Hello! Ever since I became a Christian I have wanted to tell others about our hope of salvation in Jesus Christ. I’ve tried to follow the example set by those who stepped out of their comfort zones and shared Christ with me when I was 17.
If you’ve known me for long you know that I’ve tried many fancy and sometimes foolish ways to go about sharing my faith, but I’d neglected the simplicity of the biblical command to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel.”
With this in mind, I’ve set a goal to engage in at least one witnessing conversation everyday, which I’ve been attempting to do since 2010. I began to write about these conversations as a way to remember and pray for the people I talk to. I realized that these stories can also help teach others about different ways we can share our faith on a daily basis in the midst of everyday life, and they can remind us and challenge us about what we believe and what some of the common false beliefs are that we should be aware of.
I believe evangelism is an act of faith and obedience that will always put me outside of my comfort zone, some times more than others, and I expect to share my failures and weaknesses as well as my "successes". This is all a learning process for myself and hopefully for all who read this, and I will try to highlight in each story something we might be able to learn from or be reminded of.
I generally use the biblical principle of “law to the proud, grace to the humble” which is taught very well by Ray Comfort at http://www.wayofthemaster.com/ The main idea is that before people will put their trust in Jesus the Lord as their Savior, they need to know they need saving and why. Most people are too proud to admit this; they generally see themselves as good people who don’t deserve to be punished, or they trivialize their sin and believe hell is an unreasonable punishment.
I usually start most conversations with a question about what they feel will happen to them when they die, and how they arrived at their present belief. This can lead to a conversation about our accountability before God on judgment day for breaking his law, and the punishment Jesus paid on the cross in our place.
My initial goal was to write these stories and post them here everyday; now I've scaled back to writing just a few times each week. I’ll usually post a news feed notice on Facebook and also e-mail a reminder to my New Life church family on occasion.
I also ask people for permission to record our conversation from time to time, and I've discovered that many people are very open to this and once we start talking we both pretty much forget the camera is there, so I feel that by posting links to these videos others can see and feel what these sorts of conversations are like. I feel they are a lot more natural and easygoing than they might sound in my printed descriptions.
In the first half of most videos I spend time learning each persons spiritual beliefs, history, and story. Usually in the second half I have more of an opportunity to share some gospel truths, usually based on where I feel each person is at spiritually and what I discern might be their next steps of faith. My goal is to show fellow Christians that we can take our faith out of the church walls and out into the community, and we don't have to be offensive or arrogant about it, we can share the Gospel in a tactful, reasonable way.
My initial goal was to write these stories and post them here everyday; now I've scaled back to writing just a few times each week. I’ll usually post a news feed notice on Facebook and also e-mail a reminder to my New Life church family on occasion.
I also ask people for permission to record our conversation from time to time, and I've discovered that many people are very open to this and once we start talking we both pretty much forget the camera is there, so I feel that by posting links to these videos others can see and feel what these sorts of conversations are like. I feel they are a lot more natural and easygoing than they might sound in my printed descriptions.
In the first half of most videos I spend time learning each persons spiritual beliefs, history, and story. Usually in the second half I have more of an opportunity to share some gospel truths, usually based on where I feel each person is at spiritually and what I discern might be their next steps of faith. My goal is to show fellow Christians that we can take our faith out of the church walls and out into the community, and we don't have to be offensive or arrogant about it, we can share the Gospel in a tactful, reasonable way.
Please feel free to e-mail me with comments, prayer requests, other e-mail addresses I should include on my list, requests to have your e-mail address removed, or if you are in the area and would like to set up a time that you could accompany me on a witnessing outing.
Lest I be accused of having a hidden agenda: yes, I would like to see more Christians taking the initiative in direct evangelism to the lost. As Mark Cahill titled his book, evangelism is the “One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven”, and as Jesus commanded, “Pray therefore, to the Lord of the harvest, that He will send more laborers into the harvest.”
PS - Thanks to Pastor Steve Sanchez who began "The Everyday Club" on his website at EvTales.com. Since joining and setting a daily outreach goal, I have found evangelism to be much less intimidating than letting my irrational fears build up for days at a time between outreach efforts.
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