Someone becomes a Christian. What happens next?
Every church wants to help new Christians get established in the faith, but that’s often easier said than done.
One person might be a 21-year-old university student. Another might be a 50-year-old dad. They won’t have the same questions, they’ll need different people around them, and they won’t all fit into the same follow-up course or pathway.
In this episode, Scott Sanders talks with Adrian Haynes, Mission Pastor at EV Church, about what he’s learned from following up new Christians.
Toolbox:
Ep 284 Reignite Your Conversion Engine – The One Thing
Conversion Engine – Reach Australia Podcast
Follow Up to the Conversion Engine – Reach Australia Podcast
Credits:
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
Support Reach Australia’s online library
Transcript:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00;00;08;13 – 00;00;30;25
Scott Sanders
Gidday, I’m Scott Sanders. Welcome to the One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry every week. Today, we’re talking about the important transition from New Christians attending an evangelistic course to getting integrated into the rest of church life. We’re going to talk about the messiness after the mission course, and today I’m joined by Adrian Hinds.
00;00;30;27 – 00;00;41;00
Scott Sanders
Hello, Adrian. You’re the mission pastor at Eve church. You’ve been doing that for a long time. As long as I’ve kind of been in. Yeah. Around registration tonight.
00;00;41;02 – 00;00;51;26
Adrian Haynes
Well, yeah. Been a very for 20 years on staff and always in the mission world. Not not heading up the ministry the whole time. So a bunch of different roles in mission over.
00;00;52;01 – 00;01;19;12
Scott Sanders
Over the years. But so we’ve got a very experienced person helping us think about, this important space in the pathway. Following up someone after the evangelistic series here. But for now, you press play on the one thing follow up after your mission course. It’s a mess. And that’s okay. So I do, you know, I want to I want us to sort of think theologically about, this conversation.
00;01;19;12 – 00;01;53;13
Scott Sanders
You must have walked alongside thousands, thousands of people, over the last 20 years investigating Jesus working stuff out. And I just I just wanted to. How do you how do you wrestle with you telling them the great news, the good news, and you wanting them to make a decision to follow Jesus? But my sense is most people reject Jesus despite you doing it clearly, faithfully, thinking, you know, about how to make everything kind of work so that they make, you know, they make the decision.
00;01;53;15 – 00;02;05;02
Scott Sanders
How do you how do you kind of wrestle and come to that reality that most of your ministry, yeah. Doesn’t work. Yes. Or or doesn’t land on the outcome that you’re after, which is someone repenting and believing?
00;02;05;06 – 00;02;39;12
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that’s right. You know, I’ve joked around a little bit, over the years, said things like, I think sort of that for fits of my work sort of garb and smoke, you know, and that that’s sort of a rough number of like the, a number of people we sort of engage with, you know, across a year, with the gospel, you know, once all for over a couple of months and then sort of like the number of people that we see, you know, solidly convert and trust in Jesus, out of that crowd of people.
00;02;39;14 – 00;03;03;14
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, it does seem like that, one fifth of the people. So say something really, hard and exhausting and, disappointing about that. But, you know, as you said, how do you do you trust God that he’s it’s his work. He’s the one, saving people, where we’re stoked and thankful for the people that he’s bringing along.
00;03;04;25 – 00;03;23;29
Adrian Haynes
But, yeah, I think you said in the apostles, like, you know, they’ve got a heart for the people they’re ministering to in their hearts break when, you know, people fall away. So, yeah, it doesn’t doesn’t make it easier. Even if knowing that truth, believing that truth is still very hard to do the work from day to day, I think.
00;03;23;29 – 00;03;24;23
Adrian Haynes
Yeah.
00;03;24;25 – 00;03;41;08
Scott Sanders
So, what gives you comfort? You know, where where do you sort of hit in the scriptures as you’re discipling, say, someone new onto your team, who is like, just become a Christian and, you know, they’ve probably got that that energy in that. So I and they’re like, why aren’t you you know, like I’ve had that person is why are you making a decision?
00;03;41;08 – 00;03;50;29
Scott Sanders
This is the most important thing that you could be doing. How do you help someone? Guy. Well, actually, yeah. No. Not now. You know, this person’s obviously deciding this is not the moment.
00;03;50;29 – 00;04;12;13
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, well, you know, in churches. So we looked at Romans nine, you know, very clear that it’s God saving people. And he’s powerful to save. He’s able to save and and he’s doing that work on mercy, on who’s on mercy. And so we can trust God in that, and be thankful for that and just be glad that we get to be a part of that work.
00;04;14;09 – 00;04;51;26
Adrian Haynes
But yeah, I, often reminded of the parable of soils. Yeah. You see what look like faith pop up in people’s lives and whether it’s the, you know, challenges of this world or the pleasures of this world or whatever it is, it’s very normal to see that kind of thing in our ministries. Many people, many people show some signs of faith and then not, I think I’m I’ve also been a bit of a, privileged position doing my role for the amount of time that I’ve been doing it.
00;04;51;26 – 00;05;06;15
Adrian Haynes
Like I have seen people come back to life 15 years later become Christians. So there’s, there’s a couple at life at the moment, which is our evangelistic series that we run here. So just finished that there in a follow up group and.
00;05;06;15 – 00;05;06;26
Scott Sanders
You.
00;05;07;01 – 00;05;16;25
Adrian Haynes
Know, 15, 19 years ago they. Yeah. For the first time. Yeah. Last year I came along seven years ago and got saved last year. Yep yep.
00;05;16;28 – 00;05;39;01
Scott Sanders
Yep. Well, that’s great. We’re thinking today about the importance of, follow up. So as you look at the pathway, you’ll, you’ll see a sort of a conversion engine box. The hope at the end of that conversion engine box is that someone gets converted. But that’s not often the case. So we talk about being established, you know, in the, in the faith.
00;05;39;03 – 00;05;47;14
Scott Sanders
Can you talk about the importance of follow up groups after an evangelistic course? Well, yeah. Why do you need to have them ready to go?
00;05;47;16 – 00;06;14;21
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. Well, almost always, takes Christians several months, sorry, adults to become Christian, several months to become Christians. And it always takes quite a long time to establish someone in the faith. So they’re not someone who, you know, gets, gets taken away by some false gospel or some pleasure of this world. We want to establish people in the faith, and that takes time.
00;06;14;21 – 00;06;26;20
Scott Sanders
Always, always. So so yeah. So there’s not the, the moment because my, you know, my dad became Christian Billy Graham crusade. Yeah. Put his put his hand up. Yeah. There was a time where I’m.
00;06;26;21 – 00;06;48;27
Adrian Haynes
God can save people very quickly. And I appreciate you doing that. I think, if you coupled this work, the conversion work with this, the establishing in the faith work, it’s always going to be a longer work. So I think there’s a, there’s a even if, even if someone does move quickly in that first, instance, to respond quickly.
00;06;50;01 – 00;07;12;00
Adrian Haynes
I think, yeah. That long the work of, establishing them is, is still always needed. Yeah. But yeah, basically if if that’s the case, if people take a bunch of times to be save adults to wrestle, wrestle with the gospel, understand it, know of them, but know what that looks like, you know, it hits the ground in their life.
00;07;12;29 – 00;07;34;17
Adrian Haynes
Oh, it’s way harder than I thought it was going to be. I’ve told my parents, now they’re freaking out. Maybe I don’t want to be a Christian. It’s not as exciting as it was when I first walked in here. All these kind of things. Yes. Yes. So people have responded, you’ve you’ve run your you’ve run a series, evangelistic series.
00;07;35;13 – 00;07;59;21
Adrian Haynes
And at the end of it, say six weeks. So if it’s something like, oh, for a some ten weeks, you’ve got this group of people probably in the order of like one fifth, maybe one third, the group of people that have engaged with the series along the time. And these guys have said they one of the competitions or the become Christians, or at least not, sick of hearing about Jesus.
00;07;59;21 – 00;08;13;13
Adrian Haynes
They’re still with you. Yeah. And as I said, we know that that, you know, that’s not long enough, really to to found them in the faith. So we at that point, we don’t want to drop the ball.
00;08;13;16 – 00;08;36;26
Scott Sanders
We don’t. So a lot of churches, we go, we’ve run the Alpha course, we run the Christianity course. Great. Now they have made a decision. All right, I’m going to let them move out of the pathway. And then those that have made, made a decision. We’re going to throw them back into a small group. There are some ready to go, but you would say it, it’s it’s at that point in time you you want to keep persisting.
00;08;37;02 – 00;08;37;12
Adrian Haynes
Yeah.
00;08;37;12 – 00;08;40;24
Scott Sanders
And follow them up again with another course.
00;08;40;27 – 00;08;51;16
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. Yeah. There’s different ways to follow people up. But I’ve often said the, the most important, Night of Our Life series is the week after the life series.
00;08;51;16 – 00;08;53;29
Scott Sanders
Okay. So talk us through that night. So they’ve.
00;08;54;01 – 00;09;22;24
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. So, so so we transition to, sort of like a small group style follow up groups, any night which are on, you know, we try to there’s a big cultural, clunk there and, you know, there used to doing a certain thing at the loft series. Listen to a smart guy out the front, answer questions, maybe have casual conversations with the people at their table or the friend that brought them.
00;09;23;01 – 00;09;33;23
Adrian Haynes
And then we’re trying to transition them into, you know, having a discussion with people about what they think the Bible says and reading the Bible. So, yeah, so, so always a bit of a clunk.
00;09;34;02 – 00;09;34;17
Scott Sanders
So.
00;09;34;20 – 00;09;39;06
Adrian Haynes
We do everything we can to sort of, I guess, smooth off the edges of that clunk there.
00;09;39;06 – 00;09;58;28
Scott Sanders
So at the life, of course, I could, they could just come and just listen. They can move around. They don’t have to be with the same people each week. But in the messiness of follow up, you’re actually wanting them to be established in a in a smaller group with a regular group of people that they’re walking alongside and asking those questions and wrestling with the Bible themselves.
00;09;59;00 – 00;10;22;17
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. As you said, there’s different ways to follow people up. You could you could put them back through another course and then another course, or you could do one on one, top style stuff. Both of those things can work. Because we probably do want, these guys to transition to a Bible study group eventually. And Christians mate and read the Bible together in groups.
00;10;22;24 – 00;10;39;10
Adrian Haynes
I think it’s, it’s a helpful way to step them into normal Christian church life. And I think, you know, discussing what the Bible says and, and wrestling with questions with a group of other people are doing the same thing. It’s it is a very effective way of, of doing this work.
00;10;39;10 – 00;10;41;28
Scott Sanders
So why wouldn’t you just put him into a small group?
00;10;42;00 – 00;11;04;29
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, yeah. So I think, that in my experience, that almost never works. Because, the people that we’re, that we’re working with, are very different to the, to the Christians that we’ve got in outside growth groups or something like that. So they’re, you know, they’re, culturally very different, the hand of the Bible very differently.
00;11;04;29 – 00;11;26;22
Adrian Haynes
They’re not used to what we do in groups. And almost certainly not looking at the content in your Bible study groups, that you choose for, for a new Christian. So, so if I pop somebody in a group, this week, they’ve. Yeah, it’d be Romans.
00;11;26;22 – 00;11;28;20
Scott Sanders
Not just not.
00;11;28;22 – 00;11;50;09
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, not not my first choice, you know? Next time, well, then we take sort of two weeks off, which, again, that’s not ideal for my test. To stop doing follow up for a couple weeks, when they’ve just become Christians. Yeah. Then we do a time and Jeremiah, and then we do three weeks of a Jeremy’s phase.
00;11;50;10 – 00;11;59;19
Scott Sanders
For those listening, he’s got he’s he’s got his eyebrows up and he’s, he’s actually thinking the maturity team. What were they thinking this year to do Romans and then to Jeremiah and then.
00;11;59;20 – 00;12;07;29
Adrian Haynes
And then we got a bit of a building campaign and then. Yeah. So so not it wouldn’t be the content that I’d choose to, to look after these guys.
00;12;08;03 – 00;12;15;16
Scott Sanders
So what I’m hearing you say it’s important after the evangelistic course to have some sort of formal follow up.
00;12;15;18 – 00;12;16;29
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. Purpose built.
00;12;17;02 – 00;12;23;02
Scott Sanders
Yeah. Be ready to go. Yeah. So what are the what are the challenges around having follow up groups? After an evangelistic course?
00;12;23;09 – 00;12;38;29
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. So as I said before, there’s this group of people, that’s sort of different, you know, the, what we might expect being a normal Christian Bible study group, socially different, spiritually different. And they engage with the Bible differently.
00;12;39;21 – 00;12;42;24
Scott Sanders
Okay. So socially, socially different.
00;12;42;29 – 00;12;58;00
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. Yeah. Like, Jesus, a few things I do to Dan, we got to, expect these people to be uncommitted. Imagine what the the flashiest person in your Bible study group. That’s all of them. For all the.
00;12;58;00 – 00;12;59;26
Scott Sanders
Time. Yeah.
00;13;01;06 – 00;13;25;25
Adrian Haynes
At best, they’re immature in the faith. They feel really quite awkward about group discussions, hearing all these questions with other people. The last time, like, they might have sat down and, discussed a book with school, and they might not have even done it then, depending on how hard they worked at school. You know, just sharing ideas with strangers.
00;13;26;13 – 00;13;36;28
Adrian Haynes
And definitely no confidence when it comes to, the Bible reading in the Bible out loud or crying out loud or, you know, just sharing struggles with life and that kind of thing.
00;13;37;01 – 00;13;42;24
Scott Sanders
So how do you onboard someone to, a group like this? What does what does it look like?
00;13;42;27 – 00;14;16;23
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. Well, when thinking about, helping someone lead a group like this, I’d want to, help them understand those, pieces. But, probably the four that I just have in place, within the structure, like, good, good content, a good plan for what to look at in the Bible. So good resources. And as I said, not not 1 or 2 weeks, not a short thing, something some content.
00;14;16;26 – 00;14;46;12
Adrian Haynes
It’s a plan for the Bible that you get that will help, walk these guys through a bunch of months. And in that with this sort of reinforcing, sort of foundational gospel ideas and exploring what it means, to be a Christian, but then after that, it would be helping, a leader. And in, in the group members, it’s one thing to have a great leader, but you if you’ve got a couple other Christians in the group as well, they, they sort of need to be on board with what we’re trying to do there.
00;14;47;03 – 00;15;07;29
Adrian Haynes
So, yeah, as a whole, those guys would need to understand how this group’s going to be different, might look different, feel different to the, experience of Bible study groups. And, and just know how to handle those differences and be helpful to these guys in that. Yeah.
00;15;08;01 – 00;15;15;07
Scott Sanders
So is it a tricky role to feel, to find someone who can, navigate the flighty?
00;15;15;09 – 00;15;16;06
Adrian Haynes
Yeah.
00;15;16;09 – 00;15;24;08
Scott Sanders
Inexperienced, immature, person? Or do you find you’ve got lots of people are sort of putting my hand up and saying, I want to walk on the side. Yeah, I think.
00;15;24;10 – 00;15;53;05
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, I think it can be really tricky, to feel the role. It feels like potentially really daunting thing to take on a group of, non-Christians or new Christians. And, just sort of a couple things I think you need someone’s got to be convicted of the need of this work. So strong conviction that, you know, in mission, wanting to see people saved, wanting to win, to have these conversations, rest with staff.
00;15;53;05 – 00;16;21;01
Adrian Haynes
So people saved, the need to just have a certain amount of confidence, like, willing to step up and have a crack at leading a group like this. And I need to be somewhat competent with the Bible. Also prepared to know what to do when I don’t know the answers, which is also fine, but competent and and, and then the last thing, and this is, I guess, where it gets kind of tricky around here, at least they need to be available.
00;16;21;07 – 00;16;53;02
Adrian Haynes
Like they need to be free to do it. And I think in many of our churches, the convicted, confident, competent people, they’re all doing heaps of ministry already. And the nature of this, work that we’re talking about, we don’t actually know what the what the group’s going to look like. You know, you’ve you’ve got to have, a series running is ten long questions coming along by the end of five, there might still be with you.
00;16;53;14 – 00;17;04;17
Adrian Haynes
What is that crowd? What are they made up of? Is this going to be one person, two people? Is it going to be all women? Is it going to be two old blokes and a young girl?
00;17;05;05 – 00;17;10;00
Scott Sanders
So in some sense, is it committing themselves to this group of people, which could be very different.
00;17;10;02 – 00;17;17;03
Adrian Haynes
It’s just hard for. Yeah, it’s it’s hard for us to have great people ready to go just in case.
00;17;17;06 – 00;17;29;28
Scott Sanders
And then you might have the retiree who’s got lots of time to catch up, the young mum who can only meet you on, you know. Yeah, this day of the week. And then the young adult who probably doesn’t want to catch up with you at all, but you’ve got to you got to push to to do that.
00;17;30;04 – 00;17;55;26
Scott Sanders
So is it the sort of, you know, in, in getting someone to jump onto this team? You basically say to them, look, I want you to come along to the life course and, you know, being around these group people and then commit to walking alongside whomever for the next, you know, three months, six months, and, and then doing that, you kind of asking them to do that every year and just get better at the walking alongside, you know, from week to week six to, to wait 20.
00;17;55;26 – 00;17;56;17
Scott Sanders
Yeah.
00;17;56;19 – 00;18;14;21
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. We do have that crowd of people sort of say, this is this is a ministry that I do, I’m always for a, I’m never at a growth group on a Tuesday night. I’m afraid to do this. And when I tapping this is probably going to be like, a six month, sort of commitment.
00;18;14;21 – 00;18;41;16
Adrian Haynes
Yep. That I’m looking at. But then also just because, you know, you need a certain number of people to do this sort of work. We also are reaching out to just good, competent people, that we trust, and try and onboard them as quickly as possible. And, and with a bit of a sense of if we need you this term in three weeks time, we’ll have more of an idea if we’re going to need you or not.
00;18;42;02 – 00;19;00;14
Adrian Haynes
Would you be able to, you know, would you be willing to stretch, on top of the ministries that you’re doing to to be involved in a group like this one? And you can do sort of on the ground training in these groups, you know, come along, say it. Get involved, have a go.
00;19;00;14 – 00;19;26;01
Adrian Haynes
And then with the with the idea of, you know, so next time, next, you know, you could be the, the main leader. That does work. It can happen. But again, these groups are kind of fragile. You know, sometimes they fall apart after five weeks. So, that, that the level of, like, training you can do can also be tricky as well.
00;19;26;01 – 00;19;42;14
Adrian Haynes
What is a growth group or something like that? Week in, week out, there’s always a group up or step you up this week for two weeks and then you have a break. And so yeah, sometimes you’re just asking the rest of the ministries in church, like, I just need the best people in and they and I need them now.
00;19;42;20 – 00;19;45;00
Adrian Haynes
00;19;45;03 – 00;20;05;10
Scott Sanders
With a smile on your face as they’re all struggling for, ladies as well. So I want to change tack a little bit. That’s been really helpful, thinking about the the leaders of these follow up groups and, and what’s needed, so sounds mature, flexible and available. That’s what you’re looking for? Yeah. What are the principles of new Christian follow up?
00;20;05;12 – 00;20;26;02
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. And this is just, I guess what I think, things I’ve picked up, in my ministry, what I’ve learned over the last 20 years doing this sort of stuff, as I said, this always takes time. So we need to have a structure in place that cares for people and for not just a couple of weeks, but for months.
00;20;27;19 – 00;21;01;29
Adrian Haynes
And, yeah. And I think the. It’s really helpful to think about your follow up, whatever you’re doing there in the course as the same thing. Not not separate them there. So, yeah, it always takes time. That’s one thing. Larger groups seem to work better. So, so, we’re we’re constantly sort of making decisions to try to make the life series, a large attraction events event.
00;21;02;10 – 00;21;30;22
Adrian Haynes
Seeing as many non-Christians coming along as possible. Because we want to see more people saved. But, yeah, more people at the loft series. More people, saying yes to follow up. So even when a few people drop out, it means that, you know, there’s these still groups that are functional and working. Well, and, the third thing is I say that the messy work never really stops.
00;21;31;04 – 00;21;59;02
Adrian Haynes
So if you’re, if you’re involved in this type of work and, and this feels like messy and hard. Yeah, that that never stops. So with the numbers of people wake up coming through now, we do we do have groups that stick together and hold together and work well, but as I said, with with 4/5 of the people dropping out at any different point, that messy work of, okay, how am I going to look after this person now?
00;21;59;11 – 00;22;00;15
Adrian Haynes
That never really stops.
00;22;00;22 – 00;22;19;02
Scott Sanders
So I want to push into some practical tips for ladies in this area. But I want to I want to start with you. So, you’ve obviously you obviously enjoy the mess. What, or you’ve just gotten used to it and, or is it that you just convicted that this is needed if we want to say people move from death to life?
00;22;19;02 – 00;22;21;10
Scott Sanders
And so, yeah, I’m happy with the ambiguity in the mess.
00;22;21;10 – 00;22;44;05
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, I guess I’m not happy with it, but I think I think at one point along the years, I’ve gone, okay, strength in this area doesn’t mean figuring out the perfect syllabus, course structure. And I’ll. And I’ll organize the mess. So I, that’s the was that’s always there. I think strength in this area probably looks more like flexibility.
00;22;44;20 – 00;22;59;02
Adrian Haynes
You know, there’s, a group of people, God, at all different points in their spiritual life, gone through different things, and we want to establish them in the faith. So you need to be flexible now, how to do that.
00;22;59;05 – 00;23;04;28
Scott Sanders
So, some practical tips for leaders in this area. What are some things that we need to pay attention to.
00;23;05;06 – 00;23;29;24
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. Well as I mentioned before, I think make the course and the follow up the same thing. And I’d probably have the same person over the top of those without you can’t really have the, the course when in the follow up file. So it’s really helpful to have, yeah. The one person like, okay, now I’m going to start making decisions at the course or in the follow up that makes sense of this being like a, a long process.
00;23;31;10 – 00;23;44;15
Adrian Haynes
And I think as I said before as well, I think it’s very beneficial to make decisions to, to try to get more people in, make the course an attraction or large event, more people. The easier it is and the better it is, more people save.
00;23;44;16 – 00;23;51;19
Scott Sanders
So that’s food. Thinking about the time of the week? Yeah. Think about the people that you’re having on the on the table groups and about the set up and the.
00;23;51;21 – 00;24;14;15
Adrian Haynes
Warren about all the stuff that you wish you didn’t have to worry about. But but you’re dealing with a bunch of people who care about, you know, in some cases, you know, feel and, and vibe and they’re scared of different things and superficial things that might really put people off. Yeah. And and also, you know, I already mentioned the flexibility stuff there that.
00;24;14;17 – 00;24;32;22
Adrian Haynes
Yeah. These guys, you got to remember these guys that we’re looking after all different places in their faith, and, and life situations kind of messy. They’re messy people in many cases. So we need to be flexible in how we look after those guys.
00;24;32;24 – 00;24;38;21
Scott Sanders
Well, I mean, this is the one thing. So what’s the one thing you want listeners to take away from this episode? Yeah.
00;24;38;22 – 00;24;39;04
Adrian Haynes
Okay.
00;24;39;04 – 00;24;40;03
Scott Sanders
Well.
00;24;40;05 – 00;24;48;03
Adrian Haynes
Yeah, I think, you know, if someone said to me, like my probably ten years ago, my it’s a it’s alright. He’s he’s been blessed to be so many clients.
00;24;48;03 – 00;24;49;22
Scott Sanders
Okay. Yeah. This is.
00;24;49;22 – 00;25;11;14
Adrian Haynes
Very messy tough type of work. Most of the people that we engage with aren’t saved. And many of those who are saved didn’t fit into the structures that we sort of run neatly. Now, you plan, you structured material, you laid. Ladies, they need to make sense of who were trying to look after. We can’t be lazy.
00;25;11;14 – 00;25;35;03
Adrian Haynes
They’re all thoughtless. They’re, But we can’t fix that miss messiness away. But even in those things, you know, in in that messiness, in tough work. Don’t be discouraged. It doesn’t mean that you’re doing it wrong, necessarily. Just keep working hard, trusting God will answer your prayers and save people in that mess.
00;25;35;05 – 00;25;38;04
Scott Sanders
So don’t fix the messiness. Trust God, do.
00;25;38;04 – 00;25;46;28
Adrian Haynes
Everything you can to fix the messiness. And then. And then when people are messy and your ministry is messy, be ready. Keep working hard.
00;25;47;01 – 00;26;05;20
Scott Sanders
Yeah. Good. Excellent. Well, I mean, it’s been really helpful, to, Hear from you to, have that encouragement, and have that helpfulness in just thinking through who is it that you want on your team? So in terms of the toolbox, I’m going to put, a bunch of episodes. It just help you think about the big structure of, the conversion engine.
00;26;05;20 – 00;26;21;20
Scott Sanders
So we’ve we’ve got lots of ebooks and other resources. So, have a look through that. I just wonder, is there a, is there a book that you would recommend on this topic, Adrian, or is there a, something that you found particularly, helpful in this space that you could recommend to someone who’s listening?
00;26;22;08 – 00;26;47;09
Adrian Haynes
Look, this this is going to be left field from what you’re asking right now, the most helpful book I’ve read in evangelism is a productivity book called Getting Things Done. It’s got nothing to do with evangelism. But all this, all this really thing, when my personal evangelism, life, when I, I, I read that book and, you know, being on mission, it’s a project, a bunch of different steps.
00;26;47;29 – 00;27;01;11
Adrian Haynes
I need to take being on mission, seriously. So I want to, you know, I’ll need to think about this. Not have it haphazard sort of thing. So, you know that that’s actually most helpful book I’ve read when it comes to personal evangelism.
00;27;01;11 – 00;27;23;06
Scott Sanders
Getting things done. Perfect. Excellent. Well, Adrian, it’s been great to have you on the episode. If this is, a helpful episode for you of your time, why not do us a favor and pass it around, share it with others? It’s a great one to, to listen to, potentially, amongst your mission team. And as you’re thinking about, well, who is it that we actually want to, recruit to the the messiness of follow up?
00;27;23;09 – 00;27;25;12
Scott Sanders
I’m Scott Sanders. Jetson.
