God Call

*This is adapted from the book God Space by Doug Pollock, which I highly recommend!

It should be shocking to us, as followers of Christ, how few Christians are actively sharing their faith. We are commanded by our Master and Commander, Jesus, to make disciples, yet how many of us have made a disciple recently? When was the last time you even had a spiritual conversation and planted a seed with someone who is lost? For that matter, how many lost people do you know and consider friends?

These are difficult questions because at their root they expose us as disobedient children. It might even be said that this chronic disobedience could be an indicator that we are not a follower of Jesus after all. When there is a blatant disregard for the command of Jesus, it might be safe to assume that he is not our Commander.

I have come to realize, though, that there are many believers who simply and truly do not understand how to share the good news. Gone are the days of personal evangelism training in churches, not that these were that effective. The majority of them were geared towards getting a Christian to cold call a total stranger and share the complete gospel with them in one sitting! Very few people desire to do that or are good at that, and there is not a lot scripture that indicates the apostles or Jesus went around knocking on doors and sharing a set of memorized questions. This is why most of these trainings faded over the course of a few months.

I believe there are, also, many believers who cannot even express the gospel in a coherent form or share an effective personal testimony.

Aside from all of these things, there is even a lack of ability to start and facilitate a simple spiritual conversation. I think it would amaze believers if they could just get a spiritual conversation going how the Holy Spirit would jump in and help them know what to say (this is scriptural). Many believers will go an entire day, week, or even month without talking to any lost person, much less engage a lost person in a spiritual topic. My goal is to give you some tips on how you can get a spiritual conversation started with a lost person. There is no memorizing here, just a simple art form that anyone can learn and God can use to great effect.

5 Ways To Cultivate Spiritual Conversations

Praying
I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but how many times do you pray before you head into the gym or enter a restaurant that God would give you the opportunity to speak with someone that needs to hear the gospel? In your personal prayer time, do you spend more time praying for yourself and sick people than lost people? Obviously, praying for God to intervene and provide you with opportunities is hugely important, but secondarily it helps us to be more intentional. If you pray that God would help you to have a spiritual conversation, you are going to be more on the lookout for that conversation.

Noticing
This is all about being intentional in every circumstance. When a waitress comes to take your order, do you simply order your meal or do you notice her name and maybe even her countenance? When going through the line at the grocery store, do you notice that the cashier might be down? When talking to co-workers that you have known for years, are you really noticing what they are saying? Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.” You may think you know someone, but take the time to intentionally notice them from a spiritual point of view. When you notice something, ask about it. Draw out those deep waters. You never know how God might use you to change someone’s life from simply taking the time to notice them.

Serving
This is something that anyone can do but involves a little planning beforehand. Plus, this can include a million things, like mowing your neighbor’s lawn, giving a friend their favorite candy bar, buying a stranger’s lunch, taking a plate of cookies to your neighbors, etc. The key here is waiting for them to pop the magic question… Why? When someone asks you why you are serving them, this gives you permission to jump into a spiritual conversation. You can simply say, “I love Jesus, and I wanted to show you that Jesus loves you in a practical way,” or “I’m a follower of Jesus, and I simply want to be kind in small ways as he has been kind to me.” Anything like this can get a conversation going.

Listening
If you read the gospels, you find that Jesus asked a lot of questions. By asking questions, he made people face the hard truth about their lives and talk it out for themselves rather than just give them a simple answer. If there is anything that Christians need to learn today, it’s how to ask good questions and just be quiet and listen. Listening is certainly a lost art form. Our tendency seems to be talking and then only hearing what we want to hear. When having a spiritual conversation with someone who is far from God we must be willing let them have their say and not get offended. We need to listen with compassion and be able to see through the barbs that are only intended to get a rise out of us. When we don’t respond negatively, we become a safe person – someone that they can trust. This keeps the door open for more conversations and eventually the sharing of the gospel.

Wondering
This is a fantastic way to engage people in spiritual conversations without being threatening at all. It involves asking a “wondering” question based on what you have been hearing. So the first step in wondering is good listening. When you hear something that sparks your curiosity, wonder about it. For example, you and a co-worker are talking about the latest political news, and they make a statement about Planned Parenthood. You could wonder by saying, “I wonder if there is a supreme being in the universe that created us, what he would think about abortion?” Do you see how this is much less threatening than just simply stating your view and walking off mad? It opens up the topic to more dialogue but gently shifts it to spiritual matters. By wondering with them, you have also become a sojourner with them, not an antagonist.

Conclusion

I hope you can see that these 5 simple things are not difficult to do to get into spiritual conversations that could possibly lead to the salvation of one who is lost. The one thing that is going to trip most people up is when we don’t intentionally do any of these things, and they just get relegated to more Christian stuff that we know but don’t practice. We have to make ourselves begin to practice these things. It’s just like anything else where we have to make ourselves do the right things at first, but eventually they come naturally to us.