As a team, we have looked for a simple way to be able to explain the Gospel, the good news of God’s grace, given to us through Jesus Christ. We came across the Three Circles and found a way to share the Gospel in both a simple as well as visual way, both of which we need in our context where we are working.
Below is the video that tells the story along with the text of the script for the video. Enjoy!
Note: You may be interested in the Three Circles “Curse Edition”, which is intended to help people coming from an Islamic background understand God’s story. If you would like this version, be sure to see the video at this link: https://vimeo.com/258415674
Welcome back to the Disciple-Making Training Sessions. In this session, we will learn a tool called the Three Circles to help us know what to say when we want to share the Gospel, the Good News of God’s grace, with someone on your Generation Map.
You can, and should, adapt your telling of the Three Circles, depending on who you are meeting with, but to get started, we suggest telling it this way:
Everywhere we look, it is clear that we live in a broken world where there is death and disease and suffering. But that is not how God made the world originally. Even now, we can still see traces of beauty, and that is because the world that God made was not broken. In the beginning, there was no death, disease, or suffering.
Starting with the very first people, we chose to leave God’s perfect design and go our own way, and that is called Sin. Sin is what led us to this state of brokenness and sinfulness. Each one of us sin and leave God’s perfect design, but that leads us to brokenness.
We don’t like to be in brokenness, so we try to get out. For some, we think that, if we can climb the ladder of success or make more money, that will get us out of brokenness. Some try to forget or numb the effects of brokenness with drugs and alcohol, or possibly with relationships or suicide attempts. Others believe that if I can just be a good person, be religious and go to church, then that will get me out of brokenness. Unfortunately, the truth is that we find all of these efforts to get out of brokenness really just lead us back into even more brokenness and more pain.
God loved us so much that he did not want us to stay in brokenness, so he provided the only way out by doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. God sent Jesus into our world, but he wasn’t like us. He lived a perfect life, and because he did, he was able to become a sacrifice for us, taking our sin on himself, and three days later he was resurrected and rose from the dead.
Now, Jesus said that we must repent, that we must turn away from our broken way of doing things, and believe, and if we we follow him, we would be forgiven and would be restored back into God’s design for our life.
Which of these two circles would you say you are in today? Are you still in brokenness, or are you back in God’s design because you’ve turned and followed Jesus? Is there anything that keeps you from turning and believing in Jesus today?
If they say that they are ready, to turn from their sin and believe in Jesus themselves, you can explain to them:
When I chose to make that decision, I prayed a prayer very similar to this picture. I said, ‘God, I’m sorry that I have sinned and left your design. I want to turn from my way and surrender to you, believing that you came and died on a cross and rose from the grave. I want to surrender to your design.’ Is that a prayer you would like to pray?”
Make sure to and take some time to practice the Three Circles tool with a partner. Be sure that you can explain it and draw it. Explain it to each other two or three times so that you feel comfortable in explaining it to each other. Now, you will be ready to begin looking at your Generation Map and sharing the Three Circles with the people there. God bless you as you get started making disciples by sharing God’s Good News of Jesus Christ using the Three Circles.