How to share the Gospel with the Homeless

Praise God that on Christmas morning, before little children ripped open their gifts under the tree, many families chose to first come downtown and give the greatest gift of all to the homeless on Fountain Square. Thank you all for your prayers. The Lord answered many of them as many of us had one-on-one Christ centered conversations with the homeless. We also provided them breakfast and lunch, along with Bibles, Gospel of Johns, and gospel tracts. Here’s a one minute video that gives you a feel for the morning.

As for how to witness to homeless people, I generally take the same approach as anyone else. Basically there are Five Steps to Witnessing, it goes like this:

Start in the natural realm with weather or current events or where they are staying (on the streets or at a shelter). Then swing to the spiritual realm by giving them a gospel tract and asking what they think happens in the afterlife. Then use the Law to bring the knowledge of sin. Once they hear the bad news, proclaim the good news of the person and work of Jesus and finally call on them to repent and believe.

I’ve named this approach the “Gospel Roadmap”. And come up with the 5 C’s or “Witnessing Waypoints” of the Gospel Roadmap.

1) Casually bring up a COMMON topic.
2) Connect to the CELESTIAL (transition to the Spiritual).
3) Humbly engage the Conscience through the COMMANDMENTS.
4) Boldly proclaim the Cross of CHRIST.
5) Challenge them to CALL on them to repent and believe.

So on New Years Day Josiah and I went downtown to Fountain Square to film a video and I got stopped by a homeless guy. I didn’t give him cash, but offered to buy him some food. He took me up on that and as I walked him to the fast food place, I learned his name was Danny. After I ordered him the chicken strips meal, I casually brought up a COMMON topic by asking him how long he’d been on the streets, where was he staying, had he lived in other cities, etc.

Once we were in the natural realm, I connected to the CELESTIAL realm (i.e. swung to the spiritual) by telling him I was a Christian and asked if he had a Christian background. I asked him what church did he grow up in, what did he think happens after you die, etc.

Once we were in the spiritual realm, I engaged his conscience by humbly walking him through the Ten COMMANDMENTS. Well, not all of them, but after four or five he recognized that he wasn’t good enough for God or heaven. I made sure to emphasize what the penalty for our crimes against God (sin) was – spiritual death.

At that point, I boldly and joyfully proclaimed the Cross of CHRIST to him. Explaining in particular, how God can justify sinners by faith alone.

Then I urged him to CALL on Jesus to be saved. I took the time to thoroughly explain what repentance is and what true saving faith looks like. I let him know what would happen if he chose to reject the gospel vs receive the message by faith.

Overall, it was a typically gospel conversation. Then we walked out of the chicken place and by God’s providence, I saw another homeless guy with a sign. So after saying goodbye to Danny, I asked this guy if he was hungry. And I offered to get him some food too.

All of a sudden I recognized this guy as one of the homeless folks that I shared the gospel with on Christmas morning!

He remembered me too. His name is Michael. And when I offered to buy him some food, he kindly said, no thanks. He told me that I had done enough for him with the whole Christmas morning gospel outreach and giving him an iPhone with the audio Bible on it.

So we got to talk more about Jesus and he told me that he had been thinking of our spiritual conversation from a few days ago. In fact, he shared that the day before he was talking with one of his friends about it and he started tearing up because he realized that God had not moved away from him, but that he’d moved away from God.

Michael was genuinely listening as I shared the gospel once more from a different ANGLE. I deliberately shared with him what it means to be born again. Then later I shared with him the beautiful truth of the Christian’s adoption into God’s family. It was so cool!

Anyways, please pray for Michael and Danny, what a great opportunity the Lord gave me to minister the gospel, praise be to His name!

I should have taken pictures! But here’s a picture of Michael on Christmas morning.