3 Circles: A Gospel Presentation
Recently, I wrote a blog post about how the gospel advances through everyday believers and how we should all be eager to share the gospel with everyone we come in contact with. You can read it here. If you go out and begin having conversations with people, you will begin realizing that people are all broken. Regardless of whether people have a church background, whether they believe in God, whether they know what sin is, people do understand brokenness because they’ve been hurt. They understand what it means to feel cheap and empty and used. They understand what it means to have no sense of purpose. They understand what it means to be confused about gender, sexuality, and family structure.
Christians have a unique opportunity to speak the gospel into people's brokenness in a way that no one else can. At our most recent Quarterly Training, we discussed a tool for sharing the gospel called the 3 Circles. A good opportunity for sharing the 3 Circles is when someone mentions a problem or something painful going on in their life. That usually doesn’t take very long. It’s truly amazing how quickly our conversations move toward these kinds of experiences. The person’s difficulty, pain, or disappointment gives us the opportunity to say, ‘I’ve had experiences like that too. I’ve had experiences that made me feel similar to the way you’re feeling now. Could I just show you something that gave me a tremendous amount hope during my time of struggle?" Then you just draw the three circles and walk the person through the gospel, God's plan to redeem and restore broken sinners.
The tool helps people use three simple circles that represent God's Design (Creation), Brokenness (Fall) and the Gospel (Redemption & Restoration) -- which can be drawn, for example, on a napkin during lunch -- to communicate the Gospel. This is simply a tool. It is not magic. It does not save people. But this is a simple, reproducible tool that can be a great way to share the gospel with a neighbor, co-worker, friend, or acquaintance.
Watch this video below and learn to tell God's Story in a simple way. More importantly, learn to train others to tell God's Story, getting His message out until there is no place left for it to go. Practice the 3 Circles and become comfortable sharing it. Then, go out and share the gospel using this simple tool.
*Thoughts gathered from Ray Vaughn and Jimmy Scroggins*