But sometimes it seems like this is what we think evangelism and sharing your faith is all about.  We think if we can just get people to check out our church we’ve done our part.  Now inviting people to church can work well.  Sometimes people can visit worship and see that there’s something going on there they want a piece of, especially those who’ve wandered away from church and just need to reconnect.

But there are many people out there who are simply not interested, at least not right away.  In these cases, don’t give up or focus so much on the invitation to attend worship.  Develop the relationship.  Be bold and every once in a while link conversation to faith, especially to your own personal experience.  See where things go. 

We need to let our lights shine and follow the advice of St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words.”  Now sometimes people try to use this quote as an escape clause.  “I don’t need to directly tell others about faith.  I’ll let my actions speak.”  Let’s not go that route, but let your actions open doors so that people want to know more about the faith that creates those works. 

So be bold, push yourself to open conversations and talk about your personal faith experiences.   Be bold and get involved in things where people are going to be curious about why you’re taking your time and energy to care so much. Remember the example of the apostles, always bold to preach the faith so that it might reach to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.  We’re not there yet!

Has that ever been your fear?  You’d like to witness more, but you’re afraid you might do or say something that would then make a person think poorly of the faith. 

I don’t have any bumper stickers on my car right now, but I remember thinking once about getting a fish or something of the order.  One of the concerns that jumped into my head- “Would if I cut someone off or I do something that upsets them.  Then what will they think?”

Well, there are definitely some people out there looking for this.  Just google “Christian hypocrites” and you’ll find a number of rants.  You can even find articles that talk precisely about such bumper sticker hypocrisy that I mention in articles here or here.

Can we let such arguments dissuade us?  I hope not.  First, there’s something in these criticisms that should make us pay a little closer attention to our conduct, to make sure that our actions, whether they’re also labeled with a bumper sticker or Christian t-shirt or not, do help people see a little bit of Jesus that day.

At the same time, we have to acknowledge that sometimes our actions will betray us.  We are hypocrites in the sense that we say we want to do good, but evil often is right there with us, but as with Paul (Rom. 6), we praise God that he’s rescued us and brought forgiveness to us even in this condition that we Lutherans call being sinner and saint.

In some ways, being up front with others about your struggles can help them see Christ.  They’ll understand that you’re real and not trying to convince them that everything will be perfect once Jesus is part of life.  They know that’s simply not true.

So sure, some people will be looking for your mistakes, but with the majority of people you’ll be interacting with, you can’t let these fears paralyze you.  They’ll see you struggle, but they’ll be thankful that they also get to see you talk about forgiveness.

Any thoughts?  

Well that’s wonderful, but sometimes even after that happens we encounter problems.  Sometimes we’re worried that after such a conversation starts, we won’t know where to go with it.  You’re worried that the person you’re talking to will ask a question you can’t answer or bring up a difficult subject. Worse yet you imagine scenarios where you might accidentally say the wrong thing or stumble around making little or no sense.  How embarrassing!

We don’t need to live in fear of these possibilities.  We just need to be ready.

First, be prepared (it’s not just the boy scout motto). As a Christian, you should think a little about where conversations with nonChristians might go.  If it’s hard questions you’re afraid of answering, then think through them a little.  Recently Messiah has been doing a sermon series on the hard questions like, “Why does a good God allow evil?” and “How can I be a sinner and a saint at the same time?”. You can always check out our latest one at our website.  Just scroll down the homepage and view last week’s worship.  But you can also talk to other Christians about these kinds of things, and one of the best ways to be prepared for conversations with nonChristians is to be ready to share your personal experience.  I’m not talking about a completely canned personal testimony, but you should be able to speak about the ways God has worked in your life and why a person would want him involved in theirs.

Secondly, get comfortable speaking about faith-related topics.  How do you do this?  Well, the best route is probably to get involved in groups such as Bible studies where people are regularly discussing faith.  If you are active in participating in such a group, then you’ll start to feel more comfortable speaking about everything from Abraham to baptism to God’s working in your own life.

Third- Get excited about faith.  I don’t know if this strikes you as obvious, but if you’re not truly excited about faith, it’s going to be hard to communicate to others why they should want it it their own lives.  Think about the reasons you’re happy to be a Christian and research the topics of faith that interest you most (whether it’s theological topics like the Trinity, Christian music, or something fun and light hearted).  Then you’ll be ready to discuss things with others that truly do excite you.

Finally, be ready to tell someone that you will have to get back to them.  There are going to be situations where you simply don’t have a good answer.  Rather than pretend to know, you might posit a few possiblities and then finally say, “That’s a great point.  I’m not exactly sure how I’d deal with that. Do you mind if I think about it a little or talk to my pastor and get back to you?”.  MOst people will accept that.

Has anyone here ever hit a wall or felt awkward in a conversation about faith?  What did you do?  How do you prepare yourselves for conversations about faith?

This is another one of those questions that dogs Christians as they seek to get over the hump and start sharing their faith.  We want to do it.   It just doesn’t seem to come up and anything we imagine saying sounds lame, so we don’t say it.

Well, there are a couple of things that we need to think about here.  First, you might have to make yourself feel a little uncomfortable and take the plunge.  A lot of we imagine saying in our heads, sounds lame in our heads because we’re overanalyzing it.  Sometimes people are more willing to talk about faith than we might guess and so when we bring up the topic, the ball can get rolling.  I’m a pastor so I have an unfair advantage, but a lot of times when I mention that I’m a pastor, people are surprisingly interested in talking about that or their own previous experience with church.  Also, while things may be a little awkward at first, practice makes perfect.   Anything you want to do well takes practice, so you might have to accept that awkwardness for a time as you get more comfortable taking advantage of the opportunities God gives.

Second, you might have to do a little brainstorming and preparation.  If you have a nonChristian friend, coworker, family member, etc that you’d like to share with, think about topics in advance.  Do you usually talk sports, what’s been going on in your family, work  stuff, the news, etc?  Start thinking about questions and comments in these areas that might bring up faith.  Here’s an article that even shows how to use the latest Batman movie, or one on the Simpsons.  If you google faith and a topic you’ll get some ideas.

Third, and most importantly- pray.  Pray over and again- pray for opportunities, for the right words, for specific people, for love and humility no matter what happens.

How about some examples now. 

I’ll get the ball rolling with one of my favorite methods.  The person you talk to reveals some hardship or problem they’re dealing with.  Tell them, “I’ll keep you in my prayers.”   This is all-important now.  If they say something in response to this, follow up on the comment.  If they say, “I really appreciate it,” then maybe ask them about their own prayer life or something like that.  Even if they don’t say much, make sure you check back in later and say something like, “Hey, I’ve been praying about . . ., how are things going there?”  You’ve just opened up the window to more personal conversation and put faith back in focus again.  You can talk about how your own faith has helped you in such situations, what other’s prayers have meant, etc.

To take a more casual topic, how about a news story.  You can refer to the previous blog series, “Reading the News Through the Lens of Faith” for countless examples of how to bring faith into focus on such topics.  If you’re talking the economy, mention that you read a couple of articles on Biblical principles that have made you reevaluate your own finances.  Bring up some of those principles and the surrounding context and see where it goes.

Remember God can use almost any topic to his purposes.  Ok, what conversations have you had that you had or do you imagine having that you’d like to turn to the topic of faith.  Let’s have some examples and some comments on how a person might bring up the faith in those examples.

In sharing your faith with a non-Christian there is the chance the person with whom you’re sharing will see you as judgmental.  After all, most people, including Christians, believe that a person can be saved through many different paths.  Many people don’t even believe in hell anymore.  To share your faith, indicates that a person might be in some type of danger if they don’t convert and this can be viewed as the greatest sin of all- intolerance.

And we know what happens if we’re viewed as intolerant.  We then get lumped into those crazy Christians for whom there is so much ridicule.  And much of it is really rough and mean-spirited.  Just glance through the comments in this online discussion or check this one out too.

So what’s a Christian to do?  Well first of all, slow down.  Don’t catastrophize all the time.  Yes, there is a chance that in sharing your faith you’ll get a little ridicule or someone will view you as intolerant, but most discussions don’t go to this level very quickly.  Second, a lot of this has to do with approach.  If you want to go out on street corners then some people are definitely going to be turned off.  If you share your faith with friends and family and do so out of your own experience, there’s much less of a chance of ridicule or that those people will think you’re doing so in a mean spirited way. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, don’t rush into the really tough issues. So often people think about sharing faith in terms of confronting people on the biggest struggles within today’s society (homosexuality, abortion, etc) or talking about how Jesus is the only way.  These are conversations that you might let develop over time, but first talk about God and his nature- how he is loving, just, has a plan for the world, etc.  Talk about sin in general, and what’s applicable to you and the person with whom you’re talking.  Talk about grace.  Talk about Jesus’ love and the cross. 

Will you move to some of the tough questions eventually?  Yeah, but if you can get the person on board with this kind of a foundation and if you can get them reading the stories of the Bible with you, they’re going to see God’s view on these tough subjects in a much better light.

Have you ever been accused of intolerance?  Have you been able to talk with someone about hard issues without that happening? How did it happen?