Unlikely Converts: a must read book

Unlikely Converts is a new book on evangelism which I encourage every believer to read. Author Randy Newman argues that most “outsider conversions” (those not raised in the church, but instead won to faith through evangelism) share a few characteristics. Understanding these will make the typical Christian more encouraged in their evangelism.

First, Newman defines evangelism as “the verbal proclamation of a very specific message: that Jesus died to atone for sins, that he rose from the dead, and that people must respond with repentance and faith” (21). He then shifts his focus away from evangelism to pre-evangelism, and argues that in our culture there is generally the need for work to be done with an outsider before jumping to “Hi, pleased to meet you, can I tell you about Jesus?”

The point of Unlikely Converts is simple: understanding the common characteristics of an outsider’s conversion will help us be more bold and strategic in our pre-evangelism. So what are those traits? That outsiders tend to come to faith:

1. Gradually—it is usually the result of a process, not a one-time conversation.
2. Communally—there are typically many people involved; from those praying, to several people asking questions over the years, often leading to a new person or stranger who then gives an invite to church or Bible study.
3. Variously—behind every conversion is the complicated details of an individual’s life and perspective, thus no two conversions are really the same, nor is there one passage that is a silver-bullet in evangelism.
4. Supernaturally—because salvation is a work of the Lord, we often are able to see outrageous providences that God uses to bring someone to salvation.

Rightly understood, all four of these should give an ordinary Christian extraordinary confidence in evangelism. Because salvation is gradual, we shouldn’t feel like we have to explain everything in one conversation. Often simple questions are all the Lord needs form us at a certain moment. Because conversion is generally communal, we shouldn’t feel like we have to do it all. Maybe we are the ones who lay a foundation for another evangelist later, or perhaps the Lord might use us to simply ask a question that will come back to the person’s mind long after we have left. When we invite the neighbor to church, understand there are likely others who have been working on that person well before we ever met them.

And obviously because salvation is supernatural, we need to recognize we are not in control of all of the details necessary to save a person. It is God who saves—he is the sovereign, not us. But he has commanded us to evangelize, so we know that he is glorified by using us to be strategic and bold to reach the lost.

Newman is my favorite author on evangelism. I know him personally, and have seen his love for the Lord. But what encourages me most about him is how normal he is. He shares in this book that he too gets nervous when he evangelizes. Sometimes he doesn’t know what to say, and he has written books on evangelism!

If you have read his other books, you’ll appreciate this new one even more. In Questioning Evangelism he talks about the role of asking good questions in sharing the gospel. In Bringing the Gospel Home he makes the case for strategic evangelism by viewing evangelism as bringing someone from A to Z, and sometimes all God wants from you is to move the person from, say, C to D. While those points are repeated in this book, they are treated in a page or two at most. In other words, this book is entirely new material, most of it based on a series of interviews with recent converts he completed last year.

Newman has spent much of his life as an evangelist on college campuses, and so he has a unique perspective on how evangelism has changed in the United States over the last thirty years. Twenty years ago, he points out, Christianity was an available option for college students to choose from. It would cost them very little in terms of social capital by converting to Christ. That is different now. Today, Christianity is seen as outside of the acceptable norm for students, and conversion may cost them a great deal. Newman doesn’t lament that change, but instead notes how that does (and doesn’t) affect evangelism.

Unlikely Converts is a fun and easy book to read. True to his style, Newman has stories of people’s conversion sprinkled throughout the book. Each chapter ends with brain-storming questions. This would be a great book to read individually, or to use in a small group. I plan on asking all of Immanuel Bible to read it.

Spiritually, this book affected me. It made me thankful for my own conversion, because in reading it I connected some dots in my own testimony that I hadn’t thought of before. Most of all, it made me joyful to serve a God that saves people in impossible ways. I trust this book will encourage you as well.