Many Evangelical Christians take seriously Jesus’s command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Every creature includes atheists.

Here is what Christians need to understand:

• Many atheists were Christians before they became atheists. In my case, I was a Christian for 50 years and I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 of those years. Granted, most atheists are not like me but many of them were raised in the Christian church and know what the Christian gospel is and what the Bible teaches.
• Many atheists have read the Bible many, many times. In fact, many atheists have likely read the Bible more than the average American Christian.
• Many atheists attended church before they became an atheist. They know a good bit about Catholic and Protestant Christianity. They know what it is to worship God, pray, and live their lives according to the precepts of the Bible. They are not ignorant of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
• People become atheists for a variety of reasons. Often there are emotional and cultural reasons why a person becomes an atheist but, at the end of the day, most people become an atheist for intellectual reasons.
• Most atheists are not atheists because they are angry with God, mad at the church, or hurt.

Here are some Evangelistic methods that will likely not work:

• Preaching at the person
• Quoting Bible verses (the atheist has likely heard the verses before)
• Giving a testimony of how Jesus saved you and changed your life (atheists place little value on subjective stories like testimonies)
• Giving the atheist a book, tract, sermon tape/cd/dvd
• The Romans Road, John Road, Four Spiritual Laws, The Way of the Master or any other Evangelistic program you have been taught
• Inviting them to church
• Friending them on Facebook
• Trying to become friends with them using your Friendship Evangelism methods

Personally, I would suggest you not witness to an atheist. You are likely going to be disappointed with the result. There are a lot of “other” prospects for heaven that will be much easier to evangelize.

However, if you are certain God is directing you and the Hoy Spirit is leading you to witness to an atheist I would encourage you to be all prayed up and ready to have an intellectual discussion about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Be prepared to talk about theology, philosophy, history, science, and archeology. Be prepared to give evidence (proof) of the assertions you make. Saying the Bible says will not work since the atheist will likely not accept the authority of the Bible.

You might as well face it, if the atheist refuses to accept the Bible as a God inspired authoritative text there is no hope of you successfully witnessing to him. It is better for you to kick the dust off your shoes and go witness to those who accept your presuppositions about God and the Bible.

Atheists are the swine in the don’t cast your pearls before swine Bible verse. Atheists are reprobates whom God has turned over to their evil desires. Atheists are followers of Satan, deaf and blind to your God and the Bible.

With so many billions of other people to witness to why bother witnessing to people who have no interest in your message, are likely to make great intellectual demands of you, and are likely not God’s elect? Be a smart fisher-of-men, go where the fish are.