How Does ICE Work?

The ICE Strategy can be implemented by the local church or with the help of your local Baptist Association. The local church can take the strategy and conduct its own ICE. An ICE project director or the person who directs the missions and evangelism ministry for your church should take the leadership role in putting ICE into action.

Once the church decides to implement the ICE strategy the next step is to determine the dates for the week or weekend for witnessing saturation. When this date has been established then the following training dates should be determined.

Here is a sample time line for the training dates to prepare the church or several churches to engage their communities during the ICE week and hopefully before and after the ICE week is done. All other major activities should be rescheduled so a total focus can be on training soul winners.

Nine months from the target date conduct the one day NET evangelism training. NAMB recommends you use the NET evangelism training and the One Hour/One Day to equip members. This strategy will work through your Sunday School or Bible study groups. The NET One Day training is an all day, 9 to 4 pm training. Street witnessing is included at the end of the training for about one hour. All three trainings can be implemented through Sunday School and small groups.

Seven months from the target date, schedule a community ministry overview training. NAMB recommends you overview the His Heart, Our Hands tool kit. It is available the North American Mission Board's web site.

Three months from the target date plan a prayer walking training, this is a 1 1/2 hour training in the morning with a prayer walk in the afternoon after lunch.

One month prior to the ICE week conduct a two hour follow-up training for all the churches. Every ICE church is encouraged to take part in the Beginning Steps for New Believers overview. Everyone who participates in this training will be equipped in how to mentor/disciple a new believer to become a committed follower of Jesus Christ.

The trainings are designed to strengthen the local church and equip believers to reach their community. The evangelism training prepares the church to be ready to share their salvation story during the other three remaining trainings. The purpose of having a community ministry is to build relationships with lost people. The prayer walking ministry will also build relationships with individuals in the community, this will create pre-evangelism opportunities. The last training, the follow-up training, will prepare the church to become a discipleship minded church.

With the last training completed the church will group teams of 2 or 3 individuals led by a trained member to conduct street or open air witnessing conversations. The focus is to engage the people in a conversation that will allow the witness to share his testimony. The witness should rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit in the conversation.       

The style or approach of street witnessing or open air witnessing is to approach anyone and begin a conversation that will result in sharing the gospel. The focus is to begin sharing the gospel in a span of three minutes or less. If the individual is open to converse about Jesus and spiritual matters seek to continue the conversation, as long as the person is willing. 

The results of a weekend spent street witnessing or sharing at a block party usually produces several people who trusted in Jesus Christ. The evangelism trainings and the follow-up training will strengthen the church members to disciple and mentor new believers. The discipleship time can be put into action in several ways.

One method could be for the church to set up small group Bible studies in homes. Another approach for the discipleship time could be held during the Sunday School hour or as a Sunday afternoon session. Wednesday night or some other week night might be another option to teach a new Christian's class.
 
The church should plan to conduct an annual ICE and target an area with gospel. This strategy can also be used leading up to a revival, crusade, and an evangelism conference for the association or state convention. ICE could become your complete evangelism strategy for your church. 

Post ICE Strategy

Here are some goals that the pastors, churches and Baptist Associations should continue to strive for as a result of the ICT efforts.

     1.  Continue to follow-up with the new believers.
     2.  You must get them plugged into a Bible Study if they will not join a church, then the church must join them.
     3.  A bible study should be started in their homes, at a coffee shop, park or some neutral meeting place.
     4.  How can the churches continue to respond to the ICE strategy?  What are some ways the churches and associations can continue to put use the ICE stratgey in their evangelism strategy.
     5.  How can the ICE strategy continue to impact the church?
     6.  Will the association schedule at least one ICE event a year using and developing new ICE teams in the other churches?
     7.  Are there plans to send an ICE team to work with NAMB in another ICE city in the future?
     8.  How do you plan to use the ICE strategy to strengthen churches weak in evangelism?