Our soul winning verse from the Word of God today is Acts 4:20 which reads: "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."

Our soul winning quote today is from Rick Warren. He said: "God deliberately shaped and formed you to serve him in a way that makes your ministry unique...God never wastes anything. He would not give you the abilities, interests, talents, gifts, personality, and life experiences unless he intended to use them for his glory."

Our soul winning devotional is part 39 of our series titled "What Evangelism Is" from Dave Earley and David Wheeler.

Evangelism Is...Being Yourself

Four Common Personality Types
Perhaps the most common way of discussing and understanding common personalities is through the lens of four personality types. As best we can tell, this way of understanding personality goes back before the time of Christ to a man named Hippocrates.

Hippocrates was an ancient Greek physician who has been referred to as the "father of medicine." He has been credited as the author of the Hippocratic Oath, a document on the ethics of medical practice. Hippocrates believed certain human behaviors could be understood and related to the classical elements of air, water, earth, and fire. These are commonly referred to as the four temperaments: sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, and choleric, respectively.

As time progressed, numerous other paradigms were devised, which measured not only temperament but also various individual aspects of personality and behavior. Probably the most commonly used is called DISC. DISC is a four-quadrant behavioral model based on the work of William Moulton Marston, PhD, who examined the behavior of individuals in their environment or within a specific situation. DISC looks at behavioral styles and behavioral preferences. D stands for Dominance, I for Influence, S for Steadiness, and C for Conscientiousness. The four people mentioned in Broadcast #55 relate to the way the four personality types would do evangelism. David is a D. Ingrid is an I. Steve is an S. And Curt is a C.

What is your personality type? Are you more of a D, I, S, or C?

How has God wired you? What is your primary personality type? How will your primary personality type impact the ways you are most comfortable and effective in doing evangelism?

In our next broadcast, we will continue to look at why evangelism is...being yourself.