Where is the best place to start when sharing the gospel?

Mark & Fiona Gilpin • May 4, 2025

There are many ways to communicate the gospel to people around us, but we often don't know where to begin. Multiple evangelistic methods suggest starting with sin, but is this the best place to begin?

When we consider The Engel Scale, it can help us contextualise what we say, in a way that will be more relevant to where a person is on their journey to faith. Yet we may not always know that, especially if we are speaking to someone we don't know well.

Common questions to ask about how to share the gospel effectively include:

How to do evangelism for the first time?
How to share the gospel outline?
How to share the gospel easily?
How to share about Jesus?

Whilst these are important questions, the better question to ask is how did Jesus share the gospel?

What can we learn from Jesus?

Do we consider Jesus as a great evangelist, whose approach to sharing the gospel with someone as the model to follow? If so, what can we learn from him? Even a brief reading of the gospel stories shows us that Jesus shared the gospel differently with each of the individuals he was speaking with.

Before speaking, he would consider the person in front of him and the condition of their heart towards God. Often he would share a story, sometime he would ask a question, other times he would pray for a miracle. Jesus would be looking for the heart issues that would stop them from believing in him.

He didn't deliver a generic three-point message in the hope that it would land in their heart and cause them to want to repent. He crafted his message so it would have maximum impact, often requiring some individuals to go away and do some further thinking. He was looking for people who were open to his message.

Sometimes he would compliment unbelievers for their faith. Perhaps the best known example is the Roman Centurion who sought out Jesus to heal his servant. He simply believed that all Jesus needed to do was to say the word, and his servant would be healed. He was convinced that Jesus did not need to come to his house and see his servant in person to heal him.

Jesus' response to the Centurion's faith was unexpected: "When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 8:10-11).

Jesus compliments this Centurion for his faith. He doesn't start with his sin, but instead he starts with something that amazes him about the man in front of him. Think for a minute, God can be amazed at things in the lives of unbelievers around you. It may be their faith, it may be the way they love people, or the way they have handled a devastating event in their life.

How about asking God what he loves about the unbelievers you know? How about suggesting to people that God may have a high opinion of them? How about even thinking that they may have acted in a way that caught God's attention in a positive way? Maybe for some, telling them what God loves about them is the place where we need to start when we share the gospel.

Here is a story that illustrates the importance of this. In this evangelistic moment, God shares with Mark what he loves about a waitress.