Great article on this topic at GCD.
For those of you who train coaches and volunteers in evangelism, this article is a good read. Remember, not everyone is made the same way so our training/equipping shouldn’t be geared toward a certain personality trait. Rather, our training and equipping should be general in nature and geared more toward principles and truths rather than methods.
Below are some excerpts from the article:
For most of us this is what we think of when we think of an evangelist: the semi-crazy person that we admire for their zeal. We are impressed with their courage, but we know that if that is what we are called to do, we could never pull it off.
When we train in evangelism, this is the picture most either point to or think of. Which is one of the major reasons evangelism and evangelist have such a negative connotation for both the believer and non-believer. Essentially, we train folks to fit into a specific personality type and call it evangelism training. We are training people to be extrovert evangelists.
[…]
However, in the body of Christ, not everyone fits this extrovert mold, yet people think this is how all followers of Jesus must be and live. We must stop calling everyone to be an extrovert evangelist and allow people, specifically introverts, to live out the identity of evangelist and missionary in the way God has made them.
[…]
Don’t let the introvert use their design as a crutch for mission. “God didn’t make me that way” is a crutch. Instead, show them what mission could look like.
