William Fay self attested that he owned one of the largest prostitution houses in the United States, was a CEO and president of an international corporation worth millions of dollars, and had connections with the mob. (Fay, 1) Fay was not a Christian during the time that he led a life of crime, and he was very opposed to Christianity. Fay’s conversion to Christianity caused him to become a powerful evangelist, and his book Share Jesus Without Fear demonstrates the methods of evangelism that Fay has developed and employed throughout the years of his evangelism.
Fay once had a dream that people had been drowning, and when those people came to a rock for safety they no longer had been concerned about others that had been drowning but instead the saved people built their lives around rocks. (Fay, 5-6) Fay saw in his dream that the rock was Jesus and the drowning people had been in need of salvation by being presented with the gospel of Jesus Christ (Fay, 5-6). Overall, the dream that Fay had would have been very inspiring for his work in becoming an evangelist.
Although Fay graduated from seminary school, he does not give his seminary education the primary credit for his abilities. Although Fay is now elderly, he does not endorse the usual approach that many evangelist use in evangelizing by the evangelist giving powerful lengthy arguments. Although unconventional, the work of Fay to do evangelism is highly successful as he has been involved in the salvation of many new believers. Overall, Fay is unique in that he presents himself as simple, and his system for evangelism is very simple as it relies on the evangelist questioning, listening, and interacting with the person being evangelized.
Content Summary
The purpose for Fay’s work is to exemplify the fact that an evangelist cannot fail, has an important mission, and can easily overcome fear of evangelism; moreover, Fay’s book thus covers subjects such as questions to use for sharing Jesus, scripture powerful for evangelism, questions for bringing about a commitment, what to do when people receive Christ, responses to use for objections, how to keep non-believers friendly, and how to pray for non-believers. Fay’s work is a very comprehensive and extremely practical guide for sharing Jesus without any need for complicated thought, hostility, or apologetics. Overall, the central key to Fay’s work is for an evangelist to use questions to help navigate a conversation into a person discovering the truth of Jesus Christ and reception of faith in him.
The Evangelist Cannot Fail. Fay reminds evangelists that they cannot fail at evangelism because success is about being obedient. (see Fay, 3) For Fay God is in control of drawing people to himself according to John 6:44. (Fay, 3) The point is that an evangelist cannot fail because God determines what will happen, and a person may need to be evangelized by several different people at different times for the evangelism to work.
The Evangelist Has an Important Mission. Fay talks about how the sin of silence killed Jesus Christ. (Fay, 6) For Fay thus evangelism is important because otherwise people do not get saved. For Fay what is most important is not how a person does evangelism, but the fact that people do evangelism with content.
The Evangelist Can Overcome Fear Easily. Fay is clear that a person should not be afraid of being rejected for evangelism because Jesus is being rejected and not the evangelist. (Fay, 17) For Fay his response to people that are afraid of evangelizing because of what their friends would think is that a person could say nothing at all and by doing so the friends could thus be loved into hell. (Fay, 20) Fay thus gives other such responses to how to think about evangelism in order to overcome the fear of doing evangelism.
Questions to Share Jesus. Fay developed five questions for sharing Jesus. The questions can be interjected into conversations in order to help steer a conversation into an evangelism opportunity. The five questions regard if a person has any spiritual beliefs, who Jesus is, if heaven or hell exists, if the person being evangelized died what place they would go, and if what the person believed was not true would they want to know. (Fay, 33) All five questions could be used to lead into sharing Jesus.
The Power of Scripture. For Fay sharing scripture works best by using a small bible (Fay, 42), having a person being evangelized read the scripture out loud (Fay, 45), and overcoming objections with short questions instead of long theological answers. (see Fay, 43) The point is that people should be discovering the truth of scripture for themselves instead of being told what to believe. Overall, when people are told what to believe and large bibles are used problems often emerge in that people became unreceptive, but Fay’s work maximizes reception.
Brining About Commitment. For Fay God is a gentleman and gives people choice in accepting him. (Fay, 59) For Fay five questions are used to bring a person into decision regarding reception of Christ, and those questions are if a person considers themselves a sinner, if they want forgiveness of sins, if they believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for them, if they are willing to surrender their life to Jesus Christ, and if they are ready to invite Jesus into their life and heart. (Fay, 61) Based upon the answers that a person would give to the five commitment questions a person can be found to be saved.
When People receive Jesus. For Fay, when people receive Jesus he confirms the work that has been done by asking questions to conform in the new believer’s mind what has happened. (see Fay, 72-73) Fay finds out who has been praying for the person, (Fay, 73-75) and he tries to connect that person to the church that the prayers came from. Overall, Fay builds on work already done by other Christians.
Concluding Fay’s Work. Fay brings his work to a close by giving responses to common objections that people use for not receiving Christ, and these responses are given after the real issues are found for why a person is not receiving Christ. Keeping non-believers friendly and praying for non believers is given attention by Fay as well. Fay gives a classical general approach to try to befriend non believers and to build relationships while continuing prayer for those people, but the majority of people reading his work may apply the central focus of his work to unknown people that are only encountered once (as Fay has often done himself).
Evaluation
The work of Fay is productive in teaching the basics of how to evangelize by using questions in a way that does not bring a person into distress. With Fay’s approach people would discover the Christian faith for themselves. The main concern that could be raised is that Fay’s questions only target obvious problems of a lack of faith, and the questions are not designed to bring about a strong commitment to discipleship between the evangelist and the person being evangelized.
The model that Fay thus uses assumes that the evangelist and the person doing the discipleship of the new Christian are different people. Fay’s approach thus works well in situations that involve meeting a person once and never seeing them again. If Fay had to deal with providing discipleship to new Christians over a long period of time, then his system may not account for the complexities of the serious questions that Christians may be divided over.
If Fay’s approach to evangelism was implemented among ten people, and all ten people got saved, went to the same church, and began discipleship, then either all ten would have increasingly unique questions that Fay did not account for or they would find no more reasons for questioning the faith but instead would pattern themselves after the faith of everyone else at Church. If however the people being evangelized had been evangelized through a group process, then the entire group would be more acknowledging of finding a unique place for the gifts of the new believer to be used within the church. Bringing about born again Christians outside of a Church family could cause churches to not be accepting of the new ‘bastard’ born again Christians (so to speak), and if the churches do welcome the new born again Christians then it is often on the bases of a ‘spiritual orphanage’ that the new Christians are taken in. (both are very unfortunate)
Although Fay’s approach may be highly productive and profitable for gaining new Christians, some would be discussed by the way that his model of evangelism is favorable for the shallow type of relationships that are usually characteristic of houses of prostitution. The fact that Fay’s experience, in owning one of the largest houses of prostitution in the United States, gave him credibility and authority for his work on evangelism gives suggestion that he has not hidden the origin of his methods for making converts. Overall, the fact that new Christians are not being produced in large quantities in the traditional way that churches historically produced other Christians suggests that perhaps through desperation Fay’s methods are well needed despite the fact that the new Christians may be outcasts in many churches as a result of their conception not matching a strict born again pedigree that others in a church may highly prize.
Bibliographical Entry
Fay, William and Linda Evans Shepherd . Share Jesus Without Fear. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2001.
