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Before we start, let me give a shout out to one of our conference sponsors. Virtual Church Assist offers remote administrative assistance and graphic design services that cater to you and your church's specific needs. With a growing team full of unique skills, experience and expertise, VCA supports churches and ministry organisations all over Australia and provides the support that you need specific to your context. You can find out more and get in touch to hear how VCA can help you at virtualchurchesys.com.

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Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network. G'day, I'm Scott Sanders. Welcome to the One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel center ministry every week. I'm Solo today. There's no Derek. There's no Maddie. Before there's that sort of long…

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Do know that we have a great guest on today. I have Jerry with me today and we're going to talk about something I'm really passionate about and that's thinking intentionally about mission. We're going to be really pushing into evangelistic courses. So this whole episode is about that and that's going to give us the time to really push in in depth or as much as you can in a 15 minute podcast into mission courses. Now the One Thing is brought to you with thanks to Richard Australia. We have a vision that wants to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches all across Australia. But for now, you've pressed play on another episode of the One Thing, evangelistic courses.

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Well, let me just introduce Jerry Jones Sparks. She's the outreach pastor at St James Croydon, a church in the inner west in Sydney and she's also the director of the Good News course. Welcome to the One Thing, Jerry. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I just wanted to… I love hearing about people's testimonies. How do they come to follow Jesus? So tell us your story really briefly. My story starts when I was four years old. My parents and my older brother, we had all just migrated to Australia. We knew no one in the country.

[2:16]
One day I was running around in Westville, Paramedic. My mom was calling after me in Tamil, which is the language we speak from South India. And a lovely man recognized a language and came over and said, hi. And he said, hey, we have this Bible study that runs on Saturday night. Would you like to come along? My parents are thinking, oh, we kind of have a Christianish background. My extended family in India were Roman Catholic. It's like great. We, you know, some friends who speak Tamil.

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And we went along and over the first few years my parents realized that they had never understood the gospel before. And they came to faith when I was quite young. And that really changed the trajectory of my life and my family's life. My dad's a best evangelist I know. And if I'm a mission pastor today, that's what's got to do with his legacy in my life. As for me, so I've grown growing up in a essentially Christian family and I really felt the pressure to make the decision to become a Christian. And I hated it.

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We would have daily prayer time together as a family and every night my parents would pray to the altar call. Yeah, I was a call every night. I was so over it. Does anyone, if everyone just puts their hands down, put your hand up and you want to… Not quite, but pretty close. And so I was getting to this point. I did some reading into, you know, the big five religions just so I could maybe prove them wrong as I got no Christianity.

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Jesus is it. And over a few weeks I became really convicted of my sin. I was wearing really heavy on my heart. I think we were covering the first few chapters of Romans in the Tamil home church I grew up in. So I was thinking about that and I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for the 756 bus at Rudy Hill station. And this is really on my heart and I'm eat-stropping on this conversation that this guy next to me, the school kid is having with his friend.

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He's evangelizing his friend and I'm listening and I've kind of sit behind them on the bus so I could keep listening. And he says this verse out loud which I heard a million times. I had memorized Ephesians to 8 to 10 were saved by grace through faith. And I think on some level while I understood grace with the burden of my own sin on my heart and being refreshed by that verse, the penny dropped for me in that moment that I needed God to save me. And I remember, you know, asking Jesus to save me and running home to my family. It was all great.

[5:15]
I don't think I understood the Lordship of Christ however until later in high school. At that time it was early year 11 and our home church were kind of ready for the next season of Christian life and we had all joined a local church which is a bit bigger and be in Rudy Hill. And it was the first time I had gone to youth group and it really struck me that there were friends at youth group who are also at school with me who didn't have two lives, who didn't have two different lives. And I very much did. I was a different person at school and church and home.

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And I really took the grace of God for granted. And I went on my first ever youth camp. I remember this talk really well. It was Matt's barks at Rathane. Almost exactly 10 years ago actually. And it was called 24-7 Jesus and it was about how Jesus is owed all parts of our life and His Lordship applies to all of us. And I remember feeling like I just been slapped across the face by the Holy Spirit. And that was a real turning point for me. And because I had all these bits and grown up being discipled, my sense of love and love for God and urgency for mission and my want to grow in my own faith.

[6:51]
And I just hit a different trajectory after that point. And yeah, that's kind of where I've come from. I want to start on that story because I think often how we're evangelized or how we come to it testimony in Jesus really clouds or colors, our perception of how we ought to then reach people. Your role as a mission evangelism pastor at St James Croydon tell us this very briefly what's at all about what's day to day look like for you.

[7:22]
Yeah, I am so our church structures organized by Portfolio. So I'm one of three system ministers and we have a portfolio each. I love the clarity that that gives me. And the laser focus that I get to have about mission in a way that I don't think lots of ministers get if they're also responsible for a congregation and juggling a whole bunch of things. So really we're always on about you know, being intentional, being purposeful about what you're doing in ministry.

[7:55]
Tell us a story of someone coming to faith where it's kind of you know from way to go like we planned all these things. The person has you know moved through the final and the process. You know, you just like tick tick tick tick tick. Tell us tell us about someone who's come to faith recently that way. So during a lockdown last year we ran a modified alpha online and a friend invited his friend from school. Who he didn't expect to say yes, who said yes, he jumped on zoom every week. I didn't think he was that interested but he had good questions.

[8:31]
He came to the course after that. I think at that point we were in person. We do different courses every term. That's in James. So we're doing simply Christianity in person. So he's done the alpha. He's done alpha. He's doing simply Christianity and the strength of simply Christianity and the way it meets the lack of alpha is that you get into the text and you get to encounter Jesus. And this Christian guy was so good at getting alongside his friend. They go to the pub every week before we had simply the Get a Schnitty and they would do their homework for that week together.

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And he came to our fourth course. He started coming along to church. I think he had all the pieces and we had a few prompting conversations. The story of the prodigal son really sat with him. I remember having a coffee with him and I said mate, I feel like you've you've walked up to the house. You see that the father is good. He's got his arms outstretched but you're still doing laps around the house. What's holding you back. And he said, oh, probably nothing. Hey, I can take that step. And when he asked me how to do it, I was tempted to do the whole, you know, do that prayer thing with him.

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But I said, have you started talking to your father? He just hadn't even conceptualized that he could do that. He started praying and the next week he took the Lord's supper. It was really beautiful. So that was amazing. And we've just seen him flourish and get into our growth groups and start serving and figure out what this means for his life. Now I was at a church on the weekend in Brz. I spoke to a young man there who I think is is well on his way towards making, you know, making a decision to follow Jesus. But he hasn't followed a pathway.

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His house was flooded. His aunt has made him come to church. He's got a whole bunch of Christian friends. No one's invited him like that. He's a church congregation member praying, bringing his friend along. And the church hasn't even followed him up. But he's there, sitting next to me on Sunday. And I'm like, how can we haven't done that? You've been here now three weeks. Revelation 22 was the text. And you know, my prayers to this young man will jump in a course with the other international students and make a decision to follow Jesus.

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Tell us where someone at St. James has recently become a Christian who didn't follow the pathway. Did they explore and then explore and then they explore? Last week, this was so random. And obviously we know we know salvation is God's work. But I was struck again by that last week. We're trying this new course. You might have heard about it. It's very artsy and it's very conceptual. It's life explored.

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You're watching films. It feels like the ideas don't really connect. We're giving it a crack. It's very, you know, if you use this language, it's very pre-evangelistic. We're just starting to talk about ideas, getting people to question their assumptions about God and the idols of the heart. And we're in week two last week. We finish up the night. This has nothing to do with what we talked about. And this guy on our table has never come to courses or church before a friend of a guy who I didn't even know was a Christian.

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So I think now he is. He says, by the way, do any of you come from families who are not Christian? And there are a few members at our table who are like, yeah, that's true for me. That's true for me. They're talking about their experiences. This guy has an Indian background. So I was also speaking into, you know, how to understand how strong that pull of culture is, how important it is for our parents to feel honored by us.

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And he let's admit that he has been staying up at night, Googling Christianity, that he said something like Jesus has been in my heart for a long time. He's been wrestling with this for ages. I think a big part of that is that he went to a Christian private school. So he's had contact with the gospel before, but that wasn't clear to me in the course. And as we're stacking chairs, he says, I think I want to convert tonight. And I think, what? How is this happening?

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By the work of God's spirit, opening the eyes of his heart. I was almost talking him down Scott, because I think we want people to really consider this. You want us to make a box? Do you really believe that? But do you understand the worship of Christ in your life? Do you know what it means to carry the cross? So I said, yeah, sure. A bunch of the young guys ended up going to pancakes on the rock afterwards just because it's openly. You became a Christian over pancakes. It was a whole thing. Fantastic. Well, I am really interested in pushing that because that's one of the things that you've already sort of talked about.

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You run a number of different evangelistic courses, hats and jams. You run them each term. It sounds like often people jump in and jump out. It's not so much a path. A pathway as I'd say is in, put you do your pre-avangelistic life explored and then you do alpha, modified alpha. And then you do simply Christianity or Christian explored and then you do your just for starters. So you haven't sort of got a 20 week, five little blocks where you're hoping someone will move more to move and make steps towards following Jesus.

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What's your pathway kind of look like and what's a year in mission calendar? It's in James look like. Yeah, I think we do have a pathway. I really understand the strengths of repeating the same course again and again. I see how it brings a sense of clarity and helpful simplicity to the mission pathway. We see the four courses as steps in the pathway. The mission step is what we call explore courses. They're kind of the brand that bring clarity to our church community and also the in a west who are inviting in.

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We have different flavors if you'd like different types of courses in that process. So, so, so someone so different flavors so you can't you you can't really trial and life explore which I love. Yeah, and I love that I love that you're exploring stuff and you in doing stuff because I think that's the the problem we get we get into ruts. We just kept doing the same thing. And we don't keep on going is this the most effective course. But the other you know the other end of the court if we're constantly changing them actually don't get good at it or don't you know get a chance to actually see is this effective you know could we could be any better.

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So, so turn one ordinarily or now you're doing life explore term two what's the course you're going to be putting on in term two. So we do our modify alpha into them to three. We finish that up with an in person day away where we do live talks and we find that's often a conversion point for people. Yeah great so you really challenge them with gospel which is which is I'm course agnostic but one of my criticisms of an alpha courses that it doesn't have that you know make it make it a decision point.

[15:48]
If I if I if anyone was asked me publicly I would say what course would I go for it would be simple Christianity because that's the course I grew up on in my church and that I ran multiple times and I love Luke's gospel. I think Luke's gospel is the gospel for you know the outside. So simply Christianity's our term three courses we feel that people need that after they've done alpha and they've thought about all these topics. Yeah to get into a gospel and meet Jesus there and then to for term four we now this changes every year. Yeah so I've been like yeah yeah but we do a modified life course out of EV help people see what it looks like to be a Christian and why why Jesus will satisfy them.

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We do an in depth long form testimony and also have like items yeah great so I so my big questions I hear that is okay so what if I turn up in term three and I haven't done modified alpha I haven't done life explored yeah I haven't done any of that pre evangelist stuff but you get me straight in on Luke's gospel yeah in some ways no dramas because it's a great course for people in just adding Jesus they're going to hear about the historical I believe the Bible and then I'll have four weeks getting down. I reckon one of the best gospels so great stuff but then what do you do for the person who's come along to life explored then they've come along to well they haven't gone to alpha and then they've come back in term three and gone actually yeah and I've got more time to follow this up.

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How do you follow that person up all the person who comes in term four where they're getting the here's what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I'm not even there I haven't even I haven't even had a chance to have that moment over coffee where you've challenged me about my you know being the prodigal son. I think any place is a good place to start right and when I made those nuances earlier they you know the slight dash of flavoring to each of them yeah they are different angles into the same gospel so they are all a good place to start and we help people have an imagination for doing all four courses.

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That's what we want them to do and in between courses we have events and we mobilize our people to do hospitality and take that hospitality off site into homes and cafes so we're building that relationship and we see that we have a lot of relational capital with people and they're excited about doing something new. Which I loved how you said you described your role start I'm about mobilizing the body so often you know the mission of Angela's deep person they're they're an evangelist and they're great at it but they're not great at building teams they're not great at mobilizing the body yeah but you see your primary role is actually get more of the more of your more of your church family bringing people you know bringing people along it interested to hear as well just just in terms of those you know giving getting people comfortable.

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So again it sounds like as I hear you talk about what you're doing it's in James you want people to be confident that they can invite their friends along to any of these courses in James and they'll get a chance to really wrestle with and dive deeply into the gospel and obviously be met in a way by a team of people who really can to love and care and walk alongside them is that is that sort of how you approach it. Yeah it's important to build confidence because we do different courses we have to be on a comms game with our church people we have to be a month ahead we have to be clear we have to paint a picture of the flavor and why it's going to be excellent and relational.

[19:28]
So there is that part I think another reason why we can pull this off is we've worked really hard at building team capacity. So a big thing that I've worked on the last two years is building some levels of leadership within our export course team. So we have team leaders who oversee different parts and that means that for each term it's also a mobilizing opportunity for our regulars who don't otherwise do evangelism or feel intimidated by evangelism

[20:06]
to take part in the course. So whether they're on the hospitality team or they're a co-facilitator on a table they get a taste as well for the joy of evangelism and that they can do it too. That's great that's great. So just going back to this bloke who's become a Christian on the second you know the second night of bloke sport. So what's the next step for him? How do you know ordinarily you know be wanting to get him into a small group serving in church coming regularly to check.

[20:39]
So what's your what does it look like for following him up? Yeah great question. We are still figuring this out but at the moment it looks like after people can articulate the gospel message whether they're close to coming to faith or have made that decision they need to have at least on two courses ideally four. We take out a cohort media in the end of the year to do a bit of a smaller group of foundations kind of course.

[21:10]
And we cater that to whatever that small group needs and we have a menu of options of how they might engage in that. But for this guy who's become a Christian week two of life explored we're saying stick around we're saying come to alpha we're saying also come to church on Sunday night and get to know other Christians and see what following Jesus looks like for them. So what's the reason for not just putting these two cohorts just strain into your small groups structure? Because we find that there's a big step between evangelistic courses and growth groups.

[21:41]
Christians don't realise how Christian they are. We spew Christianies we spew assumed knowledge that can be really intimidating for someone who has just started to engage with Christian faith in the last year or so. This has been a fantastic episode. It's been really good to go deep into mission courses. We've got some bonus content. Have a listen in episode two.