Perhaps you’ve spent time sharing your faith (maybe a few years) by

• Developing authentic relationships with non-believers
• Faith sharing conversations over dinner
• Answering difficult questions

Yet, they never seem to get the faith you share with them.

Years of faith sharing with little results

Some of you probably have encountered this.

I know I have.

There are people in my life that no matter how much I share my faith, they remain apart from Christ.

As an evangelist, that’s hard.

I remember one person with whom I shared my faith with for four years.  Nothing.

Apostle Paul shared his faith with the same person for two years!

At the end of Acts 23, the apostle Paul was sent to Felix, the governor. Felix had Paul guarded in Herod’s palace (Acts 23: 35) until he had the chance to hear Paul himself (Acts 24).

After the hearing, Felix gave Paul some ”freedom and permit his friends to take care of his needs” (24:23)

Felix had some level of spiritual curiosity, and some working knowledge about the followers of Jesus (Acts 24:22), even if it was only on a political level as the movement of Christianity spread.

Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. (v24)

Paul and Felix discussed Jesus and what it means to follow Jesus.

 25 As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”

I can imagine that Felix even experienced the convicting work of the Holy Spirit in some of those conversations.  Even if there were some hidden motives for hearing Paul (like bribery – v. 26), Felix still got to hear of Jesus and the implications of being a disciple of Christ.

These faith sharing conversations went on for the next two years (v.27).

Even though Paul was a prisoner, it’s hard not to imagine that a friendship developed, or at least a level of mutual respect between these two men as Paul shared his faith.

We can speculate some of the relationship dynamics that changed over the course of the next two years.

Two years of faith sharing, no immediate fruit

I can imagine (and this is santicified imagination) Paul doing the following

• Praying for Felix on a regular basis.
• Asking God for how to talk with Felix.
• Waiting for God to open the heart of Felix to respond.
• Frustration when Felix cuts the conversation short when it gets personal.
• Rejoicing when questions were answered to the satisfaction of Felix
• Celebrating the apparent progress Felix was making on the journey to faith.

Yet Felix was appointed somewhere else and was no longer in Paul’s life.  The end of the road together had come.

Two years, Felix and Paul talked about Christianity, salvation, following Jesus, etc, yet Felix still walked away without having surrendered his life to Christ.  I would imagine author Luke would have reported on Felix’s conversion if it had happened.

Sharing faith without results?

Perhaps you are in a similar situation of sharing your faith with someone who seems to have spiritual curiosity, but just won’t surrender.

Like Felix, they keep cutting the faith conversation short when it gets personal.

They simply avoid the hard questions of surrender.

What can we do?

1.  Don’t give up.

Keep praying for your friend.

Keep spending time with them.

Enjoy life together.

Keep sharing your faith and answering their questions.  They are on a spiritual journey

They are your friend, not your evangelistic project, so keep the relationship authentic.

2.  Trust God’s sovereignty.

I’ve heard testimony from people who have come to faith 15 years after I shared with them.

Remember the friend I shared my faith with for nearly 4 years without success?

Fifteen years later, she tells me she became a Christian.  Those seeds I planted produced a harvest.

God can keep the story going, even if you are no longer in the picture.

This was a question my neighbor asks while we visit at the poolside on a spring day.

While our kids are splashing, shouting, screaming, laughing and diving into the water, my friend talks with me about deep issues of the heart.

How did we get to this point?

1.  He is my friend.

We laugh and talk about life over a cup of coffee.  Our kids play together.

We also have a history of sharing concerns and preoccupations.

In other words, we are friends.

We are friends who share life together.  He is not my evangelistic project.

I know that sharing faith in the context of genuine friendships has the deepest impact in making life change.

2.  We pray for them.

As a habit, we have regularly prayed for them as well as all of our neighbors.

We pray specifically that they would experience spiritual thirst and that God would give us the eyes to see those conversational opportunities.

I was sensitive and alert to the moment when his thirst was expressed in the form of his question.

I know that sharing faith will not happen unless we have prepared the way in prayer.

3.  Our faith is visible

Our faith is visible without being obnoxious.

For example, we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries together.  They’ve given us permission to publically pray with them at such events.

We invite them to church on a regular basis, as well as to other church gatherings like picnics and community service opportunities.

We share how we do family devotions as parents, talk about the Bible with our kids, and testimonies to how God answers our prayers.  Our faith is not hidden as private matter behind close doors.  It’s part of who we are.

Our faith is visible and open for examination.  Sharing faith is not revealing a secret about who we really are.

Sharing Faith is easy in the security of relationship

It was easy to share my faith that day at the pool side.

In the security of a authentic friendship, he felt comfortable asking me a deeply spiritual question.

Because we had been walking together in life for several months, I had earned the credibility to potentially speak into his life.

This day at the poolside, he gave me permission to share my faith, particularly about his question on forgiveness.

I shared my faith in Jesus, how I encountered forgiveness in Jesus, and how I knew that I had been reconciled to God.

It wasn’t a scripted monologue, but a two way conversation between friends about my faith and his search for forgiveness.

At the end, his last question was

“How can I have this like you have it?”

That day, after hearing the good news, he asked God to forgive him.

I’ve had deeply personal conversations with strangers, and have led strangers to Christ.

But those conversations were the results of months of spiritual preparation by their friends who were already speaking into their life – I just happened to be a confirming piece of information they were looking for.

Statistics in various studies have shown that the verbal and life witness seen through personal relationships with genuine Christians are what lead new believers.

For example, in Shawn Anderson’s nationwide study in the US (in (Living Dangerously: Seven Keys to Intentional Discipleship), writes

The results revealed that, indeed, individuals were influenced to commit their lives to Jesus by people who modeled Jesus in their lives.

4 Reasons that Relationship Evangelism Works.

As I thought about this, here are 4 reasons why relationships are important in personal evangelism.

1. You’ve got credibility.

From reading unChristian, the Church as an institution doesn’t have a lot of credibility. Your friend might even have a crazy relative or obnoxious friend who is always forcing a Jesus-conversation upon them.

For your friend to become a Christian, they need a credible witness: someone who is normal.

Your friend trusts you and your ideas, even if they don’t agree with you. You’ve built respect in your relationship and that fosters the positive credibility to be a person of influence.

Growth step: In which relationships with non-Christians do you need to improve credibility? What can you do this week to change that?

2. You’ve got visibility.

Over time, people can see what defines your life. Your interests, hobbies, and choices, plus how you respond to circumstances, are visible to your friend.

For example, with my friends, I can talk about

• my calling,
• how I experience God’s provision for our work
• what I’m learning from my devotional life with God.
• how God is at work in the life of our church as people find faith
• knowing the presence of God’s peace in the midst of our challenges.

They see that I choose

• Giving $$ to mission projects that advance the gospel.
• Going to church over cutting the yard on a beautiful Sunday
• Godly ways I raise my children as I get wisdom from God’s word.
• Giving vacation time to foreign missions with my family instead of a week at the beach.

I am comfortable in expressing the spiritual side of my life: my walk with Christ. People hear that I walk with God. They hear current stories of what God is doing in my life.

Growth Step: Can you talk about your spiritual life with Christ? What story God’s activity in your life can you share with a friend?

3. You’ve got accessibility.

When strangers interrupt our life with some agenda they are pushing, we are naturally defensive.

But in your relationships, you’ve got access to speak to deep places.

You’ve got access to hearing their needs, hopes, desires and struggles. They call on you when life throws them a curve ball.

They might share with you how they face financial ruin.

They might share with you how they are headed towards divorce.

In the safety of credible relationships, you’ve got access to their deepest needs when they come to the surface. You’ve got access when they start to talk about their spiritual thirst.

Very rarely will a stranger get that level of access.

Growth Step: What steps can you take this week to deepen your relationships with non-Christians?

4. You’ve got “speakability”.

Within the safety of a trusted relationship you have earned the right to speak freely about faith.   You’ll have earned the right to speak about your friend’s faith.

You’ll have earned the right to speak to their spiritual thirst when you hear it.

And this conversation may not be just at one time, but over the course of several conversations spread out over time.

The people that I have most influenced for the kingdom of God are people who allowed me to speak into their life over a season of time.

I’ve been able to ask about their beliefs, talk intelligently about them, and even disagree without being obnoxious about it.

Growth step: Have you heard your friend speak about their spiritual restlessness?  Pray that the Lord gives you a chance to speak into that.

The author is a teacher of Ray Comfort’s material from the way of the Master. He cites a book that looks at contact evangelism, a popular style in that method.

Contact evangelism is defined as sharing the biblical gospel in direct contact with strangers.

• There are at least 89 instance of Christ and His associates doing evangelism in the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). Of these 89 instances, 77 took place in the context of Contact Evangelism.
• There are at least 46 instances of the early Church engaging in evangelism (both contact and friendship) in the book of Acts. Of these 46 instances, 38 took place in the context of Contact Evangelism.

The author of the book cited goes on to say

These incidents provide us with a clear model for evangelism, based on sheer volume of examples of Christ Himself doing contact evangelism.

Furthermore, it is instructive that most of the friendship evangelism opportunities in the Gospels were the direct result of previous encounters in the public.

For example, consider Zacchaeus. He is often touted as an example of friendship evangelism because he and Jesus shared a meal together. The fact that he met Christ in the context of His public ministry is entirely neglected by most proponents of Friendship Evangelism (Luke 19:1-4).

This is true Friendship Evangelism: a friendship that begins (not ends) with the proclamation of the gospel.

At least the author says that is a model, not the model.  The author of the review clearly says they are not presenting Contact Evangelism as the one and only model.  Rather they seek to encourage us to consider it since it is a prevalent model in the Gospels and Acts.

I’m not arguing with the writer, neither am I agreeing or disagreeing.  But here are my thoughts and reactions to what I read:

1.  We don’t have a public ministry like Jesus.

This model as found in the NT might very well have happened simply because Jesus was a very public figure, unlike most of us.

• Crowds flocked to see HIM
• Crowds gathered to hear HIM
• Crowds sought HIM for healing,
• Crowds sought HIM for forgiveness.
• People cried out to HIM when he passed by.
• People travelled miles to experience HIM in person.

Most of us don’t have those experiences.  I don’t have strangers knocking on my doors.  I don’t have people coming to see me.

Crowds and individuals were taking the initiative to seek Jesus out.

• Zaccheus climbed the tree
• Nicodemus came at night.
• The blind beggar began to cry out
• The Rich Young Ruler came to see Jesus
• Teachers of the law came to ask questions
• The Four friends brought the paralytic to Jesus
• Jarius came and said, “please come to my house.”
• A man in the crowd cried out for a healing for his son.
• The Gaderene demonic met Jesus when he arrived in town.

These are some examples.  If you think of who made the first move with the stranger, it appears that it wasn’t Jesus.

Now, there are other stories where Jesus did take notice and made the first move

• The woman with the shriveled hand (Luke 13)
• The widow of Nain during the funeral procession for her son.

My lists are not exhaustive.  But it from the rapid scan I did, it appears to me that most of this contact evangelism was initiated by the individual, not by Jesus.

His style of ministry was very different from most of our lives.  He was a very public figure, unlike most of us.  He was in a context where contact evangelism naturally occurred.

Now, people do start conversations with me when we happen to be in the same place at the same time, but they are not seeking me out.  They happen in an entirely different context than the public ministry of Jesus.

2.  Does personal preference influence how we see it?

I think the book author is trying to prove his point to justify his own evangelism style.

I do the same.

I’ve got my take on how I practice effective evangelism and how I train others to do so.

Given what works for me and how I’ve helped people find faith in Christ, I see examples of my style in the New Testament and when I teach, I too use the gospel and New Testament stories as illustrations.

I’ve got my own lenses through which I find stories in the NT to help me illustrate my point.

It’s not about the style.

There are many different styles, many different forms.  Proponents of the different evangelism styles can find examples of their style in the New testament

As long as one communicates the gospel clearly, how it is done is simply the means.

To read more on Styles, read:

• Got Style?  Personality Based Evangelism by Jeffrey Johnson.
• See www.ShareAsYouGo.com, a course written by my friend, Jimmy Kinnard.  Booklets, DVD, DISC test.

On October 14, I’ll be doing a radio interview with Jeffrey Johnson on Blog Talk Radio.  Be sure to grab the feed to get the reminders and the MP3 when it’s available.  I’m working on a similar deal with Jimmy to introduce you all to their resources.

(Photo Credit: Image found at the original blog post).

I knew that I need to put this on the reading list for me and quickly acquired it.  If I was an evangelism professor at a school, this book would be required reading.

No more sales pitch!

Something that has always bothered me in typical evangelism trainings and programs is the sense of doing a “sales pitch” and “closing the deal” by helping people make a decision for Christ.

Memorize the formulas, deal with the objections, and help people decide to buy your product.  Sprinkle in a few Scriptures to convict their heart and wow, you’ve got a convert.

Decisions are important, people do have to decide. I’m an evangelist at heart and call for decisions when I preach.

Scripture is important, it’s the Word of God.  Scripture speaks better than I can.

But the methodologies I trained in, read about and practiced all seem like sales.  I couldn’t get around the uncomfortableness and unsettledness.  This format for me was not as easy as breathing!

Partnership with the Holy Spirit

Evangelism is work best done in partnership with the Holy Spirit.  Richardson’s book maps this concept out from Scripture and from his life.  Instead of the salesman image, he lays out new images: that of travel guide, detective, collaborator, listener, story-teller and matchmaker.

When you see how the Holy Spirit is sovereign over the process of evangelism, you can see the links in the chain.  Richardson spends time encouraging us in the  Art of Noticing People.  You can see the Role of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism

Help people see God’s activity.

Richardson encourages us to look for opportunities in our relationships to help a person to discover God’s activity in their life.

One conversation with an ex-Christian friend involved this very observation. We had talked months before about the hatred my ex-Christian friend had towards the church.

I finished the conversation with a question: “Do you think God can help you find the ability to forgive ‘the church?’ He agreed to take a risk and try.

In the months between our last meeting, things had changed — some events had occurred, some healing had happened, and he had found a place of forgiveness.   I simply asked him, “Do you think that God had something to do with this new forgiveness?” He seemed to take a pause and say “Perhaps.”

After all, he considers himself an ex-Christian and so cynically skeptical that he’s not going to change overnight, but was re-awakening to the idea that God might still love Him.

All I did was suggest the working of God, a God who pursues us with revealing Himself as He sees fit.

In the context of a relationship, helping people discover that God is working in their life is part of the ordinary fun of being an evangelist — to help others see that God’s grace pursues them.

Pointing out where God is already at work can help others to discover God’s amazing grace.  Richardson’s book is helpful in this process and removes much of the fear that many may feel about evangelism.

Let me ask you this:

Are you close enough to other non-Christians to see and suggest where God is already at work?

Order your copy by clicking the title:Reimagining Evangelism: Inviting Friends on a Spiritual Journey

I’ve been reading Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community and I think it is a must read book for pastors of churches seeking to engage its community.

Over the next few days leading up to the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar, I’ll be pulling out a few themes.

A philosophy of Ministry

The foundational drive of this book is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work it’s way into the DNA of a congregation.

A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . . living out the great commandment and the great commission in our network of relationships in the marketplace and neighborhoods.

Chapter 1: Foundations

Pate looks at ineffective methods of church based evangelism and the relationship between personal evangelism and the local church.  The end results he points out is a lot of effort, but little results.

Programmatic changes have not led to church growth, so perhaps a systemic change needs to be made.

Ever after a lot of evangelism training, people can’t give a scripted gospel presentation, but they can answer the question: “What is God up to in your life?”

But all the emphasis on programming in the past few decades has created several barriers to this kind of relational evangelism on a church level.  Friendship evangelism models have been around for some time, but how do you mobilize the church to engage the mission field where it is planted?

Based on his own experience as a consultant and a practitioner, Pate and Wilkes put forth a philosophy of ministry that makes sense and develops this idea throughout the book:

The key argument is:

The premise of this book is simple: the key for a local church is to create natural connection points for Christ-follower to intersect the lives of people far from God through service in the community as salt and light servants. (8)

The church must purposefully deploy people into the community, become friends of sinners, if Christ-followers are to live out the Great Commission.  (15)

Their answer, using the “salt and light” images of the NT:

Churches can deploy their members according to their passions and gifts to be an irresistible influence among the people of their community. (10).

We do not offer a presentation to be memorized but a lifestyle of service that engages tangible needs wherever they occur and seizes every opportunity in that interaction to introduce the person/people served to our Rescuer and Leader, Jesus. (18)

Chapter 2: Barriers that keep us out

Pate and Wilkes give a summary of barriers that keep church individuals from connecting with the neighborhood.

Time (or perceived lack of time), program maintenance, church structures, and unawareness of passion and spiritual gifts among members of your church are primary barriers that keep your people out of the community and within the walls of your church.

The chapter unfolds this list with great detail and I think accurately reflects what I see in churches that I consult with.

Time

Many churches have far too many time consuming programs, events, and meetings each week that do not enable their church to moves even one step forward in accomplishing either the Great Commission or the Great commandment (24)

To the pastor, they provide a simple way to calculate the total number of volunteer hours it takes to sustain the current programming of the the church.  The simple question is that with all the man hours church’s ask their people to give, is there any time left over for building relationships?

Church Programs

Programs are not bad, the authors are clear to say.  But are they the tail that wags the dog?  Do your programs assist the church in fulfilling its mission, or are they stale and lifeless relics of a past era?

People far from God are not looking for more things to do.  Are we a bit off center because of the countless hours we devote to the programs at our church? (27)

The authors encourage pastors to examine their church programming to see what is hindering the mission of intentionally deploying people in the community.

Church structure and control

Essentially, how does leadership respond to new ideas and new directions.  Are policies prohibiting new directions?  Does leadership trust new ways the Holy Spirit is leading?  Are new initiatives squashed or are people given freedom to pursue them?

Unawareness of Gifts and Passions

Passion determine where a person serves best, and gifts determine how.  Passion is God-given and answers the “where” of ministry.  Gifts are God-given and answers the “how” of ministry.  The authors maintain, rightfully so,

churches cannot reach their potential when those joined to the mission and vision of the church either (1) do not know their God-given passion and spiritual gift(s) or (2) if those aspects of who they are in Christ are underdeveloped.

Their main point in all of this is to explore how can the church get outside it’s walls?  How can the local church get out of the building and into the neighborhood when these barriers are in the way?

Learn more

Part II comes tomorrow — Grab my feed to have it delivered to you automatically

Learn more about this philosophy of ministry direct from the author, Stephen Pate.  Register for the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar this coming Thursday.

Over the next few days leading up to the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar, I’ll be pulling out a few themes.

What’s not working?

The authors ask:

Why Aren’t Our Efforts Producing Anything Other than More Work?

Think about all the evangelism training, all the conferences, new ideas, new books, new resources that have been offered in the last few years.

Pate looks at the statistics from his own denomination and notices no noticeable change in baptism statistics (which is a marker of growth in their Baptist tradition).

Of their 2100 Baptisms in 2003

• 12% were Christ-followers not previously immersed.
• 54% were children or grandchildren of members
• 34% were individuals with no prior church connection.

Numerical statistics from their association note that their membership in relationship to their county decreased in its percentage from 4.3% to 1.9%

The church was not reaching people for Christ, in spite of all their efforts in evangelism training, programming, and lots of resources.

Church outreach programs, age-grouped bible studies, church-wide evangelism emphases and events have produced current results.

As a consultant earning a living from evangelism training, this bothered him.  Why is there no noticeable change even after all time and effort to do training and provide resources?

A philosophy of Ministry

The foundational drive of this book is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work it’s way into the DNA of a congregation.

A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . . living out the great commandment and the great commission in our network of relationships in the marketplace and neighborhoods.

The key argument is:

The church must purposefully deploy people into the community, become friends of sinners, if Christ-followers are to live out the Great Commission.

It is relational evangelism to the core.

How is this different from other relational evangelism material?

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is different in that it seeks to figure out how relational evangelism can work in context a local congregation.  It’s not a curriculum, but a philosophy that can shape the culture of your church.

A lot of relational evangelism training curriculum is focused on individual — helping you develop relationship and then skills in sharing the gospel.  The authors refer to several, such as Just Walk Across the Room (or Just Walk Across the Room Video Curriculum)

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community focuses on the implication of relational evangelism in the church DNA.

What happens to your programming?  What happens when your calendar is too full to spend time with unchurched people?

Example:

Let me share an example from my own life.

I’ve been asked via email to conduct an evangelism training program for a local church.

The coordinator has asked to meet with me, so

FOR 5 MONTHS

we have been trying to arrange an in-person meeting time.

We have had at least 10 appointments set, and every time, this coordinator has canceled on me.

Every time — “something came up at the church”  “I have to be at the church” and so on.

He’s left me hanging.

No-shows, and canceled appointments.

I’m frayed.

I am unable to meet him at his church because of distance.

We keep trying common meeting points, half-way, but each one keeps being canceled.

The point is — the church calendar is so full with surprise meetings or other meetings, that even the evangelism coordinator doesn’t have time to meet with me unless I make it to the church to catch him between meetings.

His church calendar is so busy — can he spend time with unchurched people building relationships?

Pastors and Leadership

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is aimed at church leadership to help think through these hard questions.

Time (or perceived lack of time), program maintenance, church structures, and unawareness of passion and spiritual gifts among members of your church are primary barriers that keep your people out of the community and within the walls of your church.

They present a relational evangelism philosophy that will seriously impact your church’s DNA.

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community isn’t really aimed at individuals, but pastors and leaders seeking to answer the question: How can our church connect with the community?

This goes beyond servant evangelism (doing random acts of kindness in Jesus name) and beyond scripts, to deploying members to meeting community needs.

Continuing in our series Building New Relationships, we turn today to the third Sphere of Influence: Where do you play?

Where do you play?

Consider the natural relationships you may already have with

• People you meet at your kid’s sporting events.
• People you play a sport with.
• People in your social club (e.g., knitting, reading, bridge, poker)
• People you consistently see at the same stores you visit.
• People in your volunteer organizations.

Not always easy

For example, I used to visit a local Dunkin Donuts nearly every weekday morning to have my quiet time.  (No worries, I usually only drank a cup of coffee).

Within a few weeks, I noticed the same group of people meeting and talking for several hours each morning (they arrived before I did, and most left after I did).  The group would ebb and flow as people would visit for a while, then leave to their morning obligations.  But several were there the entire time, nearly every day.

It wasn’t easy to break into this group, rather, they had to let me in.  This is where prayer helped prepare the way.

After a while, they initiated conversation with me, as another regular attender. This led to several new relationships, some of which continue to this day, and some of which have provided some business for us.

Since I have moved to a different city, these folks are not in the course of my life anymore.  I still see a few when I visit and have had the opportunity to talk about my faith and calling with several of them over time.

Parent Teacher Student Organization

A friend of mine serves as volunteer for the school’s PTSO.  This puts her in contact weekly with over 40 other parents, and regular contact with many more.

One purpose for volunteering with this group is to build relationships with other parents that can provide the natural opportunity to talk about faith.  Some of those relationships are getting deep enough to talk about personal things.

This weekend, several of them have registered to attend one of the church’s outreach events.  This event has nothing to do with the PTSO, but the relationships built during the year and prayed over have helped several women to say yes, I’m coming.

Let me ask you this:

Where do you like to spend your non-work social time?

Who among those friends are unchurched?

Who can you be praying for today.

Would you share additional ideas on where you find such relationships outside of your neighborhood and work?

Continuing in our series Building New Relationships, we turn today to the second Sphere of Influence: Where do you work.

In Bill Tenny-Brittian’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To Evangelism he devotes a whole chapter to this one and gives lots of practical relationship building tips.  He writes:

The average North American will spend about 90,000 hours at work before they finally punch-out on the time clock of life.

During that extended time, you and your faith is on display for all to see.

You may be able to fool the church people an hour or two each week, but you can’t fake-out the folks who see you eight hours a day, five days a week, twenty-two days a month—they know you as you really are (scary, huh?). Your workplace is faith’s litmus test.

What can you do in this sphere of influence?

I once worked for 3 years in a corporate office building, one of 6 buildings on the headquarter campus.

About 3 times a week, I saw

• The same person delivering inter-company mail pushing a cart by my desk.
• Saw the woman who’s only job was to water the house plants on people’s desks.
• The same security guard doing their rounds through the complex.
• The same checkout clerk in the cafeteria.

Think about your

• Clients
• Vendors who visit you regularly
• Immediate Co-workers (boss, people you supervise)
• Other co-workers that you regularly interact with
• Custodial staff
• Mail delivery person.
• Cafeteria Staff

Which of connections can you develop a little deeper today?  Who doesn’t go to church or have a faith?

Take a moment today to pray and ask the Lord to show you who he is underlining for you to intentionally develop a deeper relationship.

What about pastors?

I was in the pastorate for 11-12 years.  The biggest challenge to pastors is spending too much time in the office, surrounding by your church-going employees and visiting with congregation members who come to see you.

The unchurched do not hang out at church.

• Clearly set office hours clearly when you are available to meet with members and keep those boundaries.
• Do your praying, sermon writing and reading outside of the office.
• Hold meetings in restaurants, bookstores, or cafe’s.
• Do your writing at a bookstore or coffee shop.
• Meet your parishioners in a coffee shop (if it’s not for pastoral counseling).
• Become a regular at some particular places and pretty soon, people will start talking with you.

Starbucks and Barnes and Noble became my second office.  Didn’t take but a few weeks before strangers and staff started talking with me and becoming friends.

This example comes from Bill Tenny-Brittian, Hitchhiker’s Guide To Evangelism

Several years ago we moved into a planned subdivision that hosts over 5,000 homes.

I was a church planter launching a church in a nearby town and so I was “too busy” to get to know my neighbors.

However, that didn’t stop me from encouraging my flock that they should be busy inviting their friends, relatives, acquaintances, neighbors, and coworkers. And I personally spent a good bit of time in the area near the church doing the same.

But after living in my neighborhood almost two years, the Lord convicted me that I had a nodding acquaintance with only one neighbor and didn’t know the names of any of my neighbors.

I also knew that in my section of the nation there was about a 97 percent chance that each of my neighbors were unchurched. I decided it was well past time to do something.

And so I started praying for opportunities to meet them and I began to make appearances at timely intervals in order to meet those who lived around me.

He goes on to discuss how he connected with one of his neighbors.

(Note: Join us for some practical faith sharing ideas at our upcoming free Webinar with Bill Tenny-Brittian March 26.  Bill’s book Hitchhiker’s Guide To Evangelism is full of more practical relationship building ideas.)

Getting to know my neighbors

From my own life, we began praying for all the families on our cul-de-sac during the 5 years we lived in one subdivision.

By the time we moved, we had made friendships with nearly every couple there

• Opening our house for Bring your own side dish – grilling events.
• Parties around the Superbowl, Christmas, Memorial and Labor Day.
• Talking with the neighbors while doing exterior work around the property (mowing the yard, raking leaves, etc).

Eventually, those kinds of friendships opened up to more personal discussions on life and eventually spiritual matters.

At the end of 5 years, no one had come to faith directly as a result of our efforts.

However, within 2 years after we had moved, 3 of the households found faith and started attending church somewhere.

We attribute that to the hours of prayer, hours of relationship building, and hours of deep conversation that occurred while pausing our leaf raking. . .

Getting to know my new neighbors

Now we live in a condo tower.

30 condos.

We have lived here for over 18 months.

The turnover in rentals in the building keeps changing the make up of the residents.

Over the past 6 months, we have gotten to know the family we share a floor with.

We’ve been praying for them, for their needs, and doing life with them.  Going to the beach as families, celebrating birthdays, kids playing together.    Simply doing life together.

The friendship is deep now, and the struggles of life are beginning to be shared.  We have liberty to share what God is doing in our life, how we are aware of God’s presence in our midst, and how God is providing for our needs.

While we have not prayed with them for their needs, we certainly are praying for them.  With each passing week, more relational bonds are built between our families.

Our faith has been on display: praying for our kids during birthday celebrations, grace at meals, inviting our neighbors to church, our small group.  Their son occasionally comes with us, and even attended a vacation Bible school with our kids.

He talks with my son about who is the Lord and why are we living where we do.

The curiosity of our family practices begins to raise questions and provide opportunity to talk about the relevance of our faith to our daily life.

• Why do we invest our time in church?
• What does the Bible say about parenting?
• What does “Honor thy father and mother” look like?
• How to we still have peace in our heart when life hurts?
• Why do your kids have such a servant’s heart that my kids don’t?

These are natural conversations that are occurring and give us ample opportunity to demonstrate the relevance of our faith to life.

Our neighbors are on a journey towards Christ.   We walk this path with them because we took the time to get to know them.

Coaching Corner

With whom do you live?

Not just your immediate family members, but consider your neighbors.

Who might the Lord be calling you to be praying for and get to know better?

Take 5 minutes today and in quiet prayer, simply ask the Lord to underline someone for you.

What next steps will you take?