300 Texas students learn about
witnessing, then put it to practice
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___AUSTIN--Three hundred Texas college students converged on Austin March 30-31 to
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FRANK HARBER, president of the Institute for Christian Defense and a professor at Southwestern Seminary, speaks about Christian responses to common objections to the faith during the OneName conference for college students March 30-31 in Austin.
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learn more about sharing their faith and then actually do it.
___As a result, several young adults made professions of faith in Christ.
___"We're glad you're here in Austin because you're going to be sharing your faith with our family," said Jimmy Daniel, director of Baptist Student Ministry at the University of Texas in Austin.
___Rick Spencer, central Texas regional coordinator for BSM, said four or five people became Christians as the result of students sharing their faith in different settings around Austin. Some students attending the conference indicated they committed their lives to Christ as well.
___The students fanned out around Austin on Saturday afternoon, Spencer said. About 50 of them went to the UT campus and spent time in the Student Union and at intramural sports fields. Students also went to local parks and did door-to-door survey work for churches.
___"It was a very good experience, a growing experience," Spencer said. For some of the participants, this was a first experience of sharing their faith and seeing spiritual fruit.
___Before the outreach effort, Daniel gave some of the students "Phillip's Fast Track Model" for witnessing, taken from Acts 8:26-40.
___Daniel said the students should do four things:
___ Be Spirit-led. Witnessing requires "sensitivity to the Holy Spirit's movement around you," he said. Pray that God will help you recognize divine appointments. "The Spirit will give you leadership and sensitivity."
___ Ask people questions. It shows personal interest in the person, and it follows a pattern exhibited by Christ in Scripture.
___ Listen and connect with people. "They're going to give you answers, and those answers are critical" so the person witnessing will know "where they're coming from," he said.
___ Turn the conversation to the gospel. It can be difficult knowing when to make such a turn, Daniel said, but listening well will help reveal that. Also, "the Holy Spirit will let you know that."
___Just as Jesus sometimes kept silent about who he was, sometimes the time is not right for sharing the gospel, Daniel acknowledged, explaining that evangelism involves building bridges. "You may be building the first part of that bridge. The bridge is not always ready to be completed."
___Frank Harber, president of the Institute for Christian Defense and professor of evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, spoke four times at the "OneName" conference prior to the witnessing venture. Harber, a former athiest, gave the students information to help them respond to objections to the faith given by non-Christians.
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