Let’s Talk about Faith

In the comments on the post entitled “From the Bookshelf: Unbinding the gospel,” commenter and blogging friend Jimmy Kinnard asked “Why aren’t people who love the Lord talking about it?”

He asks a great question.

We easily talk about the things and people we love, but when it comes to our love for God, we are as quiet as a parking post.

Below is a modified reposting of a prior article Evangelism and Staff Meetings that helps the evangelism avoiders in midst.

In the denominational cirlces I run in, there is a clumsiness, awkwardness, or hesitancy to share about one’s own private faith journey. This could be for a variety of reasons:1. It’s not a part of their local church culture.
2. Faith is a private / personal matter.
3. It’s not a common routine or encouraged.
I’ve put a questionaire together that you can use to help your church members talk about their faith.I like to use this question and to solicit stories:
What is God doing in your today that makes the gospel good news?

Our presbytery
We did a little exercise at our last Presbytery meeting, using that question.After I told a story of what God was doing in my life, I asked the members of the Presbytery to turn to one another and share. The buzz in the room indicated that a lot of sharing was going on.
After about 10 minutes of chatting, I brought the meeting back to order and asked “How many of you felt encouraged hearing about God’s work?” Hands went up.

“How many of you felt a little clumsy talking about your faith?” Several more hands went up.We provided a safe place for people to try talking about their faith.
Feedback we received from many of the presbyters that day indicated that this little exercise was a highlight of the meeting.
Tell your current story.
Sharing stories of God’s current activity in our life is one portion of evangelism as we define it here, “joyfully proclaiming the good news of the sovereign love of God.”