How to Share the Gospel Without Weirding-Out the People Around You

Let's talk about evangelism. Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, defines evangelism as, "Taking the initiative to share the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God." When you think about sharing the Gospel, what comes to mind?

Introduction

The following is adapted from a special, Think Institute adaptation of the Cojourners curriculum by Cru Church Movements.

Let’s talk about evangelism. Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, defines evangelism as, “Taking the initiative to share the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.”
When you think about sharing the Gospel, what comes to mind? Do you think about the words you will say? The faces of the people you will converse with (possibly furrowed brows or closed-off posture)? Or maybe you think about the emotions you will feel as you share (will you be all nerves? Excitedly energetic?).

Sharing your faith can be one of the most exciting activities in the Christian’s journey. It can also be one of the most intimidating.

Certainly, we have positive motivations for wanting to share the Christian message. Three that come to mind would be:

The love of Christ. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If one died for all, then all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised” (CSB).
Faith in the Gospel. Think of Romans 1:16-17, which says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” So it’s faith in the Gospel that makes us want to pass that faith along to others.
The hope of our mission. Jesus has sent his church to gather followers for him out of every nation on earth: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations (lit. disciple all nations), baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Non-Weird Evangelism

In light of our motivation that we have for evangelism, we want to do it in a way that doesn’t weird people out (a phrase given to me by my eight-year-old son (who says he thought of it because I sometimes weird him out when I share the Gospel)!

To keep from being “weird,” it helps to keep three key principles in mind:

Everyone is on a spiritual journey (Acts 17:26-27).
God is already at work in the lives of others (2 Peter 3:9).
God desires to use you (1 Cor. 3:9).

It also helps to remember that Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would help us evangelize.

In Acts 1:8, we are promised power from the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s witnesses.
In Ephesians 3:16-17, we are promised strength with power from the Holy Spirit.
In 1 Cor. 2:1-5, we are given Paul’s example of preaching simply with the Holy Spirit’s power.
In Galatians 3:3, we are warned against trying to operate in the flesh rather than the Holy Spirit.

Before we can do evangelism that doesn’t “weird people out,” we need to make evangelism a priority. We can do this by taking God at his word and commit to walking with the Holy Spirit, by praying for God’s heart, and by getting out there and getting started with sharing the Gospel.

As you get out there this Holiday Season, think about your interactions with your loved ones and coworkers in terms of three roles for you to play.

What Are the Four Roles?

These four roles, which we will unpack, are as follows:

Explorer
Guide
Builder
Mentor

Thinking of evangelism in these four roles will help you develop a framework for evangelism that will make you more effective, and will help you tailor the things you say to the right time and right point on the spiritual journey of your friend or family member.

You’re not necessarily going to play these roles in order, but you are going to start with the Explorer role, so let’s begin there.

Explore: Ask Questions to “Explore” His Spiritual Landscape

In this role you are entering the unknown. Your goal is to learn, discover and understand. An explorer knows that, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5).

The ultimate explorer is God: “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways…” (Jeremiah 17:10).

The explorer must listen and ask good questions. The main idea here is that, “We cannot guess where people are spiritually; we can only discover.”

You want to answer the questions your friend or family member is actually asking. You learn this by listening well and exploring spiritual journeys by asking good questions. Ask about their past experiences, present attitudes and future hopes and dreams.

To answer without asking is like getting ready to build a bridge in the wrong location. It might be a solid bridge, but it won’t connect with where they are, and it won’t lead to the desired destination.

Today everyone wants to be heard. Yet Jesus listens. He asked 307 questions yet only directly answered three. When you emulate him, people will take notice!

What should you be listening for?

Common ground
Windows to the soul
Unmet needs
Traces of God already at work

In the explorer role, you’re moving in your understanding from what they are (neighbor, skeptic, etc.) to who they are (their spiritual journey and story).

What should you be listening with? Listen with focused attention, body language and eye contact. Say, “Tell me more.” Repeat, “What I hear you saying is….” And ask, “Can I tell you about…?”

Guide: Be Ready to “Guide” Him to Jesus

As a guide your objective is to show the way to Jesus. A guide’s purpose is to proclaim Christ, based on his own experience.

Colossians 1:25-28 says, “God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” So Guides warn and instruct others in order to present them to Jesus.

Who can be a guide? Anyone who knows Christ. In John 1:40-46, Andrew guided Peter to Jesus, and Philip guided Nathaniel. In John 4:29 and 39, a Samaritan woman guided her whole village to Jesus!

How should you transition from the Explorer role to this role? Ask permission to share a little of your story. You can also ask reciprocal questions as an Explorer (“What do you do for fun?” “Do you go to church at all in the area?” Etc.).

In order to guide someone to Jesus, you’ll need to be able to communicate the Gospel in a clear and concise way. I’ll share two methods with you, and then one tool to help make it super easy.

The 4-Chapter Story.

This is a way of telling the story of the whole Bible very quickly. I talk about this in depth in Episode 43 of the Think Podcast. Here’s how it goes:

Creation: the way things were. God is good and he originally made everything good (Genesis 1:31).
Curse: the way things are. Mankind fell when Adam, our first father, sinned against God. Death and pain came to all his children, and we’ve been sinning against God ever since (Romans 5:12).
Cross: the way things could be. God sent Jesus, His Son, “to reconcile everything to himself… by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:20). All who commit to him as Lord and Savior are forgiven and given the Holy Spirit and eternal life (cf. Romans 1:9-10).
Completion: the way things will be. Jesus will re-make Heaven and Earth. All who have rejected God will be punished, and God will dwell with his people forever (Revelation 21:1-5).

Now if you want an even more concise method, you can use the 1-verse Gospel.

The 1-Verse Gospel

Romans 6:23 is a great verse to memorize. It explains the Gospel in a single verse: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Ask your discussion partner if he knows which side he’s on--death or life. Then explain, this verse presents our problem, God’s provision, and the most important person.

Problem: Our sin has earned us death.
Provision: God’s gift to sinners like us is eternal life.
Person: Eternal life comes through Jesus Christ our Lord.

After you present the Gospel, ask your friend if it makes sense or if they have any questions. If you sense they are ready, you could lead him in a prayer, right then, to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord. A good way to do this is to open in prayer yourself, and frame for them what they are doing, and then to turn the prayer over to him to express his heart before God.

If he is not ready yet, you can leave them with a Gospel tool. Gospel tools are fantastic to leave with someone, but they are also excellent for using to share the Gospel.

The God Tools App

You can download the God Tools app for free on your mobile device. On this app, I recommend the “Knowing God Personally” section. The benefit of using this is that there’s nothing for you to memorize, and it’s transferrable. Download it and check it out for yourself.

One More: A “Sometime” Invitation

If time or propriety doesn’t lend itself to a full conversation, try this: simply say, “Some time, I’d like to show you what has really helped me understand life with Christ and see what you think about it. Would that be alright?”

You can also invite the person into your Christian community: “Some time, I’d like to invite you to join me and some other folks who study the Bible together and talk about life’s important topics. Would you be interested?”

Build: If Necessary, “Build” Bridges Over Obstacles

A builder identifies obstacles in someone’s spiritual journey, and then helps to remove them or construct bridges over them. The goal is never to win the argument but rather to lead someone to Jesus.

The main idea here is, a builder doesn’t have to bring an exhaustive answer, just a helpful one.

There are three types of obstacles people have: Intellectual, Emotional, and Volitional (dealing with the will or control). Really, these are all spiritual.

Our enemy here is Satan, who binds and blinds unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4:4), and he battles believers who try to share the Gospel (Ephesians 2:1-2).

The unbeliever is not our enemy. However, we must believe what the Bible says about his condition. All men know God but suppress the truth by their unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).

To overcome this condition, God has given us weapons that have divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Our most powerful weapon is prayer. Prayer applies God’s power to the root of the issue. As a Builder, pray for the Holy Spirit to give you the words (Matthew 10:18-20), and to give you power to be a witness for the Lord Jesus (Acts 1:8). When you pray for your unbelieving friend to be saved, you are emulating the Apostle Paul, who prayed that his Jewish kinsmen would be saved (Romans 10:1).

Ask yourself: “Does my prayer life reflect my desire for this person to be saved?”

While in conversation with your friend or relative, keep a steady stream of prayer going up in the background. Pray before you speak, like Nehemiah in Nehemiah 2:4. He prayed before he spoke to the king, and God granted his request and gave him favor with the king. God then did some incredible things through Nehemiah. And it started with his prayer.

You do not have to know every answer to every objection. However, you will do well to remember that God’s word is true, and therefore every belief obstacle that opposes God’s truth is necessarily false.

To build a bridge over it, there are three components.

The starting point: your friend’s current position on his spiritual journey, including obstacles. Determine this in the Explorer role.
The destination: Jesus Christ (not secondary matters!).
The connection between the two: an answer, an argument, a Scripture, etc.

There are four common bridges:

Your personal experience. Read Paul’s testimony in Acts 21:21-22.
Questions to reframe the issues. Look at Jesus’ question in Matthew 22:45.
Stories that illustrate ideas. The Good Samaritan in Luke 10 is a good example.
The Bible is the ultimate bridge. Paul reasoned with the Athenian Jews from the Scriptures in Acts 17:2 and following.

Whether someone’s obstacles involve the Bible, the world, or their personal experience, there is an answer from the Christian perspective. It might require you saying that you don’t know, and going to find the answer (in Episode 49 I talk about what to do when you’ve been stumped). That’s okay! But make sure you follow up. For help, you could visit TheThink.Institute or GotQuestions.org.

Mentor: “Mentor” Him In His Newfound Faith

The role of the mentor is to encourage him or her on in their spiritual journey with Jesus. A mentor invests time, energy and wisdom into another believer’s spiritual life and growth, to keep him following Jesus.

The main idea here is that all believers need to experience God’s work in the context of community.

1 Thessalonians chapters 1-4 give wonderful examples of Paul’s own mentoring of younger disciples. He prayed for them, he encouraged them in person and fostered relationships between them, and he sent them help when he couldn’t be there in person. These are instructive for us. We won’t dwell on this role too much, because here we are focused on how to share the Gospel primarily with unbelievers during the Holiday Season. But again, it’s important to connect someone to a Christian community, if possible.

What Could Get In The Way?

Now, despite the knowledge you now have about evangelism and how to share the Gospel, there are going to be obstacles that get in the way. And it is important that we be ready to address them. These are:

The obstacle of Fear. “What if I ruin my relationship or reputation?” This fear can be a huge obstacle to our evangelism. This is especially true around the Holiday Season, because you’re interacting with family members and loved ones.
Even if these are people you only see once a year--as it sadly is with many of my own family members, these are not folks you want to alienate or weird out. You love them and want what’s best for them--and at a basic level, you don’t want your next Thanksgiving or Christmas gathering to be awkward. Nobody likes awkward family get togethers.
How to overcome Fear: Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of mankind is a snare, but the one who trusts in the LORD is protected.” God does not promise to take away the cause of our fear. However, he does promise to protect us when we trust in him.
If you are being faithful and sharing the Gospel, to the best of your ability, trusting God, you can’t go wrong. You have nothing to be afraid of. Might it get awkward? It might. But God can use that too. And it’s better to please God than to worry about people--even people you dearly love. And remember you’re sharing the Gospel because you love God and you love them.
Keeping that in mind may not eliminate your fear completely, but it will help you overcome it. After all, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18a).
The obstacle of Inexperience. “What if I don’t know what to say, or say the wrong thing, or don’t know what to do next?” This is a very real concern, and of course it is related to the obstacle of fear.
The fact is, whether you are just getting started with evangelism, or whether you share the Gospel every day, there very well may come a time when you simply don’t know what to say or do. Evangelism is a skill that requires ongoing honing.
How to overcome Inexperience: Spend time with Jesus: “When observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Train yourself: “Run in such a way as to take the prize” (1 Cor. 9:24).
And sharpen your skill. “Apply yourself to discipline and listen to words of knowledge” (Proverbs 23:12).
Trust God to give you the words: “But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you are to speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour…” (Matthew 10:19).
The obstacle of Priorities: The heart cry of our contemporary age takes many forms: “I am too busy” (busyness) or “I don’t know any non-Christians” (relationships), or “I want to celebrate everyone’s beliefs” (pluralism), or “I honestly don’t want to” (desire). Whichever applies most to you, it’s absolutely certain that most of us could use an adjustment in our priorities, in order to become better evangelists.
How to overcome false Priorities: This one is simple. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you” (Matthew 6:33).
Ask yourself the question, “What am I willing to do for the God who gave everything for me?” If you know he wants you to share your faith, and you trust him to keep his promises, then it’s time to prayerfully change your priorities, asking God to help you carry that out, of course.

Evangelism may seem daunting. It may seem like no one wants to hear the Christian message today. The reality that is demonstrated by research, however, is this: people are more spiritually open than we think. We can find opportunities to have spiritual conversations by genuinely caring for people and exploring people’s spiritual journeys through approaches that are appropriate to the relationship.

How to Get Started

To pursue evangelism this Holiday Season, begin with prayer. Ask God to give you opportunities, as scary as that prayer might be!

When you receive an opportunity, take on the role of the Explorer and see how it flows from there. Your goal is to get your friend or relative to Jesus--even to “pray the prayer” if God permits, but really you want to bring that person one step closer to faith in Christ.

You don’t have to do it all yourself. You might just be one stop along his spiritual journey: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

Being able to share the Gospel is a tremendous blessing, and it is a big responsibility. My prayer is that God blesses you with this responsibility, for the benefit of the non-Christians in your life, as well as your own benefit, to the glory of Christ Jesus.