Take it in turns to take an object out and give it to the person on your left.
You will each be given a random object by someone else in the group. You then have two minutes to try and ‘sell’ that object to the others by outlining its benefits.
When I first started playing golf I used to talk about it to everyone. Why? Because for a time it was important to me, it made me happy, it made me fitter, I enjoyed it.
What things when you first started doing did you talk about to everyone?
And how long was it before you stopped talking about it with excitement and enthusiasm?
Somehow, it never seems quite as easy to share my faith even though I have been a Christian far longer than I was a golfer (I use the term loosely) and it is infinitely more important to me. I don’t think I’m alone in this so we will look at some ideas for sharing our faith.
Try sharing your faith with those you know first
We somehow seem to have associated sharing our faith with talking to strangers but let us not forget that we have a group of people around us who we already know and who know us where we will not have to try and start from scratch. Let us recognise that we may be a part of their life in order to share our faith with them.
If our faith is important to us it stands to reason we would share it with those that we know and love the most. Strangely the people I used to talk about golf to were all people I knew. Talking about something important to us is natural.
There is no one way to share your faith. What is natural for me may not be for you. While we may look at some of the spiritual giants that seem to evangelise effortlessly and regale us with stories of lives turned around please recognise that you are who you are for a purpose. You are unique and offer something that no-one else does. Your relationships, experience and life story is yours and yours alone, it cannot be denied and is more likely to resonate with those around you. Your story does not need to be exciting, innovative or dramatic. We may sometimes wish we had a dramatic ‘road to Damascus’ experience but our own reality of faith will be far more powerful to those we know and love.
Being yourself also applies to the way we share our faith. We start by living authentic Christian lives with integrity and a genuine Christian love and then lead on to explaining the reason why we live that life. In a world where people are very much seen as commodities the very act of spending time with people, getting to know them and their interests and building community and relationship is almost an act of ushering in the Kingdom of God in itself. Spending time getting to know people should never be seen as wasted time but may be the most valuable investment we can make.
Read Acts 17:22-34
Discuss the way Paul shares faith with the people at Athens:
In this passage the people did not all fall on their knees in repentance, far from it. Some scoffed and laughed and others said ‘we would like to hear more about this’
Verse 32, ‘but some people joined and believed’ Verse 34. It was part of a process.
Your personal testimony is a powerful story and is what you know best. Learn how to tell your testimony with a simple three-point plan.
We have put this at the end in the hope that as it is the last thing we mention, it will be the first thing you remember to do.
Ask God for leading to those who could be on your ‘influence list’. Start a list of people who you feel God may be asking you to share your faith with. Pray for them daily, not just that their daily needs would be met, but that by the grace of God you would play a part in their eternal destiny.
Pray for daily opportunities to share your faith. It is surprising how many more opportunities there are to share your faith when you pray for opportunities. Be faithful in prayer. Do not expect everything to happen
straight away. Maintaining faithfulness in prayer will always be within the will of God, remembering that prayer is as much about aligning our will with God as anything else.
Spend some time in quiet prayer and reflection asking God to place on your heart people that he longs for you to interact with for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
Write their names on a piece of paper or in a journal and start regularly praying for them.
Start thinking about your testimony.