What if you pray for a stranger, but they don't get healed?

The biggest question in Power Evangelism is the title of this post: What if you pray for a stranger, but they don't get healed? I am both happy and sad to say that I have figured this one out the hard way. On Friday, February 6, at the Remnant Radio Conference in San Diego, I'm going to teach on Power Evangelism and answer this question, but here are the cliff notes of what I'll say. 

When it comes to healing in Power Evangelism, there seem to be two approaches: Healing as an Opener and Healing as a Sign. 

Healing as an Opener

I don't personally take this approach often, but this is what most people think of when they imagine Power Evangelism. This looks like offering to pray for healing as your introduction to the conversation. Understandably, if the person actually gets healed right after you say "hello," it's going to be a pretty easy transition to preaching the Gospel.

Here's what you can say to get into it:

"I'm a Christian, and I pray for people to be healed. Do you have any sickness or pain in your body?"

If they say, "yes," you offer to pray, and as a tip, I say, pray a quick prayer. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a random person on the street is going to have a category for a 3 minute long prayer for healing. Besides, it's not the length of your prayer that will get them healed anyway. Just pray quickly and then ask, "Do you feel the same, better, or worse?" Or you could ask, "On a scale of 1-10 how is the pain?" If nothing has changed, thank them for being honest, and then offer to pray at least another time. 

(So you know, if they say it has gotten WORSE, that's a good sign that the sickness or pain has a demonic component to it).

Now I know what you're asking, what if they say it hasn't changed a bit after two prayers? I'll give you a few clear next steps after we talk about the other approach to healing. 

Healing as a Sign

This is the approach I take most often. To be fair, this one seems the most risky, but I've discovered that I like this approach the most, and I use it for other miraculous signs as well. The process to get to this one is more complex. I approach them, and strike up a conversation, asking the questions from my last post, "What do you actually SAY in Evangelism?" Eventually, I ask them if they've ever heard "the Good News." If they haven't, then I offer to share it with them in a minute or less. 

I share the Gospel, and then I land the plane by asking a series of questions: 

"Have you ever heard that before?"
"What do you think of it?" 
"On a scale of 1-10, how much do you believe that what I said is true?"

This final question is very important. Often people, will say they've never heard the Gospel, and to my second question they'll say, "It sounds amazing," but if I assume that means they are ready to give their lives to Jesus, I may be jumping the shark on it. Just because they've never heard it, and they think it sounds amazing doesn't mean they believe it's true. My evangelism got a real upgrade when I started asking how much they believed in what I was saying. 

I found that many people answer somewhere around 4, 5, or 6. Then I ask a question to set up the whole Healing-as-a-Sign thing:

"What would it take for you believe that what I said is true?"

You might think people would say that they'd need an air-tight scientific argument. I'm not sure I've ever heard that. People almost always say that they'd need a sign or to see Jesus personally. At that point, I ask if they have pain or sickness in their body. Then, believe it or not, I ask this: 

"Can I pray for you to be healed as a sign of the Gospel I just preached?"

Then I pray a quick prayer and ask for feedback just like I suggested above. If they get healed, Yippy! It's pretty easy to know where to go from there, so I'll let you figure that one out when you get there. However, what if they don't get healed after you pray for them to be healed as a sign? I can say, I've been there more than once, and I've lived to tell the tail. Here's what I do in a nutshell: Acknowledge and move on.

Here's what that looks like:

"Have you ever been prayed for by a Christian like that?”

“Have you ever heard of people getting healed?”

“The reason I tried that just now is that I believe it can happen. I really believe God loves you, and I want you to know him like I know him.”

“If you’re still interested in getting a sign from him, I’d suggest reading the bible. Do you have a bible?”

Something unexpected and positive happens when you pray for someone, and they don't get healed. They tend to warm toward you quite a bit. Why? Probably because you suddenly look like an idiot, and they can tell you actually believe what you're saying. Nothing makes a person look more genuine then when they put their money where their mouth is. Even when the sign DOESN'T happen, you prove to the person that you believe it enough to risk looking like a fool because of it. 

I have seen this happen when I've prayed for healing that didn't happen, and I've seen it when I pray for people to experience other manifestations of the Spirit. If the person doesn't have any sickness or pain, I will ask if they'd like to take a chance and ask God to speak to them and see what happens. Sometimes people experience something like what you can see if you click here to watch The Juan Story.

Other times people don't experience anything like if you click here to watch The Victoria Story. After we pray, I asked "Did you hear, feel, or see anything?" She said she didn't, so I asked a follow-up question: "Did you WANT to hear, feel, or see something?" It's a telling question that makes the person do some soul searching right there. In Victoria's story, we parted ways, but she called the next day, came to my house, and Tina got to pray with her to give her life to Jesus (and cast some demons out of her). 

We didn't see her much after that day. She moved out of the city to go live with a family member who was a Christian, so she could get away from some toxic relationships. Three years later she texted out of nowhere and told us that the day we stopped her on campus saved her life.

When it comes down to it, you have to ask the big question. What’s the point of power evangelism? Is it for God to validate you and make you look awesome, or is it to plant a seed of the gospel in someone’s heart EVEN if it means you look like an idiot to do it?