The exponential power of reaching your One!

I had only been a Jesus-follower for seven weeks. Why would God nudge me to reach out to Peggy, a former high school friend? I wasn’t trained for it. I was still finding my own spiritual footing, so who was someone like me to try to convince anyone else to follow Christ?

Yet I kept sensing the same leading. The Holy Spirit seemed to be telling me, at least for that season, my “Who’s Your One?” was Peggy.

I ran into her on the snowy streets of our hometown on my first Christmas day as a genuine Christian. I shared the message I thought God was leading me to convey to her, and by God’s grace I ended up praying with Peggy to receive the forgiveness and leadership of Jesus that very night. Her life was changed forever — and so was mine.

Focusing on your One

The Who’s Your One? slogan might, at first glance, seem overly simplified. “We don’t need to reach just one,” we’re tempted to think. “Our society is dying — we need to reach the masses!”

But what’s the best way to reach the many? Jesus focused on the one. He sent us to make disciples — a process that usually happens one by one (2 Timothy 2:2). Not that we shouldn’t try to reach whole groups, but even when that happens it’s usually the end of a process that started with individuals reaching out to individuals.

Exponential impact

Is there any real power in this approach? Yes. Exponential power. Get this: if you help just one out of 10 people in your congregation reach and retain their One each year, your church will double in size every seven years.

More than that, if this process could happen in every Southern Baptist church in America, we would reach the entire population of the world in about 75 years — and that’s overlooking the fact that there are already millions of other Christians in the world. The potential in the Who’s Your One? vision is simply mind boggling!

This process would prove that what we have is truly a contagious faith that can result in a spiritually fruitful epidemic that impacts not only communities but entire countries, continents, and, ultimately, the entire human race.

So why don’t we do it? What are the missing pieces?

What are we missing?

Here are three elements we must put into our plan:

1. Leaders who lead by example in fulfilling the mission Jesus gave us.

People need spiritual role models. Jesus taught us in Luke 6:40 that the students, when fully trained, will be just like their teacher.

Here’s a truth you already know, but it’s worth repeating: People don’t do what we say, they do what we do. So, let’s prioritize reaching our One in our own lives, boldly setting the kind of example that we can challenge everyone else to emulate.

2. Church members who are liberated to share their faith in ways that fit them.

Most Christians don’t share their faith because they don’t think they fit the mold. They think they must become something they’re not — whether great or grating. Evangelism is for the superstar evangelist, or else it’s for the oddball who’s just offbeat enough to do it anyway. It’s not, they conclude, for ordinary believers like them. But who says so?

That idea came from Satan — since we know that Jesus’ Great Commission says that all of us are called to go into our world and share the good news. As leaders, we must work to liberate every one of our church members to embrace approaches that naturally fit them.

Here are what I call the five “Contagious Faith-Sharing Styles”:

Friendship-building style, like Matthew in Luke 5:29
Selfless-serving style, like Tabitha in Acts 9
Story-sharing style, like the blind man Jesus healed in John 9
Reason-giving style, like Paul in Acts 17
Truth-telling style, like Peter in Acts 2

I’m convinced that every believer will fit at least one of these styles, or perhaps a combination of two or three of them. Believe me, when people find an approach that fits them, the results will be dynamite.

They’ll feel liberated to share their faith without imitating anyone else. They’ll gravitate toward non-Christians who need what they have. And they’ll be ready to team up with other believers who have complementary styles and work together to reach their friends for Christ.

3. Regular training opportunities that equip ordinary believers to share their faith in extraordinarily effective ways.

Training is not just teaching or preaching. Real training always involves trying, which is why I developed a six-week video course. The course helps church members learn their own faith-sharing style while practicing the basics of building redemptive relationships, starting spiritual conversations, inviting others to appropriate outreach events, sharing their spiritual stories in ways that relate to their friends, illustrating the gospel in uncompromising but clear ways, and praying with others to receive Christ.

Redemptive synergies

When we get these elements going — leaders who set the pace, members who share Jesus in their own unique ways, and entire congregations trained in the key skills of communicating their faith — we’re not going to see just occasional conversions or small spiritual outbreaks. With God’s help, we’re going to have contagious congregations that impact entire communities and beyond.

Oh, and the rest of the story about Peggy? She soon moved to another city and we lost touch. But a few years later, I found out she had led a man named Wayne to Christ and married him. They had started a family and were raising support to go as full-time workers with Wycliffe Bible Translators, spreading the gospel to people in an extremely challenging mission field on the other side of the world called Papua New Guinea, where they served for almost a quarter of a century.

Today, they are continuing to serve from back home in the U.S. And I had the privilege of being a small part of what God is doing through them.

So yes, taking risks to share the gospel with the people around you can result in an exponential impact, and the redemptive ripples will spread to people and places you never would have imagined. But it all starts with reaching your One.

Mark Mittelberg is an international speaker and the bestselling author of the new Contagious Faith book and course, where the five “Contagious Faith-Sharing Styles” and the key skills mentioned in the article are explored in depth. Through that and his earlier Becoming a Contagious Christian course, he has helped train 2 million people around the world to share their faith in natural ways.