For a conversational evangelism tip, here is one I use on a frequent basis: I look for the question that is behind the question, emotion, or statement.
Off and on over a period of two years, I met a friend for coffee and conversation at the local coffee shop.
During that season of life where our lives intersected, he and I had a long ongoing discussions about faith where we talked about many of his questions.
[Read more…] about Evangelism Tip: What’s behind the question?“But I am so afraid to start a conversation,” confessed a pastor.
“I have non-Christian friends, and spend time with them, but I’m so afraid of ruining my friendship.”
Does that describe you, even if you are not a pastor?
To address this fear, let me throw out my list of 7 Habits for Highly Effective Personal Evangelism. As I live these out, I find evangelism natural and non-destructive.
[Read more…] about 7 Habits for Highly Effective Personal EvangelismGod is at work in my life.
Specific examples of each one of these would be the first story that every Christian should master.
I call this: The What’s New Story.
What kind of story is this?
[Read more…] about Faith Story Number 1: What’s New StoryMaybe you have experienced that awkward moment in a conversation when you have a chance to share your faith, yet the right words don’t come.
The fear of that moment is both natural and common to all who want to share Jesus with friends or strangers.
You can overcome that evangelism fear and prepare yourself to have the right words at a moment’s notice.
I have a friend who doesn’t believe in having a personal relationship God, but does believe that Jesus was a good teacher.
My friend, like many people who are not followers of Jesus, hold this view:
My friend hasn’t surrendered his life to God, doesn’t follow Jesus as a Christian.
My friend wants to be a good person. My friend tries to absorb ethical truth from every perspective in order to be a good person. My friend doesn’t want to be a religious fool.
My friend is an agnostic who wants to grow spiritually, but not yet ready to commit to any one religion or God. Rather than hold a position of an atheist who declares “God doesn’t exist,” my friend would hold the position of an agnostic who says “I don’t know.”
My friend has a level of spiritual thirst that has moved beyond intellectual curiosity. This person wants to learn and apply so that personal growth might happen.
Thus, we are having regular conversation about Jesus, about the nature of God, and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. My friend is on a journey towards Jesus and I get the joy of helping my friend discover grace.
I hope you encounter such people on a regular basis and pray for such conversations regularly.
We have developed a good rapport from being friends and spending time together.
He has moved from a defensive resistance to my Christian faith to an acceptance that my faith is part of my life.
He has moved from that acceptance to a place of curiosity as he sees how I am living out my faith in front of him, while not being overly aggressive at saying he must believe like me.
I’m living out the phases of the spiritual conversation journey that my friend Don Everts describes in his book (I once was lost):
I see evidence of my friend being in the 3-4 range of this phase list.
Recently, our conversations have shifted to looking at the teachings of Jesus. After all, my friend wholeheartedly agrees that Jesus was a good teacher.
We’ve started looking at some of the sayings of Jesus:
My friend didn’t realize Jesus said these things.
He is beginning to realize that if Jesus spoke truth, then some kind of response is required of him.
He could either
By looking directly at the teachings of Jesus, my friend is getting uncomfortable with his own position. He is realizing his claim that he wasn’t really following the teachings of Jesus if he didn’t believe them.
This dissonance is creating spiritual thirst and a desire to do something about it.
Each week, I send out new articles to help you grow your church through personal evangelism, invitations, improving your greeter ministry, and refreshing your vision for church hospitality. I’ll be sharing more of my conversations in upcoming weeks, plus sending out some free evangelism tip videos. You can get word of them here:
A freaky thing happened to me today that reminds me of another obnoxious habit in personal evangelism.
I got a phone call today offering to show me how to make $3500 a day, and would I be interested?
I don’t know this person.
The gentleman was polite.
He quickly introduced himself and told me how he found my number. Somehow, a click on his website revealed my identity (scary) and he called me.
He decided I was a potential customer for his life changing product.
Then he proceeded with the opening sentence of his pitch.
From the very first syllable to the last in the 5 minute encounter, the alarm bells were going off in my head. No matter the level of his sincerity, I found myself immediately defensive.
He was interrupting my day. He had stalked me.
He wanted to sell a program I wasn’t even interested in.
He had no credibility at all.
When I told him I wasn’t interested, he was stunned.
He may have had the greatest program in the world. It would solve my problems if I could make $3500 a day.
If I signed up right there on the spot, I likely would have been excited about hope, and then tomorrow comes, without the $3500.
I was defensive from the start:
If you’ve ever done contact evangelism, you know that sometimes your gospel presentations are aimed at sharing the greatest news in the world:
Much of that is done without listening to the person, interrupting their day, ignoring what their real need is, and tapping only their fear of hell.
(Less I be misunderstood, I do teach contact evangelism in partnership with local churches, but in such a way that doesn’t feel like being a salesperson for Jesus — the above comment is laced with cynicism over abusive ways people share the gospel).
Evangelism that is disruptive and not part of an ordinary conversation flow is an obnoxious habit I can do without.
Instead, I want my conversations about Jesus to be with people who really want to talk with me.
I don’t want to create defensiveness. Rather, I want faith sharing conversations to be a normal part of my daily life with people who are truly interested in the conversation.
I have a DVD set (or digital download) that focuses on a conversational style evangelism that would be effective in:
Learn these principles on personal evangelism, and your faith sharing conversations can become an ordinary part of your life without feeling like you are selling Jesus.
I show you how conversations can be natural and wanted, rather than you putting people on the defensive like this man did today.
Read more about the Effective Evangelism Conversations in the store
