Evangelism is Terrifying

Evangelism is terrifying.

Even just saying the word can create feelings of discomfort. When I served as a college minister, one of my goals was to convince our students to engage in regular evangelism on campus. Over time, we actually saw this happen. We hosted a weekly time when students would gather on campus to be trained and then sent off to share their faith. Sometimes we’d have as many as 30 students attend.

Thirty students showed up to do something terrifying.

Why? I think it’s because they had become convinced of just how critical evangelism is. They recognized the significance of inviting others to consider a relationship with Jesus and didn’t let their fear get in the way of boldly proclaiming the good news.

In my experience, the more we do evangelism the more convinced we become of its importance and the more we can move past discomfort and fear. Over the years of serving beside very gifted evangelists (including many of my students) and reading many wonderful books on the topic, I have compiled a few principles that have helped me mightily in my own efforts at this important task. I hope you also find them helpful.

Do no harm

The last thing I want is for someone to be less open to the gospel than they were before I talked to them.

Sometimes this is unavoidable. After all, the gospel is offensive. It’s offensive to different people and cultures for different reasons, but it’s always offensive.

When you share your faith, make sure you don’t add any unnecessary offense to the message.

I recently had a wonderful conversation with a group of students at a local college. Most of these students happened to be Muslims. They were asking me fantastic questions about Christianity. For example, “How can you say there is one God and also say that Jesus is God?” or “why do you trust the Bible even though it has been changed so many times.” Occasionally I would notice that my response would strike a nerve. At that time, I would pause the conversation and ask, “do you feel like I am being respectful to you and your beliefs?” Immediately the tone of the conversation would cool down. These questions acted as a sort of pressure valve. They could not remove the offense of my answers, but they could make sure that I was not adding unnecessary offense.

Remember, your conversation may not be the last one that person has about Jesus. Do what you can to help the person be more, and not less, open to the next conversation.

Don’t pit relationship and initiative against each other

One classic way of classifying different types of evangelism is to distinguish between “initiative” and “relational” evangelism. In this way of thinking, initiative evangelism is what you do when you approach people you don’t know with the hope of sharing about Jesus and relational is when you share the gospel slowly over time with people you know.

The problem is that all evangelism requires initiative, and all evangelism requires relationship.

Very few of your friends, family, or coworkers are going to come up to you and say “I have been watching how you live your life the past year and I am so blown away that I just have to ask, how can I become a Christian?” Eventually you are going to have to take the initiative to start a spiritual conversation.

Likewise, few conversations with strangers about Jesus are going to go very far if they remain strangers. Even in a 30-minute conversation you are building a relationship. You’re going to be asking questions, showing genuine interest, and sharing a little about yourself.

Here is a three minute video by Keith Davy in which he talks about a more helpful way to distinguish between different modes of evangelism.

Ask Questions

In most gospel conversations, you should listen more than you talk. The other day I struck up a conversation with a college student. I was at a table that was giving away books about Christianity so it was easy to jump right into spiritual matters. One of the first questions I asked him was “are you religious?”

“Yes, very. I am Muslim,” he replied.

“Very cool.” I answered. “Can you tell me what Muslims believe?”

He was a caught a little off guard but did an admirable job of summarizing his faith for me. He then paused before asking, “can you tell me what Christians believe?” It was almost like social etiquette demanded he ask me the question in return! We had a fantastic conversation.

Tim Keller says that we should ask so many questions when we are talking to people about their faith that we should be able to explain what they are saying back to them better than they can. When we do this, we show that we genuinely respect and can more effectively engage in conversation.

If you’d like to know more about asking questions in evangelism, check out Randy Newman’s classic Questioning Evangelism.

Refuse to be Offended

About ten years ago I was visiting some missionaries in a closed country in North Africa where very few Americans are able to get visas. These missionaries were able to be very open about their faith and had formed fantastic relationships with many of the local Imams. They had even been invited to engage in public discussions about the difference between Christianity and Islam. I asked them how they had managed this amazing accomplishment. They appropriately attributed it to God’s supernatural intervention. They also added they had a principle that had proven to be very helpful.

“We decided early on,” they explained, “that we would never be offended by the people we were ministering to.”

This philosophy allowed them to avoid many pitfalls. Someone could tell them about how evil America was or how foolish Christians were, and, rather than debating, they said, “tell me more about that.” This opened up the conversation and slowly allowed trust to form. If, on the other hand, they had felt the need to defend their country or their intelligence, they could have begun an argument that would have shut down the relationship.

Remember, when you are talking to people about your faith. The goal is to show how great Jesus is, not defend your own greatness. Which brings us to our next principle.

Show Them How Beautiful the Gospel Is

Usually, in evangelism, we focus on showing that the gospel is true. And, of course, it is necessary for someone to believe the gospel is true before they can accept it.

But, what if, before we tried to show the gospel is true, we showed that it is beautiful.

Tim Keller says that his goal is to explain the gospel in such a way that a skeptic would respond, “I wish that were true.”

I believe there is tremendous evidence for the claims of scripture. I also believe that the Christian world view is the most plausible explanation for the world we live in. However, it cannot be proven in the same way that gravity can be proven.

In other words, if someone doesn’t want to believe the gospel, they can find a reason not to.

As we share the gospel, let’s make sure we show that it is not only plausible, but also beautiful.

The gospel is beautiful because it shows us a God who entered into human suffering in order to bring an end to it.

The gospel is beautiful because it offers us the perfect heavenly father that we may not fully experience from our earthly fathers.

The gospel is beautiful because it offers us a home that our hearts long for but can’t find in this world.

Show people the gospel is true, and that it is beautiful.

Pray

I talked to a student the other day who came to Christ watching TikTok videos. I heard a story recently about someone who googled “is there a God” and was led to Christ by the google algorithm. Another young man found a copy of The Cannons of Dort and became a Christian. Ultimately, it is God who wins people to himself. We can have the best, most Biblical principles of evangelism, but if God does not move, they will not be effective.

So, if you genuinely want someone you are sharing the gospel with to know Christ, then pray! Pray that God would change their heart from a heart that rejects God to one that would choose him.