Sharing My Story

 

Sharing my faith has been an interesting process. How am I supposed to do it? The Bible is very clear that we are to share our story, to evangelize (share the good news), but the puzzle is how? What works? And is it even a product that can be taught and have a result? And is the idea of a “result” even to be our concern?

Most churches offer classes on the topic. The church I worked for offered a class on how to “cold call” – go door to door sharing their faith throughout their neighborhood and inviting people to church. I never saw these very successful in accomplishing anything, and what with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter Day Saints also going door to door (with, quite frankly a lot more training and experience), door to door evangelism really isn’t that successful for Christians.

I’ve mentioned before the guy who would drive past my husband’s bus stop every morning and toss out biblical brochures for anyone to pick up and read. Not sure how many did think much of it other than the littering. But I believe he drove away believing he’d shared his faith.

Years ago, while serving as a youth director, we’d been talking about inviting friends to youth group. On one of the rare Sundays I wasn’t there, a couple of the kids’ friends came. When we next met with the group, they were all agitated. It seems these friends had asked some great questions and our group didn’t feel like they had the answers. What happened? “We got mad at them for asking the questions.”  My takeaway was that there was some work to be done.  Not giving them all the answers, because many great questions have no answers, but how to respond to difficult questions, beginning with knowing what you believe and why you believe it.

All the training in the world can’t help us get over the nervousness of speaking our story. Any time we share a piece of ourselves we open up vulnerabilities, and that’s always scary. This anxiousness keeps a lot of us from talking about faith. We’ve seen how the emotions can rise (like in the youth group) and we just don’t want to be in that discomfort.

Yet we are told to share.

Through the years I’ve learned a couple of things about faith sharing: it needs to be personal, genuine, honest; it needs to come out of relationships, and someone’s belief, or unbelief, doesn’t depend on what we do at all. Sharing my faith is really just sharing my life; a life I seek to live following Jesus’ model. It should be organic, natural, not forced. Sharing our faith is not a quota system. We don’t receive notches in our belt for numbers won. The fact is, we can’t “save” anyone. We are told to share, and disciple, not save.

 Jesus took 12 men and walked with them for 3 years. He taught them, individually and in groups, and they watched him teach and share with others. Even those 12 closest to him struggled with believing what he had to say, and they knew him best. He walked with them, ate with them, shared space with them, and out of that close relationship, with most of them, belief was born. Jesus was God, and not everyone he talked with believed him. What special powers do we think we have more than he? But, he models for us a way to share, and that was sharing his life, not throwing brochures.

I have had so many occasions when, in the midst of talking with a student, or lunching with a friend, they have asked a question that leads to an opportunity for me to share my story, or a piece of it. Sometimes I don’t take the opportunity, later to my regret. Regret, because I’ve come to believe that God gave me those opportunities to share. Sometimes I’ve over shared, and that isn’t great either. People don’t need to be hit in the head with our metaphorical (or literal) Bibles. Answer the question, don’t give a sermon.

And when I’ve blown it, I’ve come to understand that God isn’t dependent on me. If I fail in some way, I haven’t condemned that person to life without God because I didn’t share, or shared and turned them off.

 I had a student who really nailed this point home to me. He returned to school after a period of time and shared that he’d found Jesus.  When I asked him to share his story, he told me that at an extremely low point in his life, while he contemplated taking his life, he shouted out to the universe, “if you exist God, now is the time to let me know.” And, miraculously, this kid with no Christian background at all, met God In that moment, and it turned his life around. From that moment, he sought out people who knew God and Jesus and began to gain the knowledge he lacked. As he shared his story with me I truly grasped that God doesn’t need any of us to “save” anyone. He can do it all without us, but he gives us the privilege to share our stories and contribute along the way.

I know a lot of people are offended if Christians start talking about their faith. The belief is that we should keep our religion to ourselves, private. If they want to know they will ask. Some of this resentment is born out of having had a “brochure” or two thrown at them, with no connection (or very little) developed with the “thrower”. I understand, at its best, people want to share their faith because they believe it is real. Jesus said he is “The Way, The Truth and The Life”. If that is true, then we’d be remiss not to share – because any other way leads away from God.  But, even believing the seriousness of that, I should be sensitive to how I do the sharing. If I just choose to love people, enjoy being around them, listen to their stories, develop relationships, God has opened up conversations so I have opportunities to tell my story. I don’t have to force anything. I’m just me.

Evangelism then, at its best, is simply being a friend, a friend who happens to know Jesus.