Here are 5 as written out in Organic Outreach for Ordinary People: Sharing Good News Naturally

The following is directly quoted from page 190.

Here are some questions that could move your conversations with nonbelievers to deeper levels of spiritual interaction:

1. What are some joys you are experiencing in this season of your life?

Most people would love to share about the good things in their lives, but they are afraid that others won’t care. Just by asking and listening, you open the door for great interaction. Also, if there are clear signs that God is blessing their life, you could open the door for conversation about the source of all good things.

2. What challenges and struggles are you facing?

People will share their pains and hurts with someone who truly cares about them and takes the time to listen. As they share, you may find that it becomes an opportunity to minister the grace of Jesus. Sharing struggles can also create space for you to pray for or with them.

3. What is your personal history when it comes to faith and God?

This question is not so much about what people believe as it is about their personal histories.

A person might say, “I have no history when it comes to religion,” or “I grew up going to Mass every week and my parents are quite devout,” or “I have always been very spiritual and I still read my horoscope daily and do a lot of meditation.”

No matter what answer they give, you end up learning something about their journey that may allow you to move the conversation to a deeper level.

4. What do you believe about God?

With this question, we move into more personal convictions and beliefs.

Again, no matter how they answer, remember that you are learning and already going deeper than a typical conversation.

Some Christians feel pressured to correct “wrong thinking” or “errant theology” in their conversations with nonbelievers. Try not to do this.

Just listen and learn where they are; then you’ll gain a sense of where they still need to go on their journey toward Jesus.

5.  What is your perception of Christians?

Or put a different way, “What is your perception of Christianity or of the Christian church?” It takes courage to ask this question, listen, and not get defensive. But I have found that it can be an open door to deeper conversations.

Taken from Harney, Kevin G. (2009-09-29). Organic Outreach for Ordinary People: Sharing Good News Naturally (pp. 191-192).   Order your copy from Amazon by clicking the affiliate link and Amazon will pitch me a few pennies.

• pioneering a new bible evangelistic bible study, or maybe
• leading an existing one,
• running s Sunday School Class

you may be trying to figure out how to ask effective questions to have deeper conversations.

This week, I purchased this 62 page eBook of Questions ($15 if you order through the last link on the sales page, not $19 as it says on the sales page today).

I found it very useful for

• Sunday School teachers,
• Small group leaders,
• Bible study leaders,
• Pastors,
• House Church Leaders,
• Missionaries pioneering new groups.

Some of these questions will help your evangelism discussions as well with seekers in your groups.

The author also points out which questions would be good for mature believers, seekers, youth, children.

How I could use this ebook of questions

Now, because of copyright issues, I’m not allowed to give you the 52 questions directly.

However, I can share with you one of my favorite questions in this bunch:

Is there anything you wish the biblical author had included in the story?  Why do you think this was not a part of Scripture?

I can imagine using that with some seekers who might be looking at the biblical text for the very first time.

They might ask questions of the text that we long time Christians hadn’t thought of.

It might also reveal an insight into their spiritual thirst.

That is what I’m looking for when having bible studies for seekers.

Spiritual thirst allows me to tap into what God is doing in that person’s life to draw that one to Himself. (Read how spiritual thirst opens the conversational door).

Here is another one:

What are the surface issues that Jesus skips past to get to the heart issue?

Likewise, I could use this question in my discernment of spiritual thirst of a person.

You could rework this question to speak of the prophet or leader or other central character in the text.

As questions get below the surface, answers can potentially reveal what is really in the heart.

As evangelists, spiritual thirst is what we look for.

The Ebook

When I first encountered this ebook, my skeptical mind asked:

“Why would I spend $15 on 52 questions?  I can ask great questions already!  I hope I don’t get a one page text file.”

I was surprised.

The 62 page ebook is laid out with one question per page, plus some background as to why that question is effective.  The layout gives the author room to tell us how to leverage those questions for specific situations and his experiences in using them.

The 1 per page format is useful for printing out and storing in a 3 ring binder for your study.

I was also impressed with how field-tested these 52 questions are.

Likewise, as I read these questions, I found myself creatively spinning off variants that will help me have more discussions with spiritual seekers.  This little ebook spurred some great creativity.

These can be a useful tool in your leadership skills.

Order Yours

To buy your copy, please click here.

Sneaky: Use the last link on the bottom of the sales page to find the $15 price in the shopping cart rather than $19.  Save 20%

This is an affiliate product, which means I will make a small commission off your purchase.

I’m doing a lot of travel and speaking here at the end of October and a few of my friends are helping me out with guest posts.

Addressing the “What works for me” Paradox

When I discuss my faith with someone who says, “I’m glad that works for you. I have my own beliefs that work for me,” I often feel trapped in a tight spot.

How can I speak about the

• coming of God’s Kingdom,
• the message of repentance, and
• the saving work of Christ

without seeming insensitive to this person’s beliefs?

This is a challenge for Christians at a time when asserting one’s own views are the only truth can sound quite closed-minded.

Here are a few things that help me in such a situation:

1.  Find Common Ground

Usually people aren’t 100% out to lunch in their beliefs about God or salvation.

We can often find common ground, such as

• God’s desire to repair our world,
• to bring people into relationship with him, and
• to bring justice to evil.

When we talk about Jesus, salvation, and even the cross, we can seek to honor the truths that people bring to the table.

In the process of highlighting our common ground, we can then begin to discuss differences in how we believe God reveals his saving work.

Ask questions and solicit opinions on the matter.

We can state our beliefs, share the scope of the Gospel, and still ask folks to weigh in with their own reactions without giving up on the Gospel.

2.  Share What Works for Many, Many Others

When we share the Gospel, we can state with confidence that it is a message that works not only for us, but for people all over the world and throughout history.

This is a message that has changed our own lives and the lives of many others.

While it certainly has been revolutionary in one person’s case, there is a preponderance of testimonies that assert the relevance and power of Christianity for everyone who would believe.

Presenting a Gospel that is cross-cultural and remains potent throughout the centuries carries far more weight than one person’s opinion.

3.  The Gospel Over the Years

Sharing our faith is done under the leadership and power of the Holy Spirit, but as we run into the “what works for you is fine” roadblock, we can think ahead of time, prayerfully consider some answers, and dream up ways to present the Gospel in a new context.

Besides, Christians have been recontextualizing the Gospel as they presented it afresh over the years. That worked for them. We should expect to do the same.

Ed Cyzewski is a writer and speaker in New England, the author of author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life (order from Amazon), and blogger at www.inamirrordimly.com.

The problem posed is

How can I take a natural conversation about common things and connect it to the gospel without it coming off like an abrupt topic change?

The farther the distance between the subject matter at hand and the gospel, the more abrupt the change.

How does one take a mundane conversation into spiritual matters?

How does one build a conversational bridge?

To help us think through natural conversational bridges, Joe gives us 8 conversational bridges to the gospel:

1. Corruption, evil and sin.
2. Community.
3. Politics.
4. Environment.
5. War.
6. Family.
7. Church.
8. Art/pop-culture

With each one, Joe gives a conversational example, as well as a possible bridge to move from such topics to matters about our faith.

Give the full article a good read and let me know what you think.

Email me an example of a conversational bridge you use, and I’ll send you a list of 99 questions to start a spiritual conversation.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

1. Where are you in your spiritual pilgrimage?
2. In your opinion, how does one become a Christian?
3. What single thing would you like to make absolutely certain you do (if at all possible) during your lifetime?
4. How do you think a person can keep from becoming a workaholic?
5. What character can you imagine yourself to be? (any period of history)
6. What are you reading that is not an assignment or required by your work?
7. How do you know you’ll go to heaven when you die?
8. How are your growing personally?
9. In a conversation with someone who has never heard about God, what would you say about Him from your experience?
10. In your opinion, how does one become a Christian?
11. How would you describe your father and his impact on your life?
12. Tell me about your mentor and his/her impact on your life.
13. What do you think would probably surprise most people about you?  Why?
14. What is your greatest strength, and what are you doing to develop it?
15. Why do people do what they do?  What are the assumptions you make about people?
16. How do you handle pressure?  When the pressure is really on, what do you need from your friends?
17. Has anything ever happened to you that was dramatic, personal or spectacular enough to cause you to be certain there is a God who is both infinite and personally caring?
18. What do you consider to be two major turning points in your life?
19. What is something you consider to be a great personal success?  Why was it so significant?
20. What is the key to maintaining balance in your life?
21. What are 2 or 3 major truths upon which you have based your decision-making?
22. Tell me about two of your life-long friends and why they have such an impact on your life.  What made you choose them?
23. Have you dealt with the questions? “How much money is enough, and what do I do with the rest?”
24. How would you describe your mother and the impact she has had on your life?
25. In your opinion, who was/is Jesus Christ?
26. If you could know God personally, would you be interested?
27. How would you define materialism, and how do you deal with it in your life?
28. What have you found to be the best way of absorbing disappointment, rejection, distress and discouragement?
29. When you get to heaven, what will be the first three questions you will ask God?
30. If you were to inherit a million dollars today, and couldn’t spend it on your own enterprise or keep it for yourself, what would you do with it and why?
31. What do you find most attractive about Christianity/the person of Christ?  What do you find least attractive about Christianity/the person of Christ?
32. Do you consider yourself a seeker of the truth?
33. What is your spiritual background?
34. Have you ever read the Bible?
35. Have your views on religion changed since you started college?  How?
36. Have you ever discussed what Biblical Christianity is?
37. Why do you think you feel the way you do toward Jesus Christ and his message of love and forgiveness?
38. What is your philosophy of life based on?
39. Do you believe what you’ve been brought up with?
40. Why do you think Christianity isn’t relevant to your life?
41. If Christ was who He claimed to be, how would that affect your life?
42. What are you living for? What do you value most?
43. If your questions could be answered in a way that would satisfy you, would you then believe in Christ?
44. The Kennedy questions:  First ask–”If you died today, do you know for sure you’d go to heaven?”  Then ask–”If you died and stood before God and He asked you ‘Why should I let you into Heaven?’  What would you say?”

The key here is simply to begin conversations and then to listen to the heart of the one we are talking with.  Sometimes it is hardest bringing up the gospel with our friends.  We just need to keep asking questions that will reveal who they are.

Thanks for sharing these.

Off and on over a period of two years, I met a friend for coffee at the local Starbucks.  During that season of life where our lives intersected, he and I had a long ongoing discussion about faith.

When I first met him, he was very angry about all things Christian, the church, God, Jesus, and the Bible etc.  He didn’t want to have anything to do with any of it.

Yet, he showed up at one of my bible study small groups, invited by a friend.

His presence was an attempt to stop the invitations rather than a sincere desire to seek the truth.

He actively described himself as an ex-Christian.

What is the question behind the question?

During that Bible Study, I quietly began to pray while leading the group.

I felt the Holy Spirit “nudge me” to pay attention.  I felt the Holy Spirit “underline” him that night in the Bible study (as Phillip was nudged: Go stand next to THAT chariot, Acts 8).

I began to quietly pray to receive some guidance from the Lord, and I received some.

I asked the group “What would you ask God if He would answer one question to your satisfaction?”

The group wrote down their anonymous answers on pieces of paper and turned them in.  I knew my group pretty well, so this visitor’s answer stood out.  His question:

Why do your people behave the way they do?

Our visitor’s objections to faith were not logical at all.

They are an outgrowth of bad personal experiences with the church. At the root of his hostility was emotional hurt.

By asking a question of the whole group that I felt the Lord give me, I was able to discover my friend’s real question behind his hostile questions about Christianity.  His objections are not questions of truth.

Apologetics have their place

Apologetics have their place.

One needs a reasonable faith, and by all means, seek to have a rational foundation for that faith.  As a good student of evangelism, it’s a good practice to study worldview, to study the reasonable foundation of the Christian faith and be aware of what other worldviews teach and practice.

Yet a logical defense of the faith (apologetics) was not the real information being asked by my friend.

The questions of my friend had nothing to do with reason or apologetics.

Rather, they were a smoke screen for his real question — why had professed Christians treated him so bad?

If I had started answering his initial questions with answers from my apologetics class, I would have missed the point and engaged in a conversation that likely would have been heated (because of his hurt) and perhaps embarrassing for the rest of the Bible Study members.

Moving to the Coffee Shop

This question opened the door to more conversations in the coffee shop.

My friend had the venue to vent his anger at Christians to me, and by God’s grace, I was able to simply listen.  When the venting was over, I asked him two questions.

• “Do you think you can come to the place of forgiving those who have hurt you?” and
• “Do you think God can help you forgive those people?”

His answer, now that his hostility had been poured out and he was empty: “Perhaps.”  He was willing to give God a try.

The next time we met, a few months later, he informed me of how he had come to the place of forgiving the church.  The details are too personal to share here, but the fruit is that we can now have intelligent discussions about faith.  He continues to explore Christianity and the claims of Christ on his life.

By getting at the question behind the question, I received some discernment from the Lord about how and what to share of Christ with this friend.  Continue to pray his journey towards faith towards Christ.

Evangelism Coaching

One service that I offer in the US and Canada is evangelism coaching.  A coach can help you think through some of these issues of practical evangelism training and can help you improve your conversation skills. See Do you Need Evangelism coaching?

What is the best question to ask someone to start a conversation about evangelism?

Thanks for submitting the question to me via Ask Evangelism Coach section of the website.  This page is beginning to fulfill its purpose in helping you with specific questions.

Whose Initiative?

One of the most important questions to consider is

under whose initiative is the conversation starting?

It seems to me there are at least three personal variables in each conversation:

• You the evangelist (or the witness).
• The person you are speaking with.
• The Holy Spirit.

After 20 years of conducting evangelism training and doing personal evangelism myself, I have found that the best and most fruitful conversations happen when the Holy Spirit is providing the initiative for the conversation. 

This happens when you are available and desire to be used of the Lord.

This happens when you are praying for such conversations to happen (see Fear Free Evangelism Case Study for an example). 

Put these two pieces together and you’ll begin to see an increase the number of people in your life speaking with you about spiritual things that provide a fertile ground for planting, watering, and harvesting the seed of the word.

To notice these moments of God’s sovereign working in your life, grow in your relationship with the Lord and the ability to recognize His guidance on the spur of the moment.

What hasn’t worked

What hasn’t always been so fruitful is when I take my own initiative to make conversations happen.  It feels forced, and often winds up being confrontational, versus cooperative. 

I do believe that God can use such conversations anyway, but in the moment of occurrence, they feel awful and strip away a lot of my motivation. 

The initiative is in myself, and thus it doesn’t really seem to advance so easily.  I’m not watching for the advance working of the Holy Spirit.

The Kairos Moment

Kairos is a greek word for time, and  Kairos moment is that moment that the Holy Spirit has prepared for you and your conversation partner. 

It is that moment when the conversation you have will rapidly advance that person’s journey towards faith in Jesus Christ.

The best NT example is Phillip and the Ethopian Eunuch

Sometimes you will feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit to start that conversation, as did Phillip with “Do you understand what you are reading?”

Other times, you will see the conversation “fall into your lap,” such as one encounter I had when a stranger said to me

“I heard you were a pastor.  My spiritual life sucks.  Can we have lunch?”

See Divine Appointments for more examples of kairos moments

Useful Evangelism Conversation Starters

Assuming that the Holy Spirit has setup the particular conversational encounter, I’ve got two further articles for you about starter questions, with free downloads that you can keep and distribute.

• 20 Evangelism Questions To Start A Conversation
• Evangelistic Questions For Evangelism

Evangelism Coaching

One service that I offer in the US and Canada is evangelism coaching.  A coach can help you think through some of these issues and can help you improve your conversation skills. 

There is a fee involved, as I need to earn a living but it can be done.  See Do you Need Evangelism coaching?

Got a Question?

Submit your question via Ask Evangelism Coach section.  I’ll see about turning it into something we can all learn from.

Here are a 10.  Links will take you to further explanations and articles on these items.

Evangelistic Prayer

1.  Seek the Father’s Heart — (see Getting Emotionally Worked Up)

2.  Offering yourself for God’s use in sharing your faith.

3.  Regular Prayer for those who don’t know Christ.

See Also:

• Ten Prayer Points For your Friends
• Prayer and Evangelism
• Three Verses on Prayer (in a book review article)
• Take the Risk, Offer to Pray.
  
• Prayer and Evangelism (Acronym to lead your prayer)
• HEART.
• Evangelism PAINS

Position Yourself

4. Find a way to be a blessing to others

5.  Live Authentically in public and in private.

6.  Build genuine relationships

See:

• 10 Ideas To Reach Out To Your Neighborhood

Proclamation:

7.  Choose a gospel script.

• Gospel Scripts Series

8.  Practice the gospel script until you are comfortable with it.

• How To Practice A Gospel Presentation

9.  Discover your story

• Personal Testimony Questionnaire
• Evangelism As Storytelling
• The Power Of Testimony
• A 2 part Questionnaire

10.  Learn how to use questions in a conversation

• 20 Evangelism Questions To Start A Conversation
• Evangelistic Questions For Evangelism

See also:

• Keys For Evangelism Training
• Evangelism Training In The Local Church
• Effective Evangelism Training Lab Time,

For help with any of these through 1-1 coaching, see also Personal Evangelism Mentoring

1. People invest time and energy into developing their career, their bodies and relationships, but often neglect the spiritual dimension of their lives. How do you actively pursue spiritual growth?

2. Do you think much about spiritual things? (This usually leads to conversation about what “spiritual” means–i.e. religion vs. relationship.)

3. How has this experience affected the way you look at God?

4. We’ve never had a chance to talk about your religious background. Where would you say you are in your spiritual pilgrimage?

5. I’d like to tell you how I established a personal relationship with God.

6. What is your concept of God? Do you view Him positively or negatively?

7. Have you ever come to a point in your life where you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, or do you think that is something you’re still moving toward? May I share with you how I came to that point?

8. Do you find that faith and spiritual values play a role in your (work) (day) (marriage) (perspective on life)?

9. If you could be sure there is a God, would you want to know Him? Or if you could know God personally, would you want to?

10. Bring a friend to your church or a Christian event, then ask:

• What did you think of it?
  
• Did it make sense to you?
  
• Have you made the wonderful discovery of knowing God personally?
  
• You’d like to, wouldn’t you?

11. Do you go to church? Why or why not?

12. I’d hate for you to come to my church and not understand what it’s all about. Would you want to get together and discuss our basic beliefs?

13. We’ve been friends for quite some time now, and I’ve never really talked to you about the most important thing in my life. May I take a few moments and do so?

14. Is church something that has had an influence in your life? Are you at a point now that you want church to be a bigger part of your life? What prompted this? Would you want to hear our basic beliefs so you’ll know if that fits in with what you’re looking for?

15. How do you think someone becomes a Christian?

16. Can I share the thing I’ve found most important to me as a (dad), (mom), (boss)?

17. What do you think about when you go to sleep at night?

18. Most people in America say they believe in God. What does believing in God mean to you?

19. Before I came to know Christ personally, God was a vague concept that I could not relate to or grasp. How would you describe your view of God? Jesus? Is He a reality to you or more of a vague concept?

20. If you were to die tonight are you sure you’d go to heaven? Has anyone ever explained how you can know for sure?

Source: 20 QUESTIONS

Download a PDF Version

Some sample questions. Here are some good questions that will help you move into a conversation about spiritual things. Be sure and listen carefully to their answers. And be prepared to share your own answers to these same questions as well.

• Questions about CHRIST:
  • Who is/was Jesus Christ (i.e., his identity)? What do you think was significant about his life? What was he trying to accomplish (i.e., his purpose)?
  • What do you think was significant about his death?
  • A lot of people claim that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today. What do you think?
  • How do you see Christ fitting into Christianity? (Try to separate religion from relationship.)
  • Jesus said a lot of interesting things like, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but by me. What do you think he meant by these statements?
• Questions about HUMANKIND:
  • What is humankind’s reason for being? What is your purpose in life?
  • What do you think humankind’s basic problem is? Do you believe we are good or evil or both? What kind of solutions to this do you see?
  • What kind of needs do you see in the people around you? What is your deepest need?
• Questions about CHRISTIANITY:
  • How would you describe a real Christian? What exactly is it that makes one a Christian?
  • What’s been your experience with Christianity? What’s your church background?
  • What do you think it means to believe in Jesus?
• Questions about BELIEF IN GOD:
  • Why do you (or don’t you) believe in God?
  • When did God first become real to you?
  • How has your view of God changed since coming to college?
  • What do you think God is like and where are those ideas from? Is he concerned about us? What do you think God expects of us?
• Questions about their VIEW OF THE WORLD:
  • Many people say that if there is no afterlife, then life is meaningless. What do you think of life after death? How about the idea of heaven and hell? How would we get into heaven?
  • What is your basis for ethics? What absolute truths are there?
  • Why is there evil in the world?
  • What do you think sin is? (Or, how would you define sin?)
  • Would you be interested in getting together to discuss what the Bible says about the issues we’ve been talking about?

Source: Communication Skills for Evangelism – Evangelism – InterVarsity.org. Original article has moved.

The point of questions is not a have a litmus test, but to create and continue conversation.  These questions can help that process.

Download Evangelistic Questions Conversation Starter

Print out this list of questions to use for your devotional time to reflect on your own faith.

You are free to share, bookmark, repost, or email this list as you see fit.