I am working on a short 5 minute training video to encourage the Crew Leaders in our Summer Block Party (VBS) in their sharing of the Gospel with kids. I have come to the conclusion that much stress people feel surrounding sharing the Gospel is tied to our phrasing when we talk about "leading someone to Christ". This terminology places a strong and primary emphasis on our role and seems to indicate that we need to "convince" people to accept the Good News about what Jesus accomplished through his death and resurrection. When we talk about "sharing the Gospel"; I think that this places much more emphasis on the role assigned to us to tell others. In 1 Corinthians chapters 1-2, Paul makes this clear. In chapter 1 he discusses God's use of the weak to shame the strong and ultimately how this leaves no room for boasting. This includes boasting about how many conversions "we made" or how many souls "we won" for Christ. In chapter 2 Paul talks about how he first presented the Gospel to the Corinthians in a manner we would probably consider embarrassing. And yet God works through Paul, not despite Paul's weakness but further proves the Gospel through Paul's weakness. If we're focused on convincing people we fall easily into 2 traps. 1) We fear our inability to present the Gospel clearly enough or we fear an inability to answer tough questions and so we do not share at all. 2) We think we're pretty good at it and become prideful before God and/or others. (Which typically leads to judgment of those falling prey to the first trap.) Point being that with a simple change of phrasing that more accurately conveys our role in ones coming to the cross, we can remove a lot of baggage that keeps people from witnessing.
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