Most people come to Jesus because of the witness of family or friends. Ordinary believers, then, make the best evangelists. In this book, Simon Chan offers eight tips for effective personal evangelism, which center on building friendships and living authentically. “In addition to our deliberate efforts to do evangelism—to create opportunities for evangelism—we just need to be Jesus, and evangelism opportunities may well come and find us in unforeseen and exciting ways.” A useful book for church members…and pastors too!

Here are the chapter titles and subtitles, which summarize Chan’s eight tips:

1. Merge your universes: Evangelism is a lifestyle choice.
2. Go to their things, and they will come to your things.
3. Coffee, dinner, gospel: Find creative ways to do hospitality.
4. Listen: The Golden Rule of Evangelism: Evangelize the same way you want to be evangelized.
5. Tell a better story: Make them wish that Christianity is true.
6. Tell them stories about Jesus: Scratch their itching ears with Jesus.
7. Become their unofficial, de facto chaplain: You are their connection with the sacred.
8. Lean into disagreement: For such a time as this.

Chan is also author of the seminary textbook, Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable (Zondervan, 2018). That book focuses more on how pastors can do evangelism.

Book Reviewed
Sam Chan, How to Talk About Jesus (Without Being That Guy): Personal Evangelism in a Skeptical World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020).

P.S. If you liked my review, please click “Helpful” on my Amazon review page.