Material adapted from the breakout Evangelism Starts Here given at THINK|26 by Bob Martin and Tyler Riffe.
Most of us would probably agree that there are few topics more worth talking about than evangelism. However, nothing is harder for us to do. The twin realities of the need for evangelism and the challenges of it create a dilemma in our souls that lead to a cycle of guilt and shame.
Matt Smethurst, in his short and compelling book Before You Share Your Faith, claims that the “remedy for this dilemma may be found BEFORE we share our faith.” He gives us five preparations that we can take to make us evangelism ready. We add one more for good measure.
Just as your car needs to be warmed up on a cold winter’s day, there are some practical things that we can do in our own lives that make us ready to share the gospel when God brings opportunities.
Preparation #1 – Grasp the Gospel
Matt says, “Jesus Christ is infinitely more than a get out of hell free pass. He is a living person to follow, worship, and cherish.”
What would it look like for us to cherish Jesus so much that when we encounter people in our lives, the gospel just pours out of us. Trusting in the gospel is essential for becoming a Christian. Trusting in the gospel is essential for sharing our faith. The invitation is to not just “know” the gospel, but to “cling” to it.
It is a miracle that any of us would be saved.
Matt says, “No matter who you are or what you’ve done, hear the magnificent news: There is more mercy in Jesus than sin in you!”
“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).
The cross, does not just secure for us a “get out of hell” pass, it unites us to the majestic love that is in Jesus Christ, now and forever. The more we can rehearse the profound love that God has for us, the more evangelism-ready we will be. When failures inevitably come, when we find that we are again frustrated with a missed opportunity to share Jesus, we have another opportunity to grasp the gospel afresh in our lives.
Preparation #2 – Check Your Context
In Acts 16, Paul looked around the city and found cultural idols. He noted that, at the heart of their city center, they had a temple for an unknown God. So, when he went to speak about Jesus, he started there. Paul did not have a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating the gospel. He was a listener. He was a learner.
We want to be listeners of the people in our lives so that when we speak, we can speak in such a way that might have the greatest effect on them from a human perspective. We want to remove the barriers that we can remove. Matt Smethhurst says that we should ask the question this way, “Where are my friends coming from?”
Missionaries are trained to think like this: How should I speak, act, dress, eat . . . so that I can help this culture see, hear, understand, and respond to the message of the gospel? While we may not be traveling overseas to a new culture, we do not want to underestimate how worldview impacts how we see the world around us.
Tim Keller, in his book How to Reach the West Again, makes the point that most people in today’s culture do not understand their need for a Savior. They do not have a built-in belief that they are sinners.
What does it look like then to help someone know they need Jesus?
Matt says, “We must take care to lean in and listen well, to climb into the other person’s way of seeing and inhabiting the world.” We are invited to lean in and think about the world of our friends. We are invited to be curious!
Preparation #3 – Pray
I think prayer is pre-evangelism. In fact, I think that prayer is probably most of the work of evangelism.
Think about it. How many minutes do you get to have with your coworker actually talking about spiritual things or Jesus specifically? Maybe fifteen minutes in a month? But how many minutes have you spent praying for them leading up to that point? Probably over an hour!
Prayer brings the power to evangelism. It invites God’s power. It gives us perspective. And it fosters our love for the other person.
As God has been convicting me over my lack of witness over the past few years—I’ve had to come to him and say, “Lord, I don’t even have that many non-Christians in my sphere right now that I could share the gospel with!” And what has he invited me into? This challenge: “Then pray for the ones you do!”
So, I have done these three things:
- Focused one day a week on praying for non-Christians in my life
- Included prayer for non-Christians on the days that I fast
- Prayed for non-Christians every time I thought about them (which is happening more and more)
Recently, I was listening to a worship song on my way to church on a Sunday morning. And I began weeping for my non-Christian friends, longing for them to know God like I do—and brokenhearted that they don’t yet. I let God know that I am willing to be used by him to help them.
Even if you feel too scared or too busy or too relationship-less to go share: You can always pray. I encourage you to have your one: One person that God has laid on your heart to share the gospel with. And pray for opportunities to love and share with them.
Preparation #4 – Love
Author Matt Smethurst confesses,
“[O]ne day it hit me: the main thing holding me back from speaking the gospel wasn’t actually the presence of fear. It was the absence of love. . . . I had been using fear as an excuse when love was my problem. It wasn’t even that complicated, I realized. If I love someone enough, I will overcome my fear and share Christ with them. But if I don’t, I won’t” (p. 41-42).
Do you feel like you love the non-Christians in your life? Do you love that extended family member? Do you love your neighbor? Do you love that coworker? Do you love that other family playing on the playground? Do you love the server handing you your club sandwich?
Do you really love the other gorgeous, diverse, messy, image-bearing people around you—in your real, mundane weeks?
This is where Jesus marvels us. In Luke 7:34 Jesus blurts out,
“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”
One of the biggest critiques Jesus fielded from his haters was that he was a friend: “Look at that guy—he loves people too much! He’s friends with tax collectors! He eats meals with known sinners!”
I find that incredibly helpful and incredibly convicting.
Lord, help me to be true friends with the non-Christians in my life. Help me to not see them as projects and not see them as a waste of time, but as friends that I love.
You can truly love someone in a brief interaction (like asking to pray for your server at a restaurant). And you can truly love someone with whom you have a long-term friendship. But, as Matt Smethurst warns us, there are two ditches: (1) rushing into gospel proclamations or (2) delaying into never sharing the gospel.
Matt says it best: “‘You are not worth my time’ is patronizing; ‘We have plenty of time’ is presumptuous” (p. 46).
As Ephesians 4:15 tells us, we need to practice both: “speaking the truth in love.” The truth alone is not love. Love alone is not necessarily truth. We need to involve both.
So, how do you start loving someone?
- You pray for love.
- You spend time listening to them. As has been attributed to Dr. David Augsburger, Fuller Seminary professor, “Being heard is so close to being loved, that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”
- Finally, you act like you love them, even if you’re still working on it.
In an age of outrage, one of the most poignant things you can do to a non-Christian is to be truly kind to them. Even if it’s not time to share about Jesus yet.
When was the last time you cried for a non-Christian because you loved them so much?
Preparation #5 – Fear
Next is the main element many of us think is holding us back: fear.
But we cannot be afraid of imperfect opportunities. As Matt Smethurst writes:
“If we wait to share our faith until our fears have completely evaporated, we will never share it. . . . I have mastered the art of passing up good enough opportunities in the wait for a perfect one. This is not just cowardly—it’s foolish. The simple fact is that sharing Christ will almost always be inconvenient. There will be something unideal, something about the environment prompting the Devil to whisper two of his favorite words: ‘Not now’” (p. 56-57).
I chicken out all the time. I don’t pick up that person who is hitchhiking on the side of the road. I don’t segue into a spiritual topic with my neighbor. I don’t invite the barista to church.
So, what helps us with our fears?
First, we should be facing our fears with God. Scripture is full of commands and promises that God gives to us about our fear. In fact, Matt Smethurst has a whole appendix of verses for fighting fear!
Here is one of them:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
If I’m not abiding in Jesus, I can’t do anything with spiritual effectiveness. But if I’m staying with Jesus, then he “bears much fruit” in my life. I’m not alone. I’m abiding with Jesus as I try to be bold. There are so many promises to help us step out in courageous obedience: God is with us, he rewards us, and he gets more glory. Even if the worst-case scenario happened.
Second, we should be facing our fears with a bigger love. When I really feel tender towards and interested in another person, I simply want to tell them more about the God who loves them.
Third, we should be facing our fears with accountability. Evangelism is a team sport. When others are praying for your lunch with a friend, you will feel even more empowered and responsible to be brave and try to introduce Jesus into the conversation. Our friends can offer us advice, prayer, accountability, or sometimes also be present as another conversation partner at the barbeque.
Preparation #6 – Speak
Finally, we’ve progressed from what to do before you share your faith to actually sharing it. Now we start to speak.
Evangelism requires words. So, be ready with a basic way to summarize the gospel:
God is holy.
I am not.
Jesus saves.
Christ is my life.
Or, like how I share with my little girls: Jesus died and rose again to forgive our sins and give us new life with God.
And then you can keep the conversation going wherever the Holy Spirit leads, trusting that he can “do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Eph 3:20).
Want to be encouraged or encourage others with how you’ve shared the gospel? Check out Gospel Stories.
Listen to the THINK|26 breakout session Evangelism Starts Here
