GOSPEL BOLDNESS AND WITNESS

written by Paul Worcester

Read Acts 4

The need of the hour for reaching this next generation is not new methods for evangelism but new boldness! Every genuine revival has been marked by bold and broad gospel sowing. As the National Collegiate Director for the North American Mission Board, I have a front-row seat to what God is doing on campuses. The churches and ministries that see the most students come to Christ are those unashamed to proclaim the exclusivity of the gospel and who equip every student to join the front lines of reaching their peers. The best person to reach a student with the gospel is another student!

In Acts 4, Peter boldly declared Jesus as the only way to salvation, even reminding the council that they had killed Him! “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

This generation is flocking to ministries that unflinchingly roar the gospel and teach the hard truths about God’s holiness, sin, hell, and Jesus as the only substitute and narrow way to eternal life. As I preach to thousands of college students each year, the messages that hit hardest are the old-school ones about the urgency of eternity and the exclusivity of Christ. It’s a myth that students don’t care about eternal realities. I regularly see students huddled in prayer, weeping over the lostness of friends and family. As revival is stirring, the Spirit is producing a supernatural burden for the lost that fuels a boldness God is using in almost unbelievable ways. We’re not just seeing individuals saved, we are seeing whole friend groups come to Christ at the same time!

My wife Christy discipled a college student named Larissa last year through our Good Soil Discipleship School on the North Shore of Oahu. Part of her training included weekly evangelism at the University of Hawaii and daily prayer for B.O.B. (Burden for the lost, Opportunity to witness, and Boldness to share Christ). When Larissa returned to Kennesaw State, God gave her a deep burden for her campus. She gathered a few friends for weekly evangelism and prayer walking, crying out for God to move. In time, they felt led to host a united night of student-led worship and gospel preaching at the outdoor amphitheater in the center of campus. Word spread organically, and hundreds of students showed up! That night, one bold student preached a raw, unfiltered gospel, calling classmates to repent and trust Christ. Many came forward to surrender their lives to Jesus, while others confessed sin and were prayed over. What started with one student’s burden sparked a campus-wide move of God. When I think of these students, I’m reminded of Acts 4:13, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”

The problem is not with the harvest. The harvest is plentiful. The problem is a lack of laborers (Matt. 9:36-38). That means there are many young people right now who would come to Christ if a laborer loved them, prayed for them, and shared the gospel with them. This is the greatest tragedy I can imagine, that there are more young people willing to hear and respond to the gospel than there are Christians willing to share Christ with them!

Years ago, when I was starting a new college ministry at California State University, Chico, I remember driving to campus to evangelize while battling discouragement. Thoughts ran through my head like, “You’re just bothering students” or “If you share too soon, you’ll push them away.” In that moment of spiritual warfare, a verse I had memorized flashed into my mind: “And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people’ ” (Acts 18:9–10). It was as if the Holy Spirit whispered, “I have many people on this campus. I’m already working in students’ hearts and it’s your job to go find them.” In that moment, I had a surge of faith and joy when I realized God had already gone before me, preparing students to respond to the gospel. God is already sovereignly at work among young people. We just get the joy of discovering the ripe ones. I call it the divine Easter egg hunt. Our job is to love, pray, and share; God’s job is to draw, convict, and convert.

A few years later, God had blessed our disciple-making efforts with fifty hungry student leaders eager to reach our campus. At our back-to-school retreat, I threw out a challenge, “What would happen if we shared the gospel with 1,000 students this school year?” From the back, one of the skater bros shot up his hand and sarcastically said, “I think some people would get saved!” After we all laughed, the simplicity of that truth hit us. We may not have been the brightest at Chico State, but at least we understood that there is a direct connection to how many people you share the gospel with and how many you lead to Christ! After some quick math, we realized that if each of us had just one gospel conversation a week, we could share with 1,000 students. We broke into small groups and turned to Acts 4:29–31, using it as a guide for our prayers.

God met us powerfully at that retreat, launching us into the most fruitful year of ministry we had ever experienced. By year’s end, we only hit 600 conversations, but 207 students made decisions to follow Jesus! Almost every day, our private group thread blew up with updates of our students leading their peers to Christ.

A recent study by Barna showed that “two-thirds of Gen Z are highly or moderately spiritually open.”1 Young people are as open as ever to hearing and responding to the gospel if they’re approached in a sincere and personal way. What they long for isn’t flashy lights and fancy programs; it’s genuine love and personal discipleship.

We’re seeing a nationwide movement of low-pressure, intentional evangelism through what I call “gospel appointments,” which is simply a set time to share the gospel.2 Our goal is to set up a gospel appointment with every student who visits our church or ministry events. Student leaders and staff mingle with new students,inviting them to lunch or coffee to get to know them and share more about the group, because after all, we are all about the gospel!

My closing challenge to you is to start setting up gospel appointments with students you meet. What could happen if pastors and leaders aimed for one a week and brought along students they were training? Millions of young people are just one conversation away from giving their lives to Christ. As you model this lifestyle, students will catch the vision, and you may just spark a movement!

Use Acts 4 as a guide for your prayers. Pray for young people in your life and on campuses and universities in your area, that God will give believing students the boldness to share their faith. Start praying B.O.B. for yourself daily (Burden, Opportunities, Boldness).

Click HERE for an audio prayer made to accompany this content.

1-https://www.barna.com/research/spiritual-openness/
2-https://www.gensend.org/resource/how-to-share-jesus-using-gospelappointments/