Our pastor from when I was younger was very
passionate about the gospel. He
was incredibly persuasive in pointing out the many reasons why we must be
reaching out to non-Christians. It
was never hard to want to share the gospel with unbelievers after hearing him
preach.
However, on weekdays it all seemed rather hard. I realised I was
stuck as to how to naturally get to the point of talking about Jesus with my
non-Christian friends. I would go
weeks and weeks without any opportunities. Then when an opportunity arose, I blundered my way through
whatever I had to offer in such a way that it left my friends confused. A bit like this…
Am I on my lonesome here? Or can you associate with this? Have you ever found yourself listening to sermons, getting
fired up then thinking:
“I never get any opportunities to talk about Jesus.”“I don’t know how to get to the place where it would be natural to start talking about the Gospel.”“I just don’t know how to bring it up, or what to say.”
If you can associate with one or all of those
thoughts, let me share with you a three-point plan that can help you connect
with unbelievers and know what to say when the opportunity arises.
- Be Intentional in building relationships- Gospel Intentionality
- Equip yourself to share the Gospel when the opportunity comes along
- Pray specifically for 3 non-Christians that you would have the opportunity to share the Gospel with in the next 6 months.
1) Gospel
Intentionality
Intentionality is something of a buzz word just
now. It’s simply means to be
deliberate about something. Prefix
this buzzword with ‘Gospel’ and you have a phrase that talks about being
deliberate in building relationships where sharing the Gospel is our aim.
Tim Keller is the Senior Pastor of Redeemer
Presbyterian Church in New York City, and has come up with 10 practical
pointers for helping us build deliberate Gospel relationships:
1.
Let people around you know you are a Christian
(in a natural, unforced way)
2. Ask friends about their faith – and just listen!
3. Listen to your friend’s problems – maybe offer to pray for them
4. Share your problems with others – testify to how your faith helps you
5. Give them a book to read
6. Share your story
7. Answer objections and questions
8. Invite them to a church event
9. Offer to read the Bible with them
10. Take them to an explorers course like CE
Keller’s counsel is to view these 10 pointers in stages. Most of the time we start with 1-4. Then, if people are
interested and want to talk more you can move on to stages 5-7. If they’re still expressing a desire to
know more, then we can naturally progress to stages 8-10. Clearly, there will be occasions when people
will want to go straight to 10, but often people start from way back and need
some time to think and discuss things in a non-pressured way. We often think that only stages 8-10
count and invest all our energy there.
But Keller suggests that to get people at stages 8,9,10 you have to put
the work in at 1-4, and sometimes you’ll have to keep going round the loop
multiple times. (HT salternite)
part 2 to come on Friday.........
