Steps to Evangelistic Victory

Evangelism is often completed in stages, as in the life of Augustine (see Confessions, Book VI, chapter 1).

Augustine's mother Monica (the person the city Santa Monica is named after) is famous for praying that God would save him. When he told her that he had left some false teachings (i.e., the Manicheans), he comments that "though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from falsehood." She had been assured by God that her son would come to faith, which he says is why she was not "agitated with any violent exultation" upon him leaving that heresy.

This episode illustrates an important principle in evangelism: Victory is not just found when someone embraces the gospel--though, of course, that is the goal we pray and work and reason with them for. Just getting someone to disbelieve a lie that was previously a barrier to their coming to salvation is something to exult over too because it is also proof that God is using you in their life.

So, unless God gives you the kind of insight about the person you're trying to evangelize as He gave St. Monica, thank Him for all of the step-by-step victories He gives before bringing a person all the way to saving faith, just like He did with Augustine.