Um, we've seen these groups have an have overall an 80% success rate in meeting people, where we train people how to lead a small group of nonbelievers on a spiritual journey through which they meet Christ. Uh, it could be sponsoring a debate and inviting the community. It could be a variety of different kinds of ministries, but um, we need to create a safe place where our Christian members of our church can invite their non-believing friends to hear the gospel presented by a gifted communicator um and um uh and and use that as part of your personal evangelistic process. So sorry to go on so long, but uh that's a six-stage process that we've seen work because it's all biblical, and um, that's the process that our center at Colorado Christian University has been uh promoting. No, don't apologize at all. That is amazing.
SPEAKER_02I I want to this is not planned just because you you gave those six and it's you got my mind going, Lee. That that last one, yeah, I find that in I'm you know, in the Bible church sort of conservative world, yeah. You you get my my nerves going and my my red flags going. You go, you know, small group for non-believers, and immediately I hear my ecclesiology and seminary come up and go, Well, hold on, Lee. You know, the church is for the believer, the church is for the saved, the church is the saved. Help me, and I'm I'm sort of you know throwing you a softball here. I know sort of where you go. Help me, but help all of us understand that you're not breaching ecclesiology. Your your dead seminary heroes are not rolling over in their graves. When you you're just creating a space, right? Is that I mean, help us help us.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right. The church gathers um uh on whenever your church gathers, most of them on Sunday mornings or Saturday nights or whatever, and um has worship together. And um, you know, the in Acts we see the church met every day. And where did it meet? It met in homes. And um, so there's a variety of different ways that the church as a body of Christ gathers for worship, for study, for learning God's word, for um for evangelism as well. And one of the ways we can do evangelism um is by uh creating safe places where we can invite our non-believing friends so that they can go through a process to uh hear about, consider uh the gospel, and to ultimately receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And so what we see, for instance, in these small groups, um um we found that virtually anybody can be trained to lead these groups. And you get together half a dozen non-believers, which is amazingly easy to do. And this is not a church service, it's not uh in replacement of uh the bot the gathering of the body of Christ. This is an evangelistic outreach of the church. And you get together once a week for a period of time, and um we train people how to ask questions, how to have spiritual conversations. And here's what we found: we experimented with these groups and in Chicago um starting in the mid-90s, and pretty soon we had 1,100 non-believers in these groups, and we tracked them over a period of years. And guess what we found? We found that if a non-believer joins one of these groups and stays in it, 80% come to faith in Christ. Yep. Where do you get an 80% conversion rate? It's awesome. We think, especially with young people, they love to give their opinions, they love to discuss things. Let's give them a forum to have a conversation. And and if we love them, if we listen to them, if we bring the gospel message and and have a conversation with them about it, um, God uses it. And uh so I'm very excited about that as an evangelistic. I think any church and every church ought to have those opportunities. I love that. You Brett, jump in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Lee, uh, you know, just uh that's a that's a fascinating concept. I'd I'd love to even uh hear her more. I know you mentioned you mentioned um like a political event or a debate or something like that as one of the ways to do that. What what are some of the the ways that you can hope that you can What does that look like? What did those look like practically?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do a political event, but but a debate. I'll tell you a quick story of one that we did. When I was an atheist, one of my friends was the national spokesman for American Atheists Incorporated, one of the top atheists in America. I came to faith in Christ. So of course I tried to share my faith with him, and we had many um very interesting conversations over the years. And one day he said to me, Oh, Strobel, you Christians are all alike. You'll give the case for Christ, you'll give the evidence for Christ, but you won't get the evidence against God and let people make up their own minds. I said, I'll tell you what, you go get the smartest atheist in the world, and I'll get one of the smartest Christians in the world. We'll bring him to our church, we'll have a debate, we'll just let people make up their own minds. He said, You wouldn't do that. I said, Oh yeah, we shook hands on it. My next thought was, my next thought was I should have asked the senior pastor if this was okay because this ball was rolling. Well, the night of the debate came, we had 7,776 people show up.
SPEAKER_02Amazing.
SPEAKER_00We overflowed our auditorium. We had live video hookup on different rooms on our campus. We had coast to coast live radio on 117 radio stations from literally from coast to coast, from Alaska to Florida. And um, we did uh a no-holes barred theological apologetics debate between William Lane Craig, one of the great Christian apologists, and Frank Zindler, the person, uh the atheist who was chosen by the spokesman of American Atheists Incorporated to represent atheism. And it was awesome. I moderated the debate and we had people vote what was your spiritual condition when you came into the debate, who won the debate, and what's your spiritual condition as you leave? And what we found is that among the non-believers, the atheists and the agnostics and the skeptics who came, among that group, uh over 84% said the case for Christ was by far the most compelling. And and 47 people came in as confirmed atheists, heard both sides, and walked away as followers of Jesus. That's amazing. Not one person became an atheist. Well, we've had people come to faith in the years since that. That was a catalyst for them. They began now to have questions. And and now, if I was to do that event over again, at the end of the debate, I'd get up and I'd say, I'd lead to faith, those who are ready to come to faith. But then I'd say, if you're not quite ready, we have small groups. Exactly. And then enfold them into that small group, and then 80% of them would have come to faith, we believe. So um I believe this kind of I see it as a funnel. You know, you have the the the weekend services of the church as kind of the big part of the funnel, and there are some belie non-believers who will come into a church. That's great. Let's encourage them to do that. Um, but then let's bring it to a medium-sized funnel, maybe a debate or um a forum or some other opportunity, some ministry, and then let's funnel them into a small group where 80% will find Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Man, that is amazing. I you're firing me up right now. So the I I wanna I want to sort of veer from one point you made. You talked about young people and they need a safe place and a place to ask questions and dialogue. Um I immediately think, yeah, if I have the truth and I know that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, clearly that's why nobody became an atheist after that debate. It's not right. Atheist and atheism has no power to transform then I should be able to confidently and calmly have dialogue and entertain questions and not, you know, get high blood pressure over it and feel defensive. So, with all that, Lee, with this next generation, what are some of the unique challenges that the church is facing now with Gen Z, uh maybe with millennials, students that you teach? And maybe unpack that for us ways that we need to be aware of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, great question. I think you know, there are a lot of challenges. I think what young people are looking for is authenticity, they're looking for honesty, they're looking for um transparency, um, they're looking for passion. You know, if you believe this stuff, uh do I see evidence of it in your life? Um, you know, don't tell me about it, show show it to me. I somebody once said to me, um, you know, um I'll say sometimes to Christians, he said, um, don't tell me what you believe. Show me how you live, and I'll tell you what you believe. Um, so in other words, we need to demonstrate by our lives that we are indeed transformed by Christ. That's a that's authenticity that young people are looking for. Um I think here's it here here's a difference, Costy, that I've noticed over the years. When I'm talking, if I were talking 10 years ago, 15 years ago, to a non-believer, one of the techniques I use to get into a spiritual conversation is I'll say, uh I would say at that time, I would say, um, if you could ask God any one question and you knew he'd give you an answer right now, what would you ask him? And um to try to get to the issue of what are their stumbling blocks between them and God. And 80% of the time, the response would be some permutation of the pain and suffering question. They would ask, why does a loving God allow pain and suffering? Um that 80% of the response, that's what people want to know. And 10 years ago, when people would ask me that, I would say, Oh, well, I'm glad you asked. And I would give them a five-point sermon right then and there on why God allows pain and suffering. I don't do that anymore. I don't do it with young people anymore. What I do now is I say, if you could ask God any one question and he knew he'd give you an answer, what would you ask him? And they say, Well, I'd ask, why does God allow pain and suffering in the world? But instead of giving him a sermon, I ask a follow-up question. And here's the follow-up question. I say, Oh, wow. Of all the potential questions in the universe, why did you choose that one? Oh, that's good. And then they say, Because my wife was just diagnosed with breast cancer. And I want to know where's God in the midst of that. Or we lost a child in childbirth five years ago. I want to know where's God in the midst of that. Now we're getting to the real issue. Now we're getting to the emotional issue. And often what that person needs most is not necessarily a five-point sermon right there on why God allows pain and suffering. He needs me to put my arm around their shoulder and say, I am so sorry. Um, let's talk about it. And to listen to them and to empathize with them and to validate them as people who matter to God and who are on a journey, and yeah, they're not as far as I am, and that's okay. They got a ways to go. That's okay. God use me to help open their eyes to the truth of the gospel and to the role that Jesus can play in their life in eternity.
unknownWow. Wow.
SPEAKER_01That's uh man, you got me. I I know Casi, I can see it in Cassi's face, but you got me just thinking about so many things right now. And and so, you know, evangelism has been done uh a number of ways over many, many years. You have on on one side, you know, I think Billy Graham, uh, Crusades, um, that approach uh to the culture. You have um what you're talking about, these really unique events. You know, your event had you know over 7,000 people show up, and then you move all the way to the other side where there's you know it's door to door. It's going around and and and approaching people that you don't know. Yeah you know, I'd love to know um, you know, what what ways are you seeing are are all of those effective ways that we need to be doing? Uh why is it that, you know, I I know you mentioned one thing about how Christians today will um will will talk a lot about their faith, but they won't show their faith. I often see as well that people, you know, really will say, Well, I I live I live the gospel, but they don't ever talk about the gospel. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. How do you balance it? What do you what's working today? How might you encourage people in sharing their faith? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00In in terms of methodologies, I think the the things that you mentioned, they're all effective still. You know, look at Greg Laurie, what he's doing with with mass evangelism. Look at Luis Palau, where he's morphed from doing more quote unquote crusades to now festivals, and and so many people have come into faith through them. And the small group model I mentioned, and um um one-on-one uh evangelism. Um, here's the key that I think opens the door. Um, and that is to say that we all don't have to do it the same. There are at least six different styles of evangelism in scripture. And when people discover that God can use my personality and my temperament to share the faith, they come alive. Because I'll give you an example. Uh, right after I came to faith, um, I moved from Chicago, where I was an editor at the Chicago Tribune. I became editor of a wonderful newspaper down in Missouri. And uh, so I'm a brand new Christian. Um, I look in the phone book. We had phone books back then, and I found a Baptist church, and I went to the Baptist church and they had a Sunday school ministry. So I'm in the Sunday school ministry, and at the end of one of the first sessions, one of the guys says, By the way, he said, This afternoon, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna knock on the doors of strangers in the neighborhoods around the church, and I'm gonna share Jesus and try to invite him to church. And if y'all believe in Jesus and follow Jesus, you'll come with me. And and I thought, oh my goodness, number one, I don't want to do that. And number two, does that mean I'm not a Christian? I mean, am I now I feel guilty, now I feel deflated. And here's here's what really um uh motive uh didn't motivated but unleashed me, which is the fact there are six different styles. That is called the direct style of evangelism. And this is a style some people have, and they don't mind. They're good at standing on a sidewalk and handing out tracks, they're good at going door to door and and and ringing doorbells of strangers. They're good at button-holding people uh at shopping malls and getting into spiritual conversations. God bless them. We need to encourage them. That's great, but that's only one of six different styles. Um, a second style is the intellectual style. That's the people who use apologetics, who like to reason with people, who may get into debates, who may get into uh spirited conversations over theology and over evidence for the faith. That's a legitimate um biblical value, too. We see Paul on in Acts 17 on Mars Hill using this intellectual style. And then we have a testimonial style. Uh, we see that in the blind man in John chapter 9. Jesus heals him and he's brought before the religious leaders. What does he do? Does he confront them? No. Does he reason with them? No. He said, look, I was blind and now I see. Deal with it. Um, this is my style. I have I use a combination of the testimonial style and the intellectual style. And what I do, and I do this all the time, this is my ministry. I go out and I tell my story. I was an atheist. Here's how that affected my life. Here's how I began investigating the evidence for Jesus. Here's the evidence I encountered. Here's how I um received Jesus and received his grace and him as a my leader and as my forgiver. And this is how my life's been transformed. So that's my style, the combination of those two. But then there's the relational style. And we see that in Matthew and Luke 5, where uh this tax collector, Matthew, um, becomes a Christian, becomes a follower of Jesus. And the first thing he does is he throws a party. He invites his tax collecting buddies to come and rub shoulders with Jesus and the other disciples, knowing that if you put those two groups in a room, spiritual sparks are gonna fly. And some people have a relational gear. They they're great at building friendships very easily with other people. And through that, we teach them how to share the gospel. Then there's the invitational style. We see that in John chapter four, the Samaritan woman who comes to realize that Jesus is a messiah. What's it what does she do? She runs into town. Does she confront people? No. Does she reason with them? No. Um, she says, Hey, I think I found the Messiah. You got to come and hear him. And they came, she invited them to hear Jesus, and it says that several came to faith as well. Um, and then there's a serving style. Um, some people share their faith through serving other people. And we see this in Acts and in Tabitha or Dorcas, how she was making clothes for the widows of her neighborhood. And through that, having a big spiritual influence, so big that when she died, God sent uh apostles to raise her from the dead. So these are different styles. And what we try to do through our center uh at Colorado Christian University is help people understand. We have tests they can take to determine what is their biblical style. And we have a woman by the name of uh Julie Harney, wonderful woman, very sweet woman, but painfully uh introverted. Uh, if you told her to go door to door and share her faith, she would faint in front of you. I mean, she she she would freak out. Um, and and she had never shared her faith because she thought that's what you do, that's what an evangelist does. He stands with a bullhorn on a street corner or he goes door to door. That's not me. I'm out of the game. She comes, she hears the relational style. She's great at building one-on-one friendships with people. People, she's very warm and a wonderful person. And so we taught her how to use that style to build friendships and through that to share the gospel with them. And within one year, Julie Harney led 16 people to faith in Jesus Christ. This is a woman who was on the sidelines who never shared her faith. And since then, I should call her up because it's been a number of years now. I bet she's led 50 people to faith by now. Because that's what she does. Uh, through I told her, I said, Julie, people like you will change the world through a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. You build relationships, you build friendships, and we will teach you how to leverage those friendships to share Jesus with others. And she has come alive spiritually and relationally and evangelistically. Unbelievable. So I think that's the key. You know, we can we can debate and use different methodologies, but if we can help people have confidence that God can use them. But they like you. And so let's let's seize that opportunity to share Jesus in your circle of friends.
SPEAKER_01That is so amazing. You know, I think of I think of so many people in my church. My wife is a is a great example. Well, she fits in that relational evangelism bucket. She just meets people. I mean, I talked with her last week, and she had a group of moms from around the neighborhood in her garage doing crafts, building relationships with people. That's just perfect who she is. And and honestly, I'm gonna say this, and I know a lot of people won't like it, but praise God for COVID. COVID is actually what has brought these people out of their homes, especially in an Orange County context. Yes, it's hard to get to build relationships with your neighbors. You never see them. Even if you knock on the door, they don't answer. And so um, it's just been amazing to see that. That's that's that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02I'm I would echo the same thing when I think of my my own wife, Lee. I would never would have believed what you're saying right now before I got married, because I believed that everybody had to go in like a bull in a china shop, you know, bring the gospel. You know, I and and then God gives me this wife who is a woman who is strong in the Lord and a woman of few words. And I'm like, you know, come on, bring it. And she's going, I you know, does anyone need food? And I'm like, what do you mean, food? We got to go share the gospel, woman. Like, let's go. And you know, for the first year or two of marriage, I learned the way God had wired my wife is she's so intentional, she's a woman of few and deep friendships. Yeah, and God made us polar opposites and brought us together. And so when you describe serving style, yes, she's Tabitha, she's the woman who and actually, you know, we did ministry, Brett and I, we pastored in Orange County for a while, and Amy and Christine are wives, they get along great. And it the Lord puts these even the personalities together that that infiltrate in many different ways. And so I think what you're saying may be well, it'll be hard for me to pick which one, but there might be a few big moments for our listeners that the light bulb goes off, that people don't have to do it like you, but we must deliver, we're all delivering the same message.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. We can't change the message, can't water down the message, but we can deliver it in the context of who God made us to be. I'll give you an example, Costi. You know, you talk about your wife and that group. Um, uh, there was a woman in our church and never shared her faith before. And she went through our training and realized that she had the relational style and kind of a combination of relational and serving style. Sounds kind of like your wife. And so um, what she did, it was um just before Christmas at the time. And she, you know, Samaritan's Purse has a ministry where you can pack um shoeboxes of essentials that are sent to the third world with gospel material to reach people in third world countries. And so she invited her neighbor, her neighbors, they all want to help people in third world. They're nice people, you know. So she invited her neighbors. Why don't you all come over and we'll pack these shoeboxes and we'll donate them to Samaritan Spurs and we'll help people around the world. So all these women from the neighborhood got together in their garage, just like you were saying, and and they they packed these shoeboxes, but then spiritual conversations started. That's right. And um, and then she would invite them to come to church. And um, one by one, they would come to church with her, and several of them ended up coming to faith in Christ. And and I love that because it was so simple. Um, people have a heart to help people who are needy. And golly, let's pack some shoeboxes with uh toothpaste and and and uh things that people need. And and by the way, why are we doing this? And and um isn't it interesting? Christmas is coming up. And by the way, how did you celebrate Christmas as a child? Did you go to church? Oh, you stopped. Why did you stop? And all of a sudden you have these spiritual conversations. So uh I think I, you know, I did a book called The Unexpected Adventure, which is uh about evangelism. And I see it as the unexpected adventure. You know, when you're doing stuff like that, when you're inviting neighbors over to um uh to to pack shoeboxes and and get into spiritual conversations, that you don't know what's gonna happen. That's the unexpected adventure. I met a pastor recently in Des Moines, Iowa, and he said, you know what my personal ministry is? I said, what? He says, when I meet a non-believer, this is pre-COVID, so when I meet a non-believer, I invite him over to my house um to have dinner and to watch your movie, The Case for Christ.
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SPEAKER_00I said, that's a great idea. I said, what's the result, Ben? He said, Lee, so far, 37 people have come to faith in Christ. So 30, I mean, that's uh that's awesome. And and he just has that invitational style. He's gonna invite people over to watch. I mean, the gospel is in that movie, and it's so easy after that movie just to say, well, you know, what do you think about Jesus? And where do you stand? And have you ever considered um um seeking his forgiveness and grace? And and so I just love all the different ways we can we can do evangelism. Um it's exciting to me.
SPEAKER_02If you're listening to this and you've been wondering, you know, what you can do, and your personality is not very forward, and and you're more of that serving style or that close-knit relational style. I I just wrote this down. I'm gonna probably steal the idea, um, Lee. But even giving neighbors or a copy of Case for Christ as part of a Christmas gift. I know a lot of people bake. Uh, we do that on our street where my wife, you know, she's you know, big baker, loves to design the cookies and she's very creative. Yeah. And then me and the kids go deliver them. And I am thinking I should put a copy of Case for Christ in with the cookies this year.
SPEAKER_00That's not only a great idea, but here's an even uh less expensive idea. I did a book called The Case for Christmas, and it and it's you can get it online as cheap as a dollar. Um, it's it's not oh well, we're not doing visuals here, but I have a copy of it right here. And you know why I have a copy, Costi? Because every year in October, I buy a case of these. There's 144 in a case, and my goal is to give away every copy before Christmas. Now, it only cost me $144 to get this case of books. I'm looking here, it's the book is only um uh it's about a hundred and six pages, but the gospel is in it and it describes you know what Christmas is. Is all about. And um, so when I'm at a restaurant, I'll leave a nice tip and I'll say, by the way, um, I don't know where you're at spiritually, but I I wrote this little book called The Case for Christmas. I hope you'll enjoy it. And uh just to give it away to Nate, that's a great idea. If you're gonna give baked goods away, why not include a copy? It doesn't cost hardly anything, and it's a great way to put the gospel in people's hands. And people, as you know, are more open spiritually at Christmas. And by the way, for Easter, we have a book called The Case for Easter. Same thing.
SPEAKER_02I'm noticing a theme. All these I and plus our theme right now. Like Justin, Justin's here, he's our creative director. He's everyone's pulling their phones out right now, pulling these up on Amazon and ordering them because the Christmas list is happening. Yeah, Brett, any more questions or thoughts from you? I'm just reeling and ready to go out and start. Well, my style would be relational and and and in there. What any thoughts, questions, Brett? Things come to mind.
SPEAKER_01I think a wonderful thing to close. I'd love to hear this from you, Lee. There's a number of different ways that people can be evangelistic. Um what do they what needs to come across in the evangelism message for it to actually be evangelism?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, good question. I I think one of the dangers of talking about these different styles is you can say, the serving style, okay, that's great. Um, and you can serve people and you can meet their needs, and they're gonna walk away saying, What a nice person, and that's it. Um or you can have a relationship, but you never share Jesus with them, and they think, I like that person. He's my friend. Um, that's not evangelism. Um, these styles open a door to be able to get into a spiritual conversation to explain, to share the gospel. Uh, we've got to help people understand that they are sinners headed for hell, and that there is one hope. There is one and only hope for them, and that is the uh uh forgiveness and grace available through Jesus Christ. And we receive it in a prayer of repentance and faith. We can't earn it, we don't merit it, we don't deserve it. Um, Christ offers it to us um out of his love for us, and um uh, you know, so if we don't share that message in some way, that's not evangelism. That's just being a nice person. Um and and um so I'm glad you brought that up because um it's it's too easy to see hear these different styles and think, oh golly, I just need to see serve people and and I don't have to take the risk or the take the um perceived risk of sharing the gospel. No, you open the door to sharing the gospel, you you help people understand your motivation for serving them is that Christ has changed your life. And uh 10 years ago, I wouldn't have given a rip about you. But you know what? I care about you now because God loves you and um and there is hope for you. And you know, you're in you're in mortal danger. Um, you know, you need you need Jesus in your life, not just to live a better life today, but because without him, um you're gonna you're gonna regret it for all eternity.
SPEAKER_02Man, Lee, do you go to churches and train at to or are you mostly a Colorado Christian now? Because I'm I mean, I know you could go around and share your story. I know you do, but I'm I'm like, okay, our church, Mission by like let's we need a coalition of churches. You're gonna go on a tour and you're gonna do evangelism training for all of us. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, we do we do uh training. Mark Middleberg, my ministry partner for the last, golly, three more than three decades, uh, who's written many books on evangelism. He and I, and Gary Poole, who's the leading expert on how to do these small groups or non-believers. We call them spiritual discovery groups. Um, yeah, we speak at churches. We do, you know, if if churches wanted to get together, several churches, and do a training, uh, we've done that as well. Um, one of the things we found is that people are open to taking a short class because all of our classes are online. You don't have to pursue a degree. We do have a master's degree or a bachelor's degree. But some people say, I just want to take a class on relational evangelism or on small group evangelism or on explaining the resurrection or whatever. And um, they can do that. All of our classes are just five weeks long. They're fully accredited, and um, you do it through Zoom right from your home. We have 40 PhDs who've created these classes. And I'll tell you what, working with 40 PhDs has been like hurting cats. It's been it's been a challenge. But we've got, we've already got, I think, let me think. See, I think we've got 60 classes already launched and and available. We have people taking classes already. Yeah. So if somebody might say, golly, I'd look how to I'd learn like to learn how to do these small groups for non-believers. Well, you can take a class from us and and we'll train you. Or heck, we'll come to your town and train you. Um you know, we're we're fine either way. But what's the website?
SPEAKER_02What's the website for yeah?
SPEAKER_00The easiest website to remember is strobablecenter.com. S-T-R-O-B-E-L center, all one word, strobelcenter.com. That takes you right to Colorado Christian University and all the information is there. And um, we're excited. Uh Cosny, I I I love the fact that you're doing this uh podcast and and getting pastors and leaders and others uh um not just enthused about uh sharing Jesus and and winning people to Christ, but giving them ideas and tools and and and biblical uh approaches that we can seize and we can implement in our local churches. I think if every church said, I want to have a point leader, can be a volunteer, can be a um part-time or full-time under the direction of the senior pastor, someone who leads this initiative. We're training those people at Colorado Christian and we'll send them your way. And um, I really think the best is yet to come. I like what Brett said, you know, or maybe you said it cost you, I can't remember, but about, you know, COVID has been a bit of a blessing. Uh studies have shown that 48% of non-believers uh are more open now to the gospel than they were before uh pre-COVID. So this is an opportunity. Our church, I'm part of a large church here in Houston. We would normally at Easter, we'd have 40 to 50,000 people at our services. Um we went all online this year because of COVID. We reached almost 200,000. So praise God. We're and the people, as Greg Laurie pointed out, the people who are conversant with how to use media like this are young people. So I think we're reaching more young people now than we were before. Yeah, so God can take what was intended for evil and use it for good. And um, I'm praying that this is the beginning of revival in our land. I love that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if anybody uh is is upset about that statement, you can email Brett. He said it, not me. He was praising God for for COVID. Well, Lee, thank you so much. This was an incredibly practical episode. Um, I want to encourage everybody to go to Amazon. If you just type in Lee Strobel, all the books will come up there. Uh go to Strobel. You said StrobelCenter.com, right? Right, all one word. All one word. Strobelcenter.com for more information. And then this has also been really affirming because even on our contributor list, um, Brett, where he pastors at Mission Bible, they have Jesse Randolph, who heads up, he's the point person for evangelism there. And then Greg Sucert, one of our contributors, is the director of evangelism now. New position at his church in Tennessee. So what you're saying is is starting to happen more and more. But I hope this encourages you if you're a pastor listening. And then we are this week gonna give away multiple copies of Lee's book, The Case for Christ. And so be following on social media for more about that. Uh Lee, thank you, thank you, thank you. And Brett, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I I'm honored that you could invite me to be part of the podcast. Thank you for what you're doing. I'm praying that God would continue to use your podcast to encourage and equip uh um leaders uh for the proclamation of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Well, if uh you have been blessed by this episode, go ahead and share it. If you haven't subscribed or followed yet on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast, go ahead and do that. And then we will have more next week on the For the Gospel podcast. Thanks again, Brett. Thank you, Lee. We'll talk to you guys soon.