Evangelizing international students in the United States by understanding worldview

The mandate for global evangelism finds its foundation in the character and nature of God, who is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Jesus, who came to seek and save the lost, commanded His followers to go to all nations and proclaim the Gospel. While financial and human resources are limiting global evangelism, more and more countries have closed the doors to proselytization and are extensively restricting missionary activity. However, as it happened on the day of Pentecost, God is now gathering the nations together in one place. There is an influx of students into the USA, and among them are many Hindus, Muslims, Taoists, atheists, etc., who have never heard the Gospel. Many developing countries send their most promising students for further education to the USA. They will ultimately return home to positions of authority in business and in government. This research project has demonstrated that friendship evangelism to internationals is particularly effective. The sample of the international students in the United States, for the purpose of this research project, was randomly selected (depending on availability of access) from those attending universities in the state of Oklahoma. Assistance in meeting the needs of the students when they first arrived in America opened the door toward friendship and facilitated evangelism in a natural manner, and in order to ascertain these needs, a simple questionnaire was distributed to more than fifty students. To demonstrate the effectiveness of friendship evangelism, twenty students, who were recent arrivals, were linked up with Christian friendship partners or families and were requested to take part in a “worldview” survey. A similar number of students, having no such partners, were also given the survey, for control purposes. Both pre-tests and post-tests were conducted on both these groups of students. The success of friendship evangelism was then measured by the number of students in the friendship group who had a positive change in their worldviews. Worldview changes, if any, were compared with those of the control group. The conversion process for most people requires a change of some of the presuppositions making up their worldviews. These presuppositions are not reasoned out fully but are presumed to be true, and are held often subconsciously. Foreign students encounter culture shock, challenging those assumptions. Studies have shown that conversion is radically promoted when the conditions of disruptions, neediness, deprivation of usual social ties and acutely felt tension are present. International students encounter these predisposing conditions, making them ripe for “the harvest.” When genuine friendship was established, it was easy to share the Good News in a non-threatening manner. Relationships have proved to be a very effective way of witnessing for Christ. Therefore, every Christian can “touch the world for Christ” by befriending an international student.