In our first post, I introduced “Best Practices of Evangelists Overview – Evangelism Diagnostics.” When a light comes on the dashboard of our car, we take it to a mechanic who uses a tool to discover the problem. In regarding our personal evangelism, we do not have a “tool” to discover our problem. There are some questions we can use to help us discern our involvement in this spiritual discipline.

The first question to reveal our evangelistic efforts is “Are you praying for opportunities to speak and live the gospel before unbelievers?” This question gauges the evangelist’s dependence on God.

What does dependence look like? Prayer! Here are five Scriptural prayers. These requests are taken from Gaining Ground as a Truly Evangelistic Church.

1. Pray for Harvesters.

Matthew 9:37-38, “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’”

2. Pray for Opportunities.

Colossians 4:3, “meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains,”

3. Pray for Boldness.

Ephesians 6:18-20, “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

4. Pray for Clarity.

Colossians 4:3-4, “meanwhile praying also for us…that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.”

5. Pray for Receptive Hearts.

Romans 10:1, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.”

During Jesus’ final meal with His disciples, He taught and modeled important truths He wanted them to know and do (John 13-16). In John 15:1-17, Jesus used the picture of a vine to illustrate His identity and to help the disciples understand their relationship with God the Father through Him. In this illustration, God the Father was the Farmer; Jesus was the Vine; believers in Jesus were the branches; and the fruit was God-honoring behavior. In John 15:5, Jesus made this bold statement, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Just like a branch must be connected to the vine in order to produce grapes, believers need to depend on God to produce God-honoring behavior.

The first best practice of evangelists is dependence on God. The Holy Spirit is the only One who can save our unbelieving family or friend (John 3:5-8; Titus 3:4-7). We express our dependence in our personal evangelism through prayer to God. Let me encourage you to pray a different request each day. Let’s see what God will do.