In the Natural style, evangelism is linked to personality, not spiritual giftedness. God uses personality to reach outside the church, and spiritual giftedness is used to equip and empower inside the church.

While some evangelists advocate as many as eight defined personality styles, and others reduce the number to as few as four, we consider six: Assertive, Intellectual, Testimonial, Inter-personal, Invitational, and Servant.

These styles are adapted from the Willowcreek Association's evangelistic training program, "Becoming A Contagious Christian," and "The School of Evangelism" of the Evangelical Covenant denomination. Each model has a Biblical parallel as indicated in the following chart.

An individual doesn't need to score high in each of the six categories to indicate a gift for evangelism. More often than not, that gift is indicated by a high number in column #1 and lower numbers in the succeeding categories--but only about 4% of believers demonstrate this evangelistic ability. Higher numbers in each of the six columns indicate a proficiency for operating in a variety of settings. All styles are valid, used by the Spirit of God to change people forever.

Understanding your own personality style and the style of those you encounter can produce more successful efforts. When the style of the person you are sharing with is different from your own, it may be a struggle to 'click' with them. We often suggest that local churches or small groups construct teams of folks with various styles: these teams can help "match" folks with similar personalities. This way, you may be able to accomplish something together that you could not do alone.

The point, here, is that even though a person, or a whole church, may not have the gift of evangelism, God has wired people and churches in such a way that they can still "do" evangelism. It is just a matter of discovering their system and working within it.

Though a person, after coming to faith in Christ, should "wait" for a time before taking on leadership roles and responsibilities within the church, there are no restrictions on how soon newfound faith should be shared. With the same passion (personality) that Paul persecuted the church, he, following his conversion, promoted it.