Faith Sharing

Our small group was talking about "witnessing" this morning. That is an evangelical buzz word for sharing one's faith with the world.

While not everyone is called to be a preacher, all Christian's have a responsibility to share their story with those around them regarding how a relationship with Christ has been life changing.

Among examples of witnessing shared by the group:

• "Street corner" evangelism/preaching (not too many fond opinions of this in the group).
• "Cold" conversations (where you just approach someone cold and begin talking about faith).
• By example (living the story, rather than just relying on verbal sharing).
• Electronic sharing (like email, blogs, etc).

After listening to the dialogue on this topic, I have a few thoughts of my own about effective faith sharing.

It's Relational. Effective faith sharing entails relationship. A good story needs a good story-teller, but it also needs someone to listen to and consider the story. As I look for ways to "faith share", I don't focus on "one-off" opportunities where I ask someone if they know Jesus as their personal savior. In this post-modern world, that one-way dialogue doesn't seem to be very effective for me. Instead, I think faith sharing is most effective when an individual can truly become an influence in another person's life. This means an investment of time and energy to develop a respected, trusting relationship.

It also means that it is not manipulative or opportunistic. As a Christian believer, I do not want to scare, manipulate or maneuver another individual into something for which they are not ready. If we truly love those who we wish to "faith share", we must respect their point-of-view, take time to empathize with their life-history and experiences, and find ways to respectfully demonstrate how our own personal relationship with Christ has been valuable and life changing.

It's a Dialogue. This goes hand-in-hand with being relational. I'm enough of a realist to understand that "faith sharing" is an opportunity for me to tell my story, but it is also an opportunity for others to share their story with me. As we share and talk and probe and discuss our different experiences, I think God uses that dialogue to open hearts and minds to Truth in a unique way. It's not an argument. It's not a debate. It's respectful dialogue. This entails a great deal of patience and sometimes can seem frustrating to evangelicals who are compelled by the urgency of the Second Coming.

Brian McLaren makes a great point in his book, More Ready than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Post-modern Matrix, that many people today don't make "snap" decisions to follow Christ. More often than not (in my experience, not because McLaren wrote it), I see becoming a Christian as more of a process than an on-the-spot prayer.

Through dialogue, I see my role as that of a guide. If I can guide another person, through a conversation over time, into a strong faith relationship with Christ, I will have been an effective witness.

Too often, I observe the church using the "snap-decision" approach as a cop-out to investing the personal time and energy into nurturing those planted seeds into a rich harvest.

It's not about Judging. Another pet peeve I have regarding "witnessing" is that it is all too easy to enter into the "preachy", one-way communication version with an inappropriate attitude of judgment. Personally, I feel uncomfortable telling another person that they are going to Hell (or Heaven for that matter). After all, I'm called to be a witness, not a judge. Christ stands as my judge. My job is only to share my story. We burn opportunities to share the "good news" when we open up with a line of judgment.

Think about it. It's got to be a real turn-off for someone to start the conversation with "Do you know Jesus as your personal savior? Do you know where your soul would go if you died right now?" Again, we're best served to be empathetic with those we care enough about to share the story.

It's not just words, it's Action. "Faith sharing" is not just about a conversation. We are telling our story by the way we live our lives, not just the things we are saying. And when the things we do are contrary to the story we are trying to say, the end result is less than compelling.

I think it would do the world some good to see a bit more humility from those of us who claim to be followers of Christ. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. We need to be a bit more "real" when we screw up. Heck, we need to just admit we screw up. A little less piety and a little more authenticity exponentially increases credibility. In the corporate world, we call it accountability.

While I don't agree with everything McLaren puts on paper, I think I do agree that "faith sharing" in this day and age is a dance. Sometimes it can be clumsy. But when we take time to respect our dance partner and practice the relationship, the dialogue and the supporting action, the end result can be beautiful.

How many beautiful dances are we leading in our lives? How many feet have we stepped on?

How many of us are even on the dance floor?