Training Videos

The Gospel: Introduction

The gospel is the foundational truth of Christianity that nourishes every aspect of faith and ministry. The gospel teaches that we are accountable to our Creator God, yet we have all rebelled against him and deserve death. Jesus died in our place as God’s perfect solution. We must respond in repentance and faith in Christ alone. This message is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

The Gospel: God’s Character

God is both creator of all that exists and holy judge of everyone who has ever lived. As creator, he owns humanity and has the right to establish how humans live. As the holy judge, he cannot overlook sin and demands perfection. These truths reveal why the gospel is necessary: We need forgiveness of sin, which is available only in and through Jesus Christ to be right with God.

The Gospel: Human Sin

Humanity’s fundamental problem isn’t individual sins but our sin nature—rebellion against God as creator. Since Adam’s disobedience, we are spiritually dead, naturally rejecting God’s authority despite justifying our behaviour. This separation from God results in eternal death unless addressed. Understanding our desperate condition is essential for appreciating the gospel’s good news.

The Gospel: The Person of Christ

Jesus Christ, the God-man, provides the perfect solution to humanity’s sin problem. As fully God and fully man, he uniquely qualified to serve as our Saviour. He lived a sinless life, died as our substitute, bearing God’s wrath, and rose victorious over death. Through his perfect obedience and sacrificial atonement, Christ restores our broken relationship with God, purchasing believers with his blood and offering eternal life to all who trust in him.

The Gospel: Responding in Faith

The gospel demands two essential responses: faith and repentance. Biblical faith is rock-solid trust in Jesus to save from sin. We must rely completely on God’s promises despite circumstances. Through faith alone in Christ alone—not works or additions—God declares us righteous by grace. We are clothed in Jesus’ righteousness, receiving a righteous verdict from the divine judge through faith in Christ’s redemptive work.

The Gospel: Responding in Repentance

The gospel calls for a response to Christ through repentance and faith. True repentance involves turning from sin and acknowledging Jesus as Lord, not merely believing facts about salvation. While the Holy Spirit enables faith, genuine conversion produces observable spiritual fruit over time. Unlike unbelievers who side with sin against God, Christians align with God against their remaining sin, showing progressive sanctification.

Evangelism: Teaching the Gospel

Biblical evangelism is teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade. This requires four components: teaching Scripture, proclaiming the gospel message, aiming to convince, and seeking to persuade through truth rather than manipulation. Effective evangelism avoids making the gospel too small (mere salvation) or too big (adding requirements), focusing instead on biblical truth while trusting God’s sovereignty in salvation.

Evangelism: Aiming to Persuade

This video explores the final two elements of biblical evangelism: aim and persuasion. Evangelism requires clear purpose—recognising people face eternal life or death—and gentle persuasion through the Holy Spirit, not manipulation. When churches practise unbiblical evangelism, they risk false conversions, compromised leadership, and spiritual decline. True evangelism involves teaching the gospel with genuine aim to persuade, ensuring authentic conversion.

Developing a Culture of Evangelism

Praying for a Culture of Evangelism

This video discusses how local churches can pray for a healthy culture of evangelism. Churches should not be remade into evangelism vehicles but should use God-given tools like baptism, Communion, preaching, prayer, and discipleship. Church members should pray for the ability of the church to be an effective gospel witness as it does the ordinary things in its worship that God requires of every local church.

Evangelism and the Local Church

The church serves as God’s strategic plan for evangelism through the tools he has provided: baptism, the Lord’s Supper, preaching, prayer, singing, giving, membership, discipline, and discipleship. Rather than remaking the church into an evangelistic vehicle, believers should use these existing gifts to demonstrate the gospel in the church’s ordinary, regular, corporate worship.

The How and What of Evangelism

Sharing the gospel is a team effort, requiring proper preparation. We do so by preparing hearts, minds, and feet; understanding gospel-shaped living; killing assumptions; treating evangelism as spiritual discipline; praying consistently; and providing spiritual leadership. When sharing faith, believers should be compassionate, intentional, and bold while meeting people where they are and trusting the Holy Spirit to work.