How did you come to faith? Was it a prepared speech delivered by a stranger or a friend speaking truth out of love? How should we as follower’s of Jesus speak about the Kingdom and the Gospel? Adam Taylor Bond has this to say.

The Propositional Model

Relationships move through natural stages; from introduction, to acquaintance, to casual friend, to good friend, to great friend. While these are certainly not scientific terms, I think we’ve all experienced this progression. The problem with most personal evangelism training is that we teach people that it’s OK to insist upon propositioning someone with the Gospel even when we are still in the introduction or acquaintance stage of the relationship. This almost always results in the ’sharer’ feeling awkward, nervous and unsure of what he is doing. It also leaves the ’share’ feeling, at best, disinterested (at worst, confused or offended.) We, the church, continue to train people to do this however, because of the instances where we see people praying to receive Christ as a result of our efforts. I mean no offense when I say this, but it has to be said: Our ONLY qualification for the effectiveness of this model is a person praying a prayer, period. We have convinced ourselves that if we see people praying, then we’re doing our job. What ever happened to making disciples? One thing is indisputable, that merely leading someone in a prayer is not the same as discipling them the way Scripture commands. Attempting to propose the Gospel to someone by means of a logical presentation exclusive of a relationship only calls on that person to make an intellectual ascent to a set of facts, rather than to accept an invitation into a relationship with Jesus. We are hurting those people and worse, we are scaring the crap out of believers.

It’s no wonder that

* More than 80 percent of people who identify themselves as followers of Jesus will never share the Gospel in their lifetime
* It’s like pulling teeth at your church to get people involved in learning how to do personal evangelism
* Even if you begin teaching a bunch of people, some will inevitably drop out mid-training

The issue I have is not with what we are doing, but how we’re doing it. As I listen to pastors all over the country, most are really struggling with teaching their people personal evangelism. They are very interested in doing it, but no one seems to have a solution. This is a big deal.

Defining Relationships

I’ve been around long enough to know that some of you reading this are groaning right now. I believe the biggest rebuttal of my criticism above will sound something like, “But what about people you meet on a plane, or someone you only have a few moments with? Are you saying we shouldn’t share the Gospel with them?” Or, “You can’t be good friends with everyone, so we have to be equipped to share with people we don’t know.” If this is your hang-up, I agree with you! In fact, I’ve shared Christ with countless people on planes, but every one of them has asked me to share. This is where we have to change the way we see things.

Most people define relationships by time. Instead, we must define relationships by trust.

The process of building trust (moving from introduction to casual/good/great friend) will vary from person to person, but trust HAS to be the centerpiece of our relationships. We often wonder how to discern who is ready to hear from us about Jesus, but we don’t have to guess or feel like we’re taking a risk. It’s a simple matter of assessing whether the trust is there or not. If a person truly trusts you, then you can share anything!

The Biblical Model

So let’s redefine our terms. Sharing the Gospel is simply telling the story of Jesus; who He is, what He’s done, and how we can be in relationship with the Father through Him. As I mentioned, I’ve never been afraid to do this because every time I’ve done it, the other person has asked me to. It would actually be a bit rude if I chose not to in those situations, wouldn’t it?

The reason why people ask me to share the Gospel with them is the key to effective personal evangelism. It’s because I first share my faith with them. Sharing your faith involves loving a person by asking them authentic, engaging questions–this lets them know you see them as important. It involves letting them take you where they want in a conversation–this validates them (see how Jesus does this with the woman at the well in John 4:16-21.) Validation is the vehicle upon which trust is ushered into a relationship. Most importantly, sharing your faith involves you sharing the stories God is writing in your life–this reveals the evidence, power, grace and love of God. Instead of thinking about our testimony as a beginning, middle and end (This is who I was before I met Jesus, this is how I met Jesus, this is who I am now that I know Jesus) we should begin to catalog the personal stories that strengthen our own faith and be prepared to share any of them with complete transparency. Your joy as well as your brokenness must be evident as you share your faith. Anything less would be dishonest and thus be completely destructive to the process of building trust.

To be sure, I have friends who I’ve been sharing my faith and building trust with for 15 years, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes it only takes 15 minutes! Like on a plane! The point is this: you have control over the process of building trust to the extent that you can conduct yourself in a way that welcomes it, but ultimately it’s up to the other person to take that step. They will probably need to believe in you before they believe in Jesus.

When you effectively share your faith before you share the Gospel, your stories will inspire a genuine curiosity about God.

Out of this fascination, and because you’ve built trust with him along the way, he will ask you to share the Gospel. It will sound something like, “That is incredible! How can you live like that? How could you experience so much pain and still be at peace? It doesn’t seem possible. I wish I had that.” This is the open door. Once you’re at this point, talking about Jesus is actually really fun. Instead of trying to provide a lucid, rational dissertation on the Biblical account of Jesus, I usually find myself acknowledging that the Gospel really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense–a man who is also fully God, an innocent man convicted by a mob, a death that substituted for the deaths of every person living and unborn, resurrection after three days, etc. It’s actually pretty crazy if you try to think about it from a lost person’s perspective.

But if you’ve shared your faith before all this, then you’ve provided all the evidence a person needs. And if you’re on a plane sharing your faith, and the plane lands and he never asks you to share the Gospel, have you failed? I don’t believe that for a minute. We MUST remember that God is the one doing all the work here, not us. We do not posses the power to change lives, we are just the vessels through which the Holy Spirit works. If we lose sight of that, then everything I’ve said means nothing.

Try This

It might take a little time to think through all of this–it certainly did for me. But I want you to try something. The next time you find yourself in conversation with someone who doesn’t know Jesus, start sharing your faith the way we’ve talked about it in the paragraphs above, beginning with the one that contains the John 4 quote. See what happens. Then, do it again with the next person. Then the next, and the next. Then when you come back to these people, continue to share your faith with them some more. Just be patient and trust that God is the One doing all the work–you have the fun part. They will open the door for you to share Jesus with them, and fear simply never occurs when you’re sharing the Gospel with a person who’s asking to hear it.

written by adam taylor bond