Building Your Bridges

Bridge Building

An 8 Week Series On Tactical Evangelism

Every Christian is called to participate in the mission of God to redeem the world. To do this well, we must live as ambassadors of the God who sends the church into the world through the authority of Christ and the power of the Spirit. But don’t go out aimlessly, have a plan! In this series, we’ll seek to train ourselves to communicate the Gospel wisely, clearly, and graciously using a tactical approach. With the support of a strong biblical foundation, the empowerment of the Spirit, and a personal conviction, our plan might actually build a bridge for someone to come back to God.

Across eight weeks, we will examine things like what evangelism truly is (and is not), how our character shapes our witness, how to begin spiritual conversations using tactical questions, and how to respond when obstacles arise. By the end, we should all have a plan of (1) how to build our bridge, and (2) where we plan to build our bridge.

8. Building Your Bridges

Verse: Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8 (cf. 2 Cor. 5:20)

Big Idea: This final class connects all tactics and theology to Jesus’s commission. With our plan in place and our goals set, it is time to start living like an ambassador, as a bridge builder.

Introduction

Series Summary

This series is about becoming bridge-builders, people who prepare the way for the Lord by creating pathways for God's glory to be revealed in everyday life (Isa. 40:1–5).

Evangelism is a conversational and relational work that ambassadors need to work on in order to help others encounter Jesus.

Where We’ve Been

We started with an image. Evangelism is not a battle to be won — it is a bridge to be built. From Isaiah 40, we learned that our job is to prepare the way, to clear the road so the glory of God can be seen.

From there we grounded our identity. We are ambassadors for Christ — not people who happen to believe something, but official representatives of another Kingdom, sent into this world to make an appeal on behalf of the King.

Then we got practical. We learned how to start conversations with curiosity instead of confrontation — get clarification, shift the burden, see where it leads. And we put it into practice together.

We got honest about what happens when people push back. We named the Steamroller and the Rhodes Scholar, and we said: a hard conversation is not a lost one. You are not responsible for what they do with the message. You are responsible for how you carry it.

Now we have a plan. To close it out this week we put it to work.

Let’s re-read our two key verses once again.

Read Isaiah 40:1-5

Read 2 Corinthians 5:18-21

Introductory Questions

Q | Is there anything that has surprised you as we’ve talked about evangelism?

Q | Has anything we've talked about so far made you change the way you have conversations?

Q | What about the people in your life, have you changed who you thought you could evangelize?

My hope is that the Great Commission feels more personal to you, and less intimidating to carry out.

Evangelism is that all Christians are called to reach all people.

Getting Into The Text(s)

Read Matthew 28:18-20

Break it down.

“Go into all the world?” As you are going? No… it’s a little more intentional than that.

The “go” (passive) doesn’t imply that we arent to be active seekers in the going.

The aorist passive verb is because we aren’t the ones who are doing the saving.

We see this commission reinforced in Acts 1. Jesus says in Acts 1:8…

If we know we’re called to evangelism, what is holding us back?

Q | What's been the biggest thing holding you back from having these kinds of conversations in the past?

Conclusion

If someone watched you over this Summer, would they be able to tell that you’re walking any differently because of Jesus? Are you going out of your way to pave the way?

We know what we’re supposed to do, it is time to do it.