When was the last time you talked about Jesus with a non-Christian?
If you are like the majority of Christians, it’s probably been a while.
According to a study from Lifeway Research, the average churchgoer has shared their faith with a non-believer twice in the last six months.
Twice.
Now, before you close out this article as another attempt by a Christian leader to call you out for not sharing your faith, I’m asking you to take a couple of more minutes to hear me out.
There are potentially hundreds of reasons why we don’t share our faith, but I’m convinced that, for men, one key reason is that we just aren’t sure what to do.
Men want to succeed at whatever they do. When we are afraid of failing, we often don’t even try. This applies to many areas of life, including sharing our faith.
Imagine a life where it’s normal to talk about the most important person in your life. The Great Commission of Jesus was never about a special event in which you suddenly drop a spiritual message on someone out of the blue.
Men want to succeed at whatever they do. When we are afraid of failing, we often don’t even try.
Jesus calls us to make disciples as we go about our lives. His desire is for us to see this mission as even more normal than talking about politics, work, or sports.
Recently, I came across a simple way to think about this from an organization called the Church Project Network. To live out the mission of Jesus, think about three words:
Good.
God.
Gospel.
Good.
Jesus frequently had good conversations with people. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman and asks her for a drink of water because he is thirsty. Now, in this case, Jesus was breaking a norm in society: Jews don’t ask Samaritans for a drink of water.
The point is, this whole story starts with a basic conversation. Think about the non-Christians in your life and look for any opportunity to have a good conversation about anything on your mind or theirs. If you don’t interact with any non-Christians, then make an intentional choice to put yourself in places where you will have to interact with men who don’t know Jesus.
God.
As you walk through the conversation, look for opportunities to say something about God.
In the same story in John 4, the Samaritan woman asks Jesus why he would ask her for a drink of water.
For Jesus, this was an opportunity to connect the topic to God.
He responded by saying, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water” (John 4:10).
Jesus is saying the reason He’s asking her is partially that He’s thirsty and partially because the gift of God’s love is for her as well as for a Jew.
One guy I know was out for lunch with his co-workers, who all started talking about how attractive the waitress was. This man participated in the conversation, but not in the way his friends expected.
He said something like this, “You know she’s young enough to be any of our daughters” (good conversation). Then he said, “God made her in His image. She has so much value as a human being, and I think she deserves to be respected more.”
Now that’s a truth bomb that can either shut down a conversation or open another door. You won’t always have to say something so direct. The big idea is to look for opportunities to interject something about God into the conversation and watch what happens.
Gospel.
In John 4, the woman responds to Jesus’ statement by asking Him where to find the living water He was talking about. That opened the door for Jesus to explain to her the water that brings eternal life (John 4:13-14).
If a man asks questions or wants to engage more when you introduce God into the conversation, your next step is to share the Gospel with him. After all, that’s our story. We aren’t called to fix him, argue with him, or give him a list of things he should be better at. We are called to point him to the Good News of Jesus.
If you don’t know what to say, I want to encourage you to learn the three circles. This is really simple to remember and is a great tool.
We aren’t called to fix him, argue with him, or give him a list of things he should be better at. We are called to point him to the Good News of Jesus.
In general, what you are looking for is:
How does the good news of Jesus speak to this person in this conversation we are having?
The most important thing to remember is this: success in sharing the Gospel is not seeing a man make a decision to follow Jesus. For you, success is planting seeds of the Gospel and watering those seeds. Only God can change a man’s life.
Try it this week. Begin to normalize talking about the most important Person in your life.
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