How Do You Go About Sharing Your Faith?

2/11/14                       Darren                  about 30

“I remember talking to you a few months ago” a man named Darren told me at a coffee shop where I initiated a Gospel conversation. I was curious what he remembered about it. “I just remember your boldness and felt inspired to want to share the Gospel too” he said.

“So how do you go about sharing your faith?” I asked.

“Well, I just talk to people about everyday things, and sometimes I’m often able to get a word or two about spiritual things in edgewise” he answered. We talked a while about the difference between intentionally starting Gospel conversations and haphazardly “trying to get a word in edgewise”.

I told him of my experience: “Conversations easily go off on tangents, and it can be seen as manipulative to continually try to steer it back in a spiritual direction. So I just boldly ask permission right up front to discuss a question, usually “what do you think happens after this life?” And then I feel free to allow natural tangents to happen, because I can ask to get back to the agreed-upon topic any time without being unnatural or manipulative.”

Darren fully agreed and that’s what we went on to do for the rest of our hour-long conversation. The default topic wasn’t the weather, or sports, or whatever; it was the gospel, which was never meant to be shared in soundbites, and because we weren’t talking about it “edgewise”, it wasn’t.

As it turned out, Darren belongs to a very legalistic church that robs him of assurance of salvation, and we were able to cover ground that no soundbite or "edgewise" conversation ever could.

Our conversation wasn’t forced, manipulative, or contrived. And all it took was a little boldness.