In Christmas 2005 when in the snow covered Rocky Mountains of Banff, in Canada, Steven Lyn Evans had a vision, to help encourage other Christians to reach out during the course of their everyday lives and impact people within their ‘sphere of influence’ through a ‘living faith life’.

‘Sphere of influence’ simply conveys the notion that everyone has a sphere or circle of people they know, and secondly, we influence those people in some way through our lives. For Christians, their ‘sphere of influence’ is a place to positively impact people and be witnesses for Jesus Christ.

A ‘living faith live’ simply means that if you’re a Christian, Jesus lives in you and if you let Jesus speak through you (as all Christians MUST!) then souls will be saved. In addition, people will be healed individuals, families and communities will be significantly impacted and transformed.

During the Christmas season of 2005 in Banff Canada, Steve was reflecting on some of the situations during the previous year or so when he had the privilege of leading people to the Lord. There were Church services, which were a great blessing, but also there were some tremendous encounters and conversions with people in everyday situations. One of the conversions during everyday life was a witch in South Wales, that encounter provides us with an example of the opportunities that we have, if we’re open to God, and the leading of the Holy Ghost.

“One day I was walking through a town in South Wales and I saw a store filled with an array of occult materiel, in the store there was a middle aged woman, she was dressed head to toe in black, with long black hair, she was the owner of the store, and immediately I knew she was a witch.

To be involved in effective evangelism we will often need to subdue our initial feelings about people, most of the time for example, we don’t need to shout out things like ‘repent’ into people’s ears! We might feel like it, but faith and feelings often lead to very different destinations. We need to be careful to be led by the Holy Ghost and not our feelings, He may lead us to shout out repent at times, and if He does, we’ll do it, but far too often Christians let their initial emotions and prejudices prevent them from hearing the true will of God.

I felt God was leading me, so I was comfortable and I just prayed as I started to flick through a large encyclopaedia of the occult which was placed just outside the entrance to the shop. I remember thinking that if anyone who knew me could see me, they might be surprised and in my mind I said “Lord help me”. I happened to stop at a certain page, and then the woman came over to talk with me. She asked me, “Do you need any help?” I told her that I didn’t, and just kept on looking at the pages and praying. After a couple more minutes she approached me again, and asked me, “Are you interested in spiritual matters?” I replied, “Yes, I’m very interested”. By this time she was intrigued and asked me, “What sort of things are you interested in?” Now this is where we must remember that we’re called to be fishermen, fishermen are skilful, they use the right bait for the fish they’re catching, they know which waters to search in, there’s method, skill, and effort, involved in catching fish.

Given those factors what do you tell a witch if you’re being led to share Jesus with her? Well, firstly you need to be dependent on the leading, and power, of the Holy Ghost, and confident in God’s influence on your thinking. Then you relate to her at her level, just like Jesus related to the woman by the well at her level, in John chapter 4.

Well, I knew from her dramatic appearance that she’d probably like a dramatic introduction to Jesus and that if I called Him my Master that would probably add to the intrigue and create an interest. Consequently, that’s exactly what I did. I simply told her that, “my Master is very powerful”. Wow, that was it! Immediately, she gained interest, one word from God can change a life and she was a fish caught in the net. The right word, at the right time but now that she was caught I knew that she still had to be brought fully on board the Christian boat (so to speak). Therefore, I gave her some conditions that she needed to accept before I would talk to her about my Master. I told her that before I would talk to her she had to keep an open mind to all that I was about to say. I also explained that she needed to focus her mind and resist any urges towards prejudice, she was keen to find out more and therefore she gladly agreed to my conditions.

Then very slowly, I told her that my Master was the greatest of all Masters, I explained that He’s the most powerful Master of all, His Word is mighty, His anger is a consuming fire, He speaks and creation obeys. He’s the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Alpha and Omega, Prince of Peace, living Saviour, Healer, Son of God, Lion of the tribe of Judah, I continued this description till the end, when I said His name is Jesus the Christ, and He’s calling you, right now, into His Kingdom!

What an awesome meeting this was, well it was more of an event actually, when the Holy Ghost leads you, every day is an adventure of faith, and all things are possible. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, the power of God was moving with an awesome strength in that market and right there in her own occult shop she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Saviour! As she did a Christian woman came along who’d been praying for this witch for many years and together we were able to explain further the things of the Lord.

After a couple of hours there, and please remember that sometimes you must be willing to spend quality time with people, this is a very important point because often Christians feel they are too busy to spend time. However, if you’re too selfish to spend yourself leading someone to Jesus, don’t pretend that He’s your Lord. Too many Christians take the cheap option and get obnoxious or patronising with people, this often frustrates the work of the Holy Ghost. Being really led by the Lord will often involve moving outside of your little self-centred comfort zone. Think about it, shouting out a Christian cliché would have only taken me 2 seconds. It would have been cheap and easy in comparison to spending the effort, creativity, and time that I did and it would also have been very wrong! Furthermore, what would the harvest have been? If you want good harvests, don’t let your feelings and your flesh lead you instead: “…be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might” {Ephesians 6:10}. Following Jesus takes effort, yes yoke is light but you have a cross to carry if you’re following Jesus. Think of this dear Christian, Jesus sacrificed Himself for us; therefore there is something drastically wrong with the Christian who will never sacrifice a mere couple of hours to preach the Gospel to some poor desperate soul. If you truly believe Jesus’ words you will care enough for others to PREACH His Gospel. Our love for God and especially His love for us will cause our love for others to grow and manifest in preaching the ‘Good News’.

This wasn’t some cheap mere emotional experience, it had genuine depth, God can change a life in seconds and in two hours by the time I was leaving that shop the witch had committed to closing it down permanently! As a symbolic gesture she gave me the very expensive encyclopaedia that I’d been looking at in the first place. She asked me to destroy it for her, this is very similar to what happened in the Bible in Acts 19:19, and so I gladly destroyed it for her and by the time I next visited that market two weeks later, that shop had closed down! Glory to God! What a miracle!

That was an amazing event, but we are meant to experience amazing events, Christianity is an adventure of faith, all things are possible as you experience the power of a Holy Ghost led life.

There is a great spiritual hunger in the world, people are spiritually starving and we can see great need in the people we meet everyday. The ‘Good News’ is that there is available the love of God manifest in Jesus to satisfy all human desires. But it’s the responsibility of Christians to manifest that love, show it, reveal your Lord Jesus for all to see! “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” {John 3:16}.

Who’s in your ‘sphere of influence’, how could you reach them with the Gospel message? Whatever has happened in the past, don’t give up don’t let any past defeats rob you of future victory, open up your mouth for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you, to give you the words to say, decide in faith to reach out to people for Jesus.

I love the story of the evangelist who had 100 unsaved people on his prayer list and decided that he wanted to see them all converted before he died, 96 were converted while he was still on earth, and the other 4 were converted at his funeral! Real love, the God kind of love births that passion for people so decide to love the hell out of people within your ‘Sphere of Influence’ from now on.

“It’s not a case of simply handing out a tract, or offering a quick God bless you, although those things are good and I do them at times. But very often people have deep hurts and needs and so we have to connect with them, human being to human being, in love, just love the hell out of them! You can’t turn this on and off, if you’re a Christian, you’re a minister of the Gospel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks every year. What’s more, the privilege is all ours!”
(Steven Lyn Evans)

“… For me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel” {Ephesians 6:19}.