WARRENSBURG – At the start of the spring semester, Central BSU at University of Central Missouri put on their own evangelism training for their student leaders, plus any other students who wanted to attend. The goal was to better equip their students to share and defend the gospel.
Kirtley, who has been apprenticing under Missionary Jerome Stockert for the last two years and will be going on staff with Collegiate Impact in Kansas City this summer, led nine students through the training. He walked them through Life on Mission’s 3 Circles tool plus the why and how of Gospel Appointments.
The next day, Luke, one of the student attendees, came to the BSU and asked for some Bibles. He was in the midst of telling some of his buddies about Jesus and wanted to give Bibles to each of them. While no immediate fruit came from those conversations with his friends, God used Luke’s preparedness and obedience to plant seeds in his friends’ hearts that day.
The training “served to continue to set an overall outward-focused DNA among student leaders,” says Kirtley. After the event, the students held an outreach table on campus for Valentine’s Day. “Each student is at a different spot in their walk of faith and obedience with God,” he says. “This table challenged each of them to take the next step in their walk.”
For Conner Craig, a freshman music education major, the training sparked catalytic growth in his own evangelism journey. According to Kirtley, Craig was already a budding evangelist. The training prepared him to use that propensity, introducing him to new apologetics skills and refining skills he already had. “He had his first discussion with an unbeliever about how we know the Bible is the true Word of God,” Kirtley said. “The Holy Spirit definitely used some of the things we talked about at the training to walk through topics such as inerrancy and more advanced topics like manuscript tradition with the unbelieving student.”
The things Craig learned have equipped him to better serve God in unexpected ways. “Recently, I had the privilege of pointing someone to Christ using the methods I learned from the evangelism training,” he says. “I have been able to hold my own in apologetic debates by using Scripture, and thanks to (someone’s) help, I was proficient in explaining the context and meaning of Scripture as well as its significance.”
Craig says that the process has taught him that evangelism and discipleship go hand in hand. “Where one goes, the other must follow,” he says. “Because of this, I have learned how to effectively meet and disciple others and then send them out to do the same.”
He is confident this is just the beginning. “I know God will continue to do much more with me and the people around me,” he says. “He alone is deserving of all the credit and my success, but it was the evangelism training that He used to set me up to bring about His glory.”