Bring Jesus into the Conversation

It seems an unwritten rule in evangelism that when you, a Christian, are forming a friendship with a non-Christian, you ought to spend a good chunk of time with that person, build up some relational collateral with that person, before you start talking about Jesus with that person. Like, you don’t just up and start talking about Jesus with someone you just met, right? You talk about these things, in these categories, at these levels, seeking to earn some trust and report with that person, and then, once you got that, you can bring Jesus in to the conversation.

Are you familiar with this rule? Are you familiar hoping to share the gospel with that person soon, but just not really “there yet” with that person?” Trust, report, relational collateral, ought to be characteristics of our friendships with non-Christians, but not at the expense of making it even harder to bring Jesus into the conversation. And this is, I believe, exactly what this unwritten rule causes us to do.

Consider that we, as humans, tend to form our relational fencing with a person around what we choose to talk about with that person. We’ve talked about these things before, the fence forms around them. We’ve never talked about these things, the fence leaves them out. As time goes on, or, as we say, trust, report, relational collateral is being built, these fences grow taller and sturdier. So when I see Mark, he expects we’re going to talk about the outdoors. When I see Kate, she expects we’re going to talk about gardening, John expects we’ll talk about house projects. And I know that’s what they’re expecting, and knowing that, at least for me, has made it easier to bring in topic I’ve yet to discuss with them, a topic they’re not expecting, the topic of Jesus.

How about for you?

Think of someone in your life you have a relationship with who is not a believer, maybe a neighbor. Ask, would it be easier for you to bring Jesus up in a discussion with that person today because you’ve spent X amount of time talking about other things with this person? Or, Is the fact that you’ve spent so much time talking with this person about so many other things thee very thing that makes bringing up Jesus in the discussion feel so uncomfortable and strange?

Church, I exhort you, don’t make evangelism more difficult than it needs to be. Don’t, in the name of trust, wait to talk about the name of Jesus. Bring him into your conversations regularly and allow your relational fences to form around him.

Now I realize, with this exhortation, many might say “I want to, I just don’t know how.” If that’s you, I want to encourage you to talk about this with your community group, your life group, and seek to come up with ideas for how you can do this. I think that it’s better to bounce ideas off these people because they know you — your unique personality, your unique context. But for what it’s worth, let me simply offer one tool for today. Someone today or tomorrow is going to ask you about your weekend. They just will because that’s just what we do. When they do, you can say, “Weekend was great, went to church on Sunday and just really enjoyed being there. And, you know, I’ve never really asked you before, but do you ever go to a church or any other place of worship? Where it goes from there I don’t know. But get it there. Get it there. And see how the Lord may guide the rest.