I hope that many of you are feeling excited that our parish-wide mission is beginning next Sunday, 7th of August. I hope that many of you have been praying fervently for your friends, family, neighbours and community that God will be providing you an opportunity to help people to engage in a conversation with Jesus. I pray that many of you have already begun inviting your friends to come and engage in that conversation with you at a church service or a dialogue dinner or the women’s event or at coffee and castle or simply to engage with you over a meal in the future. I also hope that you might be looking for opportunities to help facilitate evangelism for your brothers and sisters in Christ as you consider how you might serve during this week: Mission Week 2016 Survey.
But today I want for us to briefly consider what it might look like to engage in a conversation with our friends about Jesus. And as such, I wanted to offer 5 tips to a good conversation:
- God is the one who changes hearts – so relax. Often we can feel pressure that if we don’t know everything, or explain it perfectly – then our friend will reject God and it will be our fault. Friend, relax. God is the one who changes hearts and who works in people by his spirit. Your job is to be a good, genuine Christian as you speak – and to trust God to do the hard bit of changing someone’s heart.
- Good conversations involve good listening and questions. Too often in conversation we are listening to the other person only as long as it takes to work out what we are going to say next. As you listen carefully to what they say, you might try and rephrase what they are saying to confirm that you have properly understood what they mean “so… you said…”. Listening well is essential and then…
- Ask good questions. Part of listening well is then to ask good questions which allow your friend to expand on what they think. Asking questions about how they formed that opinion or why they ask that question of Jesus or what they mean by something helps them to expand on what they are saying and helps you to listen and understand them better. A good conversation regularly involves you speaking less than 20% of the time!
- Be gracious. Sometimes people say thing which are poorly thought out; they might be wrong; they might be offensive; they might be foolish. Be gracious. Ask them questions. Be gentle in asking questions which might challenge their position. Your manner will play as much of a role in the discussion as anything that you might say.
Make your 20% of speaking time count. Talk about how you have found hope in Jesus. Talk about how Jesus changes everything for you. Graciously point them at the God who would love them so much, that he might step into our world to die for you, that you might be in relationship with him. Forget about arguments. Just talk about Jesus.
In Christ,
Mick Bullen