We’re in between series at my church right now (or at least we were last weekend), but the message was…as always…timely (click here to see or hear the original message: witHness). If you’re new to my blog, you know that I use this space to reflect on the message each week – subsequently, I pray that it reaches your heart the way it did mine.
Last weekend was a big weekend for 111.3 million people…that is, if you were watching the Superbowl. My husband decided to watch the game with his family, so my family decided to hang out with me for the day. My family has never been into watching football…not regularly at least, so at about 7 pm, my sister said something like “isn’t the Superbowl on?” I think we were more excited about watching a few commercials, but it basically became background noise as we talked about everything from baby to baby (okay, so it was a lot of baby talk).
According to the message this past weekend, nearly the same amount of people attend churches around the country/world every “Sunday” (or weekend since we attend on Saturday)…and yet, that message is rarely discussed around the water cooler. Taken a step further, it’s estimated that within a year, only 1 in 10 Christ followers will share their faith with one other person. Granted, even if you did share…it’s not always likely that the person you’re sharing with will give you the time of day, but still.
Regardless of who accepts the message, according to Acts, Jesus has deemed us his witnesses to the ends of the earth. So, what is a witness? A witness is one who can and does share what he or she has seen or heard or knows. Therefore, we’re all witnesses. It’s really just a matter of what type of witness we are. As it relates to our faith, we’re not expected to know it all, only share what we do know. I think that’s where we get tripped up. We get intimidated by those who have been in the faith longer who may have memorized more scripture or “been around the block” so to speak, but we’re never expected to share more than we know in our heart. However, we’re still likely to be faced with non-believers or antagonists who will question our knowledge in an effort to break our faith (you’ve probably seen or heard many a story of the atheist professor and the Christian student…if not, Google it). Thus, we must stand firm in what we do know…even if all we know is that “for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.”
With that said, how do we go about witnessing our faith to others…how do we go about sharing what we’ve personally seen or heard or know as it relates to our relationship with God?
With that said, how do we go about witnessing our faith to others…how do we go about sharing what we’ve personally seen or heard or know as it relates to our relationship with God?
- Be WITH God. Be a believer…have a relationship with God and actively practice your faith (even if that is in the privacy of your own home).
- Be WITH someone who has yet to accept Christ or to develop a relationship with God. Our minister this past weekend called it “breaking the holy huddle,” and actually hang out with non-Christians. I don’t know that I personally find myself in the Christian bubble (aka only hanging out with other Christ followers), but we’ll have very few opportunities to witness if we only talk to people who already believe. In fact, outside of the fact that Jesus was not a “Christian,” he hung out with what most pharisees (aka goody goodies) believed were some pretty dirty folks (aka sinners). Example – Luke 15:1-2 ‘Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”’
- Share what you’ve seen and heard. It doesn’t have to be a sermon (or a sermon replay like I do) or a long speech…just talk about what you’ve seen or heard. Furthermore, if you live as though you’re “under the influence” of Christ…other people will get curious and open the door for you to talk. However, when this opportunity presents itself, you only have about 10-15 seconds to share (more if you’re lucky) so don’t turn into a sleazy car salesman. Try this…”if you had seen me ten years ago, you would have seen a very different person, but God has entered my life.” If they’re still interested, you can go from there. At the same time, be prepared for some people to reject what you’ve just said – hang in there.
