The Fire Triangle of Faith: Three Elements That Fuel Evangelism by Josh Orndorff

Movement. It is a word that I hear often when it comes to living our faith. I coach in an organization that desires movement. The theme of my Annual Conference this summer was movement. Our mission at World Methodist Evangelism is to “help leaders build faith-sharing movements.” As people who believe in the movement of the Holy Spirit witnessed at Pentecost, movement should be our goal. It is in our DNA. John Wesley and the people called Methodists were catalysts for a faith-sharing movement in the 18th century that still reverberates today.

However, not all sense the movement or even a tremor of it anymore. In fact, some churches are declining.

Why Isn’t the Church on Fire Anymore?

People are not coming to know Jesus at a rate that exceeds death and inaction in the West. This is not how our faith was meant to be. It is not how our Methodist movement was meant to be. Do you know that at one point more people were becoming Methodists from adult conversions in the United States than there were babies being born? Early on, it was like a wildfire that spread to the frontiers as people were on fire for the Lord. It’s my hope and prayer that we would experience that same kind of fire. I want this for your life, your church, and our family of the people called Methodists around the world. Our faith should be such that we can’t contain it.

The nature of a fire is that it’s supposed to spread. I know this from being up in the mountains. My family is part of a co-op of five cabins, and a wildfire happened in our valley that spread all the way to the nearby road. If we truly are on fire for Jesus, that faith is supposed to be shared with others.

The nature of a fire gives insight to how our faith can grow and spread. One of the lessons I taught at our homeschool co-op was on how to build a fire. My wife taught the fire triangle indoors, and I taught outdoors, where I actually built the fire with the students. We had to gather wood as fuel, build a structure that allowed enough oxygen to support the spark we gave it, and use a match to generate heat for the fire to ignite and burn. Fire takes three elements for the chemical reaction of fire to happen: heat, fuel, and oxygen. Together, these elements create what we see as a fire and a flame. My sons, now that they’ve had that lesson, have their flint rods out regularly and are striking fires in the fire pit just about every other day. I think it’s the same in our faith; we need these three elements to experience a fire in our hearts that can burn bright so people can know Jesus.

Heat: Surrender to Jesus

Heat is our surrender to Jesus. It comes when we say, “Lord, use me. I trust you as my Lord and Savior,” and are then filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. In that filling, we should start to see the fruit of the Spirit produced in our lives. We are given gifts not to hold onto, but to use to bless the church, bless the community, and bless our families. As we receive that heat that comes from the assurance of knowing that we are children of God, we should be filled with passion for the people that don’t know our good God who wants them to be adopted as His children.

Fuel: God’s Word and an Incarnational Faith

The second element is fuel. There’s no better fuel than God’s Word. God gives us this gift so we might be filled regularly, know who God is, and know who God wants us to be. One study by the Center for Bible Engagement found that individuals who read their Bible four times a week were 228% more likely to share their faith than people who read less than half of the days in a week. We also need to make sure we have the right kind of fuel. If we want to see a fire burn, we can’t just break a green branch off a tree and try to set it on fire. You’ve got to have the right approach to see that fire take place. To share our faith, the right approach is incarnational. The word must be lived out in our lives. Just as Jesus became human to show us the way to the Father, we too need to walk with people to understand who they are so we can share our faith through connection and grace.

Oxygen: Accountability

The third element is oxygen. Oxygen keeps the flame going; as soon as fire doesn’t have air, it can go out. From a spiritual perspective, the oxygen for our faith is our commitment to our calling. All of us are called by name to use our gifts in whatever place we are – whether caregiving, at work, at school, or retired. We are called to the Great Commission to go and make disciples. The next piece is accountability. You can’t do accountability by yourself, and we were not meant to do our faith journey alone. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, together. We need to make sure we have opportunities where we partner with others for the work of faith sharing in accountability groups. The last piece of oxygen is movement. We need a plan for how we go out and share our faith … and then we need to go! Wherever we are going, we can be intentional in how we pray for people and introduce them to Jesus.

A fire takes all three elements to burn and spread. Remove one, and the fire goes out. The loss of heat is known as cooling. If the fire does not have enough fuel, the flame is being starved. When there is not enough oxygen, the fire is smothered. Cooling, starving, smothering: all kill movement.

Diagnosing Your Church’s Spiritual Health

If you or your church are not on fire for the Lord, it may be that one of the elements is missing or not connecting with the other two. Maybe you need that heat of the Holy Spirit renewed within you, or maybe, you need to know the assurance that Jesus loves you and wants to be your Lord and Savior. Maybe you need to make sure you are in God’s Word regularly, receiving the fuel that we need for life. Maybe you need relational fuel – a faith that seeks understanding to meet people where they are and build a relationship with them. Maybe your fire is being smothered by not being connected to one another for gospel work. When a log is alone, removed from the fire, it loses heat and eventually ceases to burn. We need to be in community.

We need each element of heat, fuel, and oxygen to burn for the Kingdom of God. If we desire to see a movement of people knowing and living the Gospel, we need these three elements of everyday evangelism in our lives and in our churches.