The students that share the Gospel with others benefit and grow as much as those who hear it.
A few years into leading a ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ I noticed the students that shared their faith regularly (a once or twice a month minimum) were significantly more spiritually mature than those who did not.
Of course the main purpose of evangelism is to honor Christ and trust that more people will trust him as Lord and Savior. But a significant reward for challenging and leading students to share their faith is overall spiritual development.
The Benefits of Evangelism
When students step out in faith evangelistically good things happen:
- They experience humility that comes from being authentic and sharing something that is valuable to them but not seen as valuable by those to whom they are sharing.
- They must listen well and empathize in order to see spiritual fruit; yet another self-less act.
- They give God significant room to work, and are often surprised by how powerfully he shows up.
- They usually have a perspective shift on the rest of their life as they consistently talk about Jesus’ value over the world.
How Evangelism Helps a College Ministry
I have found that integrating evangelism into my plan for developing student leaders has balanced out other spiritual disciplines that can cause students to focus too much on themselves (solitude, meditation, and one on one discipleship). Without a consistent practice of externally focused missional activity student leaders often stagnate.
By disciplining your student leaders in evangelism you are also setting the culture for the entire ministry to value evangelism. If young students see older students sharing their faith then it serves as a powerful model and standard for their future involvement. By the end of my fourth year of leading a ministry it was unspoken but known that in order to lead in our ministry a student had to be willing to share their faith.
As you think about developing your students do not forget to integrate evangelism into your plan. Jesus will work in their life and in the lives of those who are hearing the Gospel!
Brian Barela serves as the Director of New Media for Campus Crusade for Christ. Before that he spent seven years on campus, and was the first ministry in CCC to livestream their weekly meetings, and helped develop the paradigm for an integrated web presence that includes Facebook, SEO, Websites, and live-streaming. He blogs regularly here, tweets here, and can be added as a friend on Facebook here.