Tactful spiritual conversation starter questions can open the doors to significant life changing evangelistic conversations.
Tactful means that you are
- sensitive to the timing, the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and the level of your friend’s spiritual thirst.
- paying attention to your own motives as you ask the questions: are you forcing a conversation or manipulating the situation?
20 Conversation Starters for Personal Evangelism
I found this list of 20 personal evangelism conversation starter questions from Campus Crusade:
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 20 Evangelistic Starter Questions
Do you need help in Personal Evangelism?
Start here with this MP3 Download on Evangelism Training from the store to help you see where you need to grow.
In this 70 minute MP3 AUDIO recording on personal evangelism you will learn:
- How church invitations are part of evangelism
- How to discover and share your own journey to faith
- What you can say about the gospel message.
- How to personally lead someone to faith in Christ.
It’s a 70-minute audio file that takes just a few minutes to download, but it may help you answer the question:
What can you do in the next 90 days to grow in your evangelism skills?
Evangelistic Conversation Starter Questions
The question which normally does not have an impact for me is by asking if an unbeliever does not go to church. But it is a good question for someone who has stopped going to church:)
This is interesting lesson useful for the development of individuals in the body of Christ. Keep me posted always
Do you have any statistic on how useful questions are in Evangelism. Jesus used many questions and I am trying to determine if the questioning sstyle Jesus used will work otday in Evangelism.
I teach Evangelism at a Bible College.
This is the question that I ask someone, possibly every day:
1. I ASK FOR PERMISSION
– What is the best thing that ever happened to you?
And I listen, then ask:
– Tell me more about it.
It is sometimes fascinating what people answer.
The young man I asked this question to (20 minutes ago), told me:
– The best thing that ever happened to me was to find the hidden watch that my now deceased father used to hide before travelling somewhere.
He died when I was young and I miss him.
But I found his watch, hidden inside the piano.
That was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Then I ask:
– May I tell you the best thing that ever happenend to me?
People almost always say “Yes, of course, tell me!”.
Now I have his permission, and have around one minute, to tell him the best thing that ever happened to me: JESUS CAME INTO MY LIFE.
Learn how to tell your faith story in one minute, in a way people enjoy to listen to:
oneminutewitness.org