What is a prayer burden? – an evangelism encounter

I take Spanish classes, and in preparation for an upcoming mission in Nicaragua in a few weeks, I’m reviewing the teaching material with my professor.

I am teaching material on prayer, which has been translated from English to Spanish.

I’ve spent 4 hours going over the material with my professor, reviewing it for punctuation, grammar, gender agreement (Spanish uses gender forms in their language, like Latin and Greek do).

I had the opportunity to explain the concept of Christian prayer to someone who isn’t Christian, nor has the vocabulary we Christians so loosely throw around in church.

• Prayer is the vital key to experiencing our relationship with God through Christ.
• Prayer is a love relationship with God.
• Prayer can shape the future (we’ll let the theologians figure out how that works with God’s sovereignty).

Christianesse gets in the way

I faced a few challenges, for example

1. Christianese:  What is a “prayer burden?”
2. Spanish translation: The Spanish word I chose for burden gave my professor the image of me carrying a 20lb sack of potatoes on my shoulder.

So not only was prayer burden a foreign concept, so was the mental image my word choice gave my listener.

In trying to explain such terms, I had the opportunity to tell stories of God’s activity in my life.

In attempting to explain a prayer burden, I got to describe a prayer experience I received while mowing the yard.

I was mindlessly mowing the grass when I felt a sudden and strong impulse to pray for a particular missionary team in China, and then explain how I saw God’s hand in that.

Talk about your relationship with Christ

As we talked more, I went on to explain about my relationship with Christ.

I had a chance to share the gospel because I explained prayer to someone who doesn’t know how to pray or what a prayer burden is

In reviewing my material with my professor, I’ve had many opportunities to share stories of God’s activity in my life.

I am asked all sorts of questions while we work on translating the material.  I try to explain the concepts I am teaching about.

All of this gives material for God’s spirit to draw my professor into a relationship with Him.  She is on a journey to faith, and I get to plant seeds along the way.

Let me ask you this?

When you share your faith, what kind of Christianese do you use?