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You want to share your faith, why?

evangelism

True Story: I once did some evangelism training where I asked participants to list all the things they loved about being a Christian. I put the participants into discussion groups. The one nearest to the front sat there in stunned silence. No-one seemed able to share anything they enjoyed about their Christianity.

At the end of the session, a member of that group came up to me very perturbed. "This is not what I was expecting! People need to be able to turn conversations to spiritual matters. How are you training us to do that?" She mentioned some elderly friends of hers who have failing health. "How do we turn a conversation about a dodgy knee into a gospel conversation?"

I suggested that one of the things we might enjoy about being a Christian was that, when ill health strikes, we have a God who knows what it's like to be weak. We also have a promise that everything happens for a good purpose, etc, etc. I encouraged her to share times when her Christianity has helped her through bad health.

The penny dropped. It was almost as though she had never considered evangelism as a matter of sharing something personal and attractive. I'm guessing, but it sounded to me like she thought of evangelism as responding to arguments and switching conversational tracks to a set of truths. If that's the mentality then discussing what you like about being a Christian is one thing, evangelism is something else. Unfortunately such a view is all too common.

Recently I spoke with a friend about online ministry. Why do we create evangelistic content for online dissemination? I think it boils down to the question: Do we think the gospel is shareable? When we phrase it like that, the social media connotations become very helpful. Something shareable is something we like. And what we really like we share. What is evangelism? Surely it's sharing some eminently shareable news. And if we're not sharing it, maybe we need to stop, look and listen once again. Perhaps if we want to share it we should refresh ourselves with what we like about it.

7 thoughts on “You want to share your faith, why?

  1. Brian Midmore

    I remember Easter day about 30 years ago at my local church. We were exhorted to go and share the good news of Jesus resurrection just like the disciples did (or eventually did after pentecost). At the time I felt 'there's a reality gap here, the disciples had met the risen Lord in his risen flesh, but we have just experienced an Easter Day service'. We do need something concrete and positive to share that we have experienced ourselves'.

  2. jim

    People have the wrong idea about evangelizing, it seems to me, because they do not have a clear understanding of Christ "in" me; and I say that realizing it is like most other elements within our faith: one can stray too far on either side of "truth". For me, though, the "gospel" is not the "Book", but a new life inside me, His life, and indeed He who must tell the story through me. My only "negative" thought with what you say here, though, is that the cartoonist possibly has the roles of the Pac-man characters reversed.....

  3. the Old Adam

    What I wish that people would get (somehow) is that we need to be kept in faith. It's a battle. Faith can be lost.

    We need to be in front of the Word and receive the sacraments for a lifetime.

  4. Pingback: December ministry training – the last three days | Watumishi wa Neno

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