SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you here.
SPEAKER_00: It's been a while since I've been to Lawrence, so it's good to be back here.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't know you, I'm Jeff Pittman.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the pastors around here, the executive pastor, and I love the fact that the Lawrence campus is launched.
SPEAKER_00: And being part of here is just really fun to see all you guys here.
SPEAKER_00: So if I don't know you, please introduce yourself in the lobby.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to connect with you after the service.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got a picture for you, a guy I really like.
SPEAKER_00: This is Emerson.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Emerson, there's Emerson there.
SPEAKER_00: It's me and Emerson there.
SPEAKER_00: Emerson's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Emerson, um, as if this picture was taken last summer at our Bellw campus.
SPEAKER_00: He was at a church camp and he was on his way back down to his church in Illinois, and they stopped there for lunch.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got to help serve lunch, but also take a picture of Emerson.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first time I met Emerson, he was much smaller.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was like, I think, two or three years old.
SPEAKER_00: I actually met him in a waiting room.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my daughter, at that time, was also much smaller, and she was in a dance class.
SPEAKER_00: And this dance class was in the community building of our town, and you she was so young that you didn't really leave her there and like go and go do errands, you kind of had to stay there for that time.
SPEAKER_00: So I was in the waiting room uh while she was in dance class.
SPEAKER_00: And Emerson's older sister also was in that dance class as well.
SPEAKER_00: So Emerson and I got some good time in the waiting room.
SPEAKER_00: And if you know me well enough, guys, I have got uh all girls, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So at that point I only had two uh girls, but Emerson was playing trucks on the floor of the waiting room, and I loved playing trucks.
SPEAKER_00: So him and I bonded over playing trucks in this waiting room.
SPEAKER_00: And over time we get to know his parents, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't just randomly play with random kids.
SPEAKER_00: I talk to the parents as well, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so I get to know Mike, his dad, and then my wife takes our kids to dance class, get to know uh Mike's wife, Lindsay, and get to know the whole family.
SPEAKER_00: Other daughter, Amelia, and my daughter Brooke became really solid good friends.
SPEAKER_00: To the point where we actually started like doing stuff together and we started serving one another.
SPEAKER_00: Mike was a mechanic, and so I am not a mechanic at all.
SPEAKER_00: And so it was really helpful to have somebody who can help look at some car stuff, help us give some guidance on what to do with cars.
SPEAKER_00: Uh hopefully we helped them out in some regards as well in different stages of life as well.
SPEAKER_00: We start serving and caring for each other, becoming friends.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember specifically when they started coming to our church.
SPEAKER_00: I was a campus pastor at the time at the church down in Illinois.
SPEAKER_00: And they're coming to our church, we were so excited about that, that aspect of them, coming from a non-church environment to a church environment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Lindsay started going to my wife's life group in that time, and really start seeing their faith kind of flourish.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the midst of all that, uh we got calls us up to Green Bay, Wisconsin, right, to be part of a church up here.
SPEAKER_00: And so we stay in touch a little bit here and there through Facebook and through some connections as well.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we get to see Emerson last year, a kid that I remember being this tall, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, like being at camp, like flourishing in his faith.
SPEAKER_00: We met his uh his mom a couple weeks ago at a funeral back in Illinois, and she was sharing how she's now the leader of one of the ministries at their church, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so what's really cool about stories like that is that God lets us, at least in this case, the Pittmans, become a part of their journey, right?
SPEAKER_00: Part of their story of how he brings people back to faith.
SPEAKER_00: And we're only a part of that as well.
SPEAKER_00: But it all started because I was playing trucks with a kid in a waiting room.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's where that's where it starts, how God uses these types of opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we are in a series called uncomfortable, and so we're taking different topics throughout the summer and talking about them.
SPEAKER_00: And today's topic is evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it doesn't fit the category of uncomfortable in a sense that sometimes we look at like spiritual truths, like biblical truths, like, ah, that makes me feel uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to wrestle with those realities.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those topics are like that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, some are like hot button topics in the culture, where we say, like, hey, we are so different than the culture around us, we're gonna talk about those topics as well.
SPEAKER_00: And that's definitely gonna be covered in the uncomfortable series.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if evangelism fits into that category specifically, but I can tell you this that in my 20 years of vocational ministry, many more years of actually even volunteer ministry, evangelism makes believers uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: We feel uncomfortable like sharing our faith.
SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: It's not because we have a we don't have a lack of desire to do that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I've met people, and most of us in this room have a desire to share our faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's the challenge of how to share a faith and how do we prioritize that, how do we equip ourselves to actually do that, which is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: One study found that 80 to 90% of Christians are at least somewhat open to sharing their faith.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what happened to the 10 or 20% of those other ones, but let's say the majority, the vast majority of people, of Christians, of believers, want to share their faith with other people.
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes down to actually people who do share their faith, it goes down to 30 to 40% of Christians have shared their faith in a meaningful way in the last six months.
SPEAKER_00: And that's self-reported, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that might even be inflated in that regard as well.
SPEAKER_00: My hope is that when we leave today, we have a stronger desire to share our faith and have some steps to share this good news, this wonderful news, the greatest news in the history of the world with people who desperately need to know about it.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned my daughter Brooke earlier.
SPEAKER_00: She was in dance class, you know, many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: She's now 16 years old, but she comes with some freedoms along the way, too.
SPEAKER_00: She is starting to drive, which is really fun.
SPEAKER_00: And the last couple weeks, she actually applied for her first job, you know, which is kind of exciting.
SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you this about Brooke.
SPEAKER_00: Brooke really wanted that job.
SPEAKER_00: What she didn't want to do was go through the work to get that job.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So, and that involved putting a resume together and a cover letter for a 16-year-old, right?
SPEAKER_00: And she has no clue how to do these types of things.
SPEAKER_00: So we kind of give her some like assignments, like, hey, kind of work on this, think about some experiences, whatever, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Come back, you know, later in the day, ask her, have you done any work in that?
SPEAKER_00: No, I haven't done any work on that yet, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Because she's so reluctant to do that, those steps.
SPEAKER_00: But as her parents, we walk with her with that.
SPEAKER_00: So we walk with her, we sit down with her, we think through like, how do you do a resume?
SPEAKER_00: What is a cover letter?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to share?
SPEAKER_00: What are the, what are they thinking?
SPEAKER_00: When you, when someone put yourself in their shoes, how would that, how would that, how would they view this resume and this cover letter in this regard?
SPEAKER_00: So we walk through these hard steps to make her do these different pieces, make sure she writes it, make sure she does all these different pieces along the way, and then she sends it in, right?
SPEAKER_00: It was hard work for her.
SPEAKER_00: But she's way better equipped to do it the next time.
SPEAKER_00: And she's gonna do a lot more of those the next time, right?
SPEAKER_00: She's only 16 years old, she's gonna do a lot more of those in future years and future opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: And so she's better equipped so the next time she has to write a resume, she now is ready and prepared to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Doing hard things is good for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so, even though in evangelism, we may not want to share faith, we want to, but we may not know the skills for it, we still do the hard things to strengthen our faith and have more people to come into the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what makes evangelism uncomfortable?
SPEAKER_00: This is probably not hard for you to realize, because you probably realize it yourself, is that we often feel unprepared.
SPEAKER_00: We feel like, oh man, like I don't know what to what do I share, how to answer all the questions they may have.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't feel like I can have the Bible answer man enough to be able to answer all the questions they may come my way.
SPEAKER_00: It risks relational dynamics.
SPEAKER_00: This might be the biggest one we have here.
SPEAKER_00: When we share faith, there's a risk there.
SPEAKER_00: There's a risk that they may not respond in the way we want them to respond.
SPEAKER_00: And that relationship, that friendship might be damaged or broken or changed in that regard, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a risk we have to take, but is it worth a risk?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a risk that we are sometimes reluctant to take.
SPEAKER_00: I think also we're uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: It makes us face our own doubts and our fears and our own faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty common for believing believers to have doubts and fears and concerns about their own faith.
SPEAKER_00: And when you talk about sharing with other people, it makes you realize, oh man, maybe maybe I have my own fears, my doubts I have to wrestle with and address in my own life.
SPEAKER_00: There's a fear of the unknown, maybe a fear of uh awkwardness of people who don't like what we do or don't like what we believe.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, I believe, are scared of nonbelievers.
SPEAKER_00: And specifically, maybe scared of them influencing us.
SPEAKER_00: That there's so much of a protectionist piece of it.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to stay away from unbelievers because they don't want them to influence us in a bad way.
SPEAKER_00: We're so fearful of the world that we're fearful of engaging the world as well.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a fear we have to face.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us just don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know how.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have the tools in our tool belt to figure out how to share our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And in the face of all these concerns, which are real and things that are true and difficulties we have here, Jesus speaks and commands us, all, every one of us, towards evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 28, it's a very common scripture you may probably have heard before, um, but critical for our faith and our and our faith development.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 28, verse 18, he says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this scripture was not given to a specific group of people like a task force, like the Delta Force, or the Navy SEALs of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: This scripture was given to all of us, every believer.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And that word go is important here.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't sit here and wait for them to come my way.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't kind of like just kind of like hope that God brings something along your path there.
SPEAKER_00: It is a go.
SPEAKER_00: It is a go out into your world and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Now make disciples means we make followers.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples is a word for follower.
SPEAKER_00: And discipleship, a lot of times in the church world, we can think discipleship starts after someone is converted and becomes a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually not how we talk about, if we view it in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Discipleship starts before someone becomes a believer.
SPEAKER_00: You're you are discipling someone.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're teaching them to be followers even before they become a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: So all of those are called toward us to make disciples, to make followers.
SPEAKER_00: Every believer is called to go and make followers of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the key part, maybe the most important part of the entire scripture, is the last verse.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am with you always to the very end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: You do not go alone.
SPEAKER_00: When you go out and do whatever God's asking you to do, in this case, evangelism, you are not going alone.
SPEAKER_00: God is with you along the way to help you in that journey.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would ever say he's ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: The people that you're called to evangelize to, you are called to do that because God's already pursuing them.
SPEAKER_00: God already cares about them, God already loves them deeply, and you're just going to come alongside God in the midst of pursuing them and bring them back to Him.
SPEAKER_00: When I first met Emerson and that family, God was already caring about that family.
SPEAKER_00: I was just a cog in the middle, it was a part of that journey that God has for them.
SPEAKER_00: So why is important to evangelism?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first, God tells us to evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: And that's all the reason we need.
SPEAKER_00: God tells us to do something, we should do that.
SPEAKER_00: We just have an obedience towards doing that.
SPEAKER_00: But why does God want us to evangelize?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's people he wants to bring into his family.
SPEAKER_00: They might respond positively, they might come and become a believer of Jesus Christ, have their life changed forever, for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: That's reason enough in itself, also.
SPEAKER_00: A third reason we want to evangelize is it strengthens our faith.
SPEAKER_00: See, God wouldn't ask us to do these things without having to strengthen who we are as well.
SPEAKER_00: So doing hard and difficult things that God calls us to do is a pathway towards growth.
SPEAKER_00: We grow when we use these muscles of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no such thing as a mature Christian who is not actively evangelizing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes we think of like mature Christians, we think of them as being like people who know their Bible extremely well, who are kind of like pillars in the church community that they're part of as well.
SPEAKER_00: And then we can think that those are really mature believers.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible does not know a mature believer, it doesn't also have somebody who's evangelizing and sharing their faith with other people.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in a spirit church here, we have a mission we call love, mature, reach.
SPEAKER_00: Love God, mature in his character, reach the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the evangelism part kind of goes in the reach the world section of that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a danger for us to think of those as being linear.
SPEAKER_00: That we first have to love God.
SPEAKER_00: We first, after we love God, we become mature in his character, and at that point, we reach the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it actually works.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they're supportive of one another.
SPEAKER_00: We are loving God when we're sharing our faith with our people.
SPEAKER_00: We are maturing on our faith, maturing on the character of God when we are love, when we're reaching out to and sharing our faith with other people.
SPEAKER_00: And vice versa.
SPEAKER_00: They all support one another.
SPEAKER_00: They're not linear, they're more of a circle, they're more of support and care for one another as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my my story of faith started, I mean, as most people start in their in their upbringing.
SPEAKER_00: I went to church, more of a traditional church setting, but I can tell you it didn't really impact my life much.
SPEAKER_00: And the decisions we made in our life wasn't overly impacted by my faith at all.
SPEAKER_00: I wrestled with like, is God real?
SPEAKER_00: Is he actually there?
SPEAKER_00: Um, is he actually relational if he is there in general?
SPEAKER_00: That changed when I went to college, I went to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, and I met some students on my dorm floor.
SPEAKER_00: And these students became friends of mine.
SPEAKER_00: They went a class together, we ate together, we did, we hung out together, they became my friends on my floor.
SPEAKER_00: They also happened to be Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And they started going to an organization called Crew and campus there, and invited me to be part of that group there.
SPEAKER_00: And over time, being coming that part of that group and having relationships with that group there, that faith community on UW Whitewater campus, I gave my life over to Jesus, and my life has been changed dramatically since then.
SPEAKER_00: Now, those students, I'm eternally grateful for, because they could have gone to college and they could have gone to their little huddle and protected themselves from those uh non-believers, the Jeff Pittman non-believers on their floor.
SPEAKER_00: They could have protected themselves, they could have gone through, did their classes, got their, got their degrees, went out and worked and just did live their happy life.
SPEAKER_00: But they went to school not just for that education, but to share their faith with people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And one of those people was me.
SPEAKER_00: And my journey has led me over to here, and you see all the countless ways that God has cared and shaped me over the years.
SPEAKER_00: It started because some students, along their way, along the pathway they had, were also shared their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And your story is probably similar.
SPEAKER_00: If I were to contrast two different ways of people converting, people coming to know Jesus, we have one kind of like in the Paulian conversions.
SPEAKER_00: You might think about this, we will often talk about this more in like these are the dramatic conversions.
SPEAKER_00: A Paulian conversion is this.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember that story of Paul, the Apostle Paul, right?
SPEAKER_00: He is like uh like like persecuting Christians.
SPEAKER_00: So he's like number one, he does not like Christians, he's persecuting them, he's killing them.
SPEAKER_00: And on the road to Damascus, Jesus meets them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like it's right then, meets Jesus in a moment, was killing Christians, now he's not killing Christians, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a dramatic one-moment change.
SPEAKER_00: And we definitely have had stories.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, some people in this room might have a story like that.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, you were like, Man, I was going this direction, something happened, lightning bolt hit, now I'm going this direction as well.
SPEAKER_00: And God praise God for those situations.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us have what I would call a Peter conversion.
SPEAKER_00: So the apostle Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's a little different story, right?
SPEAKER_00: Peter was part of a larger group of disciples following Jesus around this new guy that they're compelled by.
SPEAKER_00: And then he becomes called, become this inner circle, which is because we're called part of the 12 there.
SPEAKER_00: Peter was one of the first uh disciples to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: He uh he walked on water, which not many of you guys have done that, have you?
SPEAKER_00: I haven't done that.
SPEAKER_00: So he walked on water, that's pretty cool, but then started to sink, right?
SPEAKER_00: He had faith, he had doubts in the midst of that, so he started kind of sinking in the midst of that.
SPEAKER_00: Peter rebukes Jesus in the same chapter of Matthew, that he acknowledges Jesus as Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Like in the same chapter, he rebukes Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Peter denies Jesus three times, remember the rooster crowling in the story there.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus reinstates Peter as the rock, right?
SPEAKER_00: Where the church is going to be built, built upon.
SPEAKER_00: And then in Acts 2, we see Peter preaching to thousands of people, and thousands of people come to know Jesus and become believers at that time.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter's story is much more drawn out, right?
SPEAKER_00: It isn't this like dramatic moment right then, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like over time, related, he's he walked with Jesus over three years, got to know him, and his life is shaped over that uh over that time.
SPEAKER_00: And most of us are that way too.
SPEAKER_00: Like most of our conversions, most of our trying to coming to know Jesus, is because over time we have people investing us, sometimes many of us, many people, investing us over a season of time.
SPEAKER_00: Who are the people in your life that helped you grow?
SPEAKER_00: Was it a family member?
SPEAKER_00: Was it a friend?
SPEAKER_00: A co-worker?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe like me, where it's coming random people in college who just kind of invested in you in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you don't know the thing about that, is because it's people who invested in you, who shared the life that they had with Jesus with you in a way that was compelling.
SPEAKER_00: That you were drawn to give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And evangelism is being just like those people.
SPEAKER_00: The people who shared Jesus with you is passing that on with other people.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we share our faith?
SPEAKER_00: What if the majority of the reasons that why evangelism is uncomfortable can be alleviated?
SPEAKER_00: What if there's an accessible way to evangelize that is reachable for all believers, not just those super those spiritual superheroes?
SPEAKER_00: I believe there is.
SPEAKER_00: So as we move forward, we're going to share a tool about the rest of our time today.
SPEAKER_00: A tool that I found really helpful for helping us share our faith in a very relational and a very way that's accessible to everybody who is a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It was developed by uh uh some two pastors in the Chicagoland area.
SPEAKER_00: This is Dave and John Ferguson.
SPEAKER_00: They actually have a book on it called Bless, because Bless is an acronym that we'll go through the rest of our time today.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want the deep dive, you want the book version of that, you can go to Amazon and find the book and they'll they'll they'll flush out leave them even deeper than I will today.
SPEAKER_00: But the blessed practices are things that are accessible for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins with B.
SPEAKER_00: So B means begin with prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about sharing our faith, we want to begin with prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has a great example of this in Luke 6, 12 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: Says Jesus prayed, uh says uh in the early, uh, sorry, Jesus 6, 12 through 13, one of those one of those days, Jesus went out to the mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God.
SPEAKER_00: When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.
SPEAKER_00: So in that time, this is the early ministry of Jesus, there's a bunch of big crowds kind of following around him.
SPEAKER_00: So the disciples hit at a point where kind of like a large group of people, he calls 12 to be his apostles, like this close inner group here.
SPEAKER_00: But before he does that, he goes to the mountainside and prays.
SPEAKER_00: He prays for a guy, Father, who are these people?
SPEAKER_00: Who are the ones you want me to call to become my disciples?
SPEAKER_00: So he's even Jesus is calling to the Father for wisdom in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are we praying for?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first thing we're praying for when we begin with prayer is we pray for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And specifically, our hearts will be aligned with God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds pretty nice, it sounds pretty nice, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's a dangerous, dangerous prayer, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's a good prayer to pray.
SPEAKER_00: But when we align ourselves with God's heart, we get to see what God is seeing and how he sees other people.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 19, in Matthew 9, it says that Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness.
SPEAKER_00: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to be honest, guys, the world around us, the non-believers, the non-churchgoers in our world, doesn't always view Christians as having been the most compassionate people on the planet.
SPEAKER_00: Hasn't always been their experiences.
SPEAKER_00: But if we have our heart aligned with Jesus here, who had compassion on the crowds, if our hearts look at the people who are un who are unbelievers and said, May I have compassion for them?
SPEAKER_00: I love them.
SPEAKER_00: I want them to come into the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: That changes our priorities, it changes the posture that we have towards people as well.
SPEAKER_00: So you pray also for non-believing friends, the people in your life who don't are not Christians.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying for them as well.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have them, you're praying that you get some friends who are non-believers, right?
SPEAKER_00: You need friends in your life who are non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: You also pray for wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Navigating relationships is dynamic.
SPEAKER_00: It's not formulaic.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just say this is A, B, C equals D here for like how relationships work.
SPEAKER_00: They're dynamic, they change, they're difficult.
SPEAKER_00: So you ask for wisdom for how to navigate those close relationships as you're sharing your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You also pray for non-believers, specifically, they have open posture.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so when you when you share your faith with people, you want to make sure that you're praying that they have a softened heart, they're open to hear the gospel news that you are sharing with them as well.
SPEAKER_00: There's a principle within the by in in scripture, we won't have time to go into it today.
SPEAKER_00: It talks about you're going to people of peace.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is that you want to evangelize and share your faith with people who are open for that discussion.
SPEAKER_00: If people are offset to that discussion, maybe that's not really.
SPEAKER_00: Opening you want to have at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: We won't go to people of peace, people who are open to that conversation, who you've developed relationships with all already.
SPEAKER_00: So the reality is that the stats are pretty clear that 80%, up to 80% of people who are non-believers, non-churchgoers, are willing to listen to their friends share about their faith.
SPEAKER_00: So that fear, remember for the fear we had in the beginning?
SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna think of me?
SPEAKER_00: Do they really want to talk about this?
SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna say?
SPEAKER_00: Most of the people who don't go to church are open for you talking about your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get that rejection from them specifically.
SPEAKER_00: We're also gonna pray for opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: These are pray for divine appointments that God gives sends our way.
SPEAKER_00: So praying, God, where are you working?
SPEAKER_00: How can I pray to position?
SPEAKER_00: How can I go come alongside with you and give me opportunities to people with people in my life that I can share my faith with?
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for you today to pray for preparation?
SPEAKER_00: What would it be?
SPEAKER_00: Is it praying for for yourself, your heart to change?
SPEAKER_00: Is it praying for you to have good connections and friends who are non-believers?
SPEAKER_00: Is it prayer for wisdom for how to navigate that relationship?
SPEAKER_00: Prayer has to begin with prayer if we're gonna be along with what God's doing in his mission.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the L of the blessed practice here is listen.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has great examples of listening here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a story in the Bible about a Jesus coming into Jericho, and when he goes into Jericho, there's a blind man who's begging on the city, like an entrance of the city, and he hears that Jesus is there, and he kind of calls out to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes over him and says, What do you want me to do for you?
SPEAKER_00: What a great question, right?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to do for you?
SPEAKER_00: He obviously is blind, he's begging, like Jesus could have already known, like I want you to get to receive sight here.
SPEAKER_00: But he asks the question, what do you want me to do so we can hear back and listen to the beggar in this situation?
SPEAKER_00: We want to continue to be asking compassionately curious questions with people we know.
SPEAKER_00: Understand how do we get to know who they are, what makes them tick, what hinders them from God.
SPEAKER_00: We want all that, we want to make sure we're listening close to how we can help share and serve them in the midst of all this.
SPEAKER_00: This is really important because we don't want to answer questions that they don't have already.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You want to understand what the questions are, what are their hindrances to God?
SPEAKER_00: I shared about my story before, a bit about uh coming to faith.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was really questioning the relational reality of God.
SPEAKER_00: Did God really exist?
SPEAKER_00: And if he did exist, was he relational?
SPEAKER_00: Was he loving and caring?
SPEAKER_00: Wanted what was good for me.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be a mistake to start out, if someone was someone was sharing their faith with me, it'd be a mistake to start out diving into how sinful I was and needing of a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That is true, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's true, it's very true, but that wasn't my hindrance, that wasn't my hiccup.
SPEAKER_00: I knew I was a sinful person.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't, I didn't need convincing of that one.
SPEAKER_00: I needed convincing that God was good and loving.
SPEAKER_00: And so the best way to do it to address that, because they were listening to me, is to share how he's good and loving in their lives as well.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the pathway in there as well.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a different example.
SPEAKER_00: Many folks believe that they are in right standing with God due to just being a good person.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of a standard, very good American thing to do, to believe that you're in good standing with God because you're a good person.
SPEAKER_00: They'll believe in God, but they misunderstand the pathway back to him.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be a mistake to spend too much time trying to convince them of the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: They already believe in the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: They just misunderstand how you get back to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so you want to focus on that specifically.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know that because you are listening when you're trying to understand who people are.
SPEAKER_00: Another example would be some people are clearly understand their sin.
SPEAKER_00: You ever meet people who are like they won't even step in foot into a church because they know what they've been doing they've done in their lives, and they believe there's no chance for them to be reconciled back to God.
SPEAKER_00: People in those situations, it'd be a mistake to double down on that, right?
SPEAKER_00: And be like, yes, you're right, you're so sinful, how sinful you are.
SPEAKER_00: You want to share them the mercy and the grace that God provides, and no one's too far away from being reconciled back to God.
SPEAKER_00: You get all that information by listening, by understanding who they are, what makes them tick, and what's hindering them from going back to God.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's your challenge?
SPEAKER_00: So we often we often pray for opportunities to speak about the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm challenging us to pray for opportunities to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Opportunities to listen to people and how they can uh how they can uh support them.
SPEAKER_00: The next one here is the either in the blessed acronym, and that's EAT.
SPEAKER_00: And this is something that Jesus did all the time.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we always do it too.
SPEAKER_00: We always eat, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're eating on a constant basis as well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Matt Jesus actually ate with tax collectors.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 9, it says, while Jesus was having dinner in Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
SPEAKER_00: On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
SPEAKER_00: But go and learn what this means.
SPEAKER_00: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus hung out with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: You should be hanging out with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: Some point of your life, right, you should be having friends who are non-believers, people who are not within the church environment, so you can not not only does it help strengthen your faith, but that's a pathway that they can come to faith as well.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus hung out with non-believers, you should also be hanging out with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: There was a while ago, there's a study on what activities that non-churchgoers are more likely to say yes to if asked by churchgoers.
SPEAKER_00: Make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So one of the one of the options they have was going to a small group gathering.
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't very high.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you ask a non-believing friend to come to like a small group gathering in your house, not a huge high, they'll say yes to that, because that's uncomfortable for them, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's kind of like they're sitting in a circle looking at people in an uncomfortable environment as well.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna say yes to that.
SPEAKER_00: Weekend services was a little bit higher, so coming to church services, they know you really well, they might come, but they might be coming just because they want to strengthen that relationship, not because they really want to come.
SPEAKER_00: They might be because they want to sit too much, they don't want to tell you no, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they they'll say a little they'll say that yes a little bit more for that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what's really high actually is that if you ask them to come to a service project in the community.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna go pick up trash in a local park, they're pretty high to say yes to that.
SPEAKER_00: What the number one thing that they'll say yes to is come into your house for dinner.
SPEAKER_00: Just come in the house.
SPEAKER_00: Invite them to over, to have a barbecue, have invite them come over to have s'mores in your background and your backyard with a fire.
SPEAKER_00: Invite them into your life, non non-churchgoing people in your life are way more likely to say yes to that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a starting point to develop this relationship, to uh to be able to listen to them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the authors of this book call this missional hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: You're some overly hospitable to people as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, eating is available to everyone here, so eating is a great opportunity to do meals, but it doesn't have to be restricted just to eating.
SPEAKER_00: Just doing things together.
SPEAKER_00: For people who are into sports, going to a sports game or watching a sports game together, this is a it accomplishes the same goal.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, doing a hobby together accomplishes the same goal.
SPEAKER_00: Do things together with non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, my daughters uh were in soccer, they're no longer in soccer at all, but I was I was coaching them when they're really little in soccer.
SPEAKER_00: I still get people around the community who uh love girls who are now in middle school will call me Coach Pittman because I coached them like seven years ago or something like that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like be involved in your community, engage in your community as well.
SPEAKER_00: What are the things that you do regularly that you can also involve non-believers into your life?
SPEAKER_00: Everyone eats, so it definitely can be eating as well, but it could be other things as well, hobbies, interests along the way.
SPEAKER_00: The first asked in the blessed practice is serve.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a classic, classic Jesus uh way of doing life.
SPEAKER_00: In Mark 10, it says, Jesus called them together and said, You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you.
SPEAKER_00: And said, Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
SPEAKER_00: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: See, remember, you prayed at this point, you've listened, you spent time with them eating, and now you know exactly how to serve them.
SPEAKER_00: You know how to serve them because you know them up, you've developed a relationship and a friendship with them.
SPEAKER_00: We first moved here about nine years ago.
SPEAKER_00: My oldest was in second grade, I had a four-year-old, three-year-old, and a two-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the age of my kids, all pretty young.
SPEAKER_00: And they had no, we had no connections around here, no families around here as well.
SPEAKER_00: And as great as the Spring Lake Church family was to help us out in the middle of this, the babysitters, my kids were not, we're not liking.
SPEAKER_00: They were not liking those in those regards.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had trouble getting a date night, my wife, my wife and I, because our kids used to flip out when anytime they saw something they didn't know coming into our house.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember getting a call one time I was at work, and my wife called me and said, Hey, we're going on a date night tonight.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's awesome, but who's watching the kids?
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Alyssa called and said that they can drop the kids off at their house.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Alyssa was a neighbor in our neighborhood who had kids around the similar ages and had developed a relationship with us enough, enough times, enough play dates that our kids are comfortable going over to their house.
SPEAKER_00: And so what a blessing it was, right?
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing it was for Alyssa actually to understand us, to know what we needed, what way we can serve us, and actually offer that as an opportunity for us.
SPEAKER_00: My wife and I go on a date night because my kids would be safe, they would be happy at their house.
SPEAKER_00: This is what this is an example we can do.
SPEAKER_00: We understand people well and we serve them along the way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, serving is a really big step to serving others, and it's it's much more involved than we have before.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we got we can all of us can do something to serve others.
SPEAKER_00: The last S in the story is in the best practices is story.
SPEAKER_00: This is important because the Bible is filled with stories of God came through and rescued people and met them in the midst of their need.
SPEAKER_00: And you also have stories that can be shared.
SPEAKER_00: The stories you share are one, your testimony, how you came to know faith, that's a key testimony story.
SPEAKER_00: You need to know, memorize it, work on it, get really good at that regard.
SPEAKER_00: But even better than that, or sometimes better than that, is how God's worked in your life.
SPEAKER_00: How has God met you in the midst of need?
SPEAKER_00: When someone has a financial need and they're sharing about that, can you share a story about how God met you in a financial need?
SPEAKER_00: If you had trouble with your kids and God met you in the midst of a parenting struggle, and when someone's talking about a parent struggle, how can you share a story about how God met you in the midst of that parenting struggle?
SPEAKER_00: The stories that God has put into our hearts are meant to be shared with our people.
SPEAKER_00: And God will often bring them up, because you're developing a relationship with these people, you're friends with them, and this will come up in time.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be ready to share stories as well.
SPEAKER_00: When we do, we always make sure that God is the hero, the one that deserves the glory.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelism can cause some fear among some of us and make us uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope that we can shift, evangelism isn't isn't a I have to do this because Jesus tells me to do this, but an opportunity that I get to do this, that I have an opportunity to share this great news with other people who desperately need to know about that.
SPEAKER_00: So, you, believer, go therefore.
SPEAKER_00: Make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: What is your next step?
SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do what do you need to do differently?
SPEAKER_00: If it hasn't been a priority for you, if this isn't even thought about as much, make it a priority.
SPEAKER_00: Make it one so you can focus on it.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know many not don't know many non-Christians, make it a make it a uh a goal of yours to make some friends.
SPEAKER_00: Make some friends with people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't feel adequate enough, use this blessed tool that we talked about today or find some way so you can be equipped better to share.
SPEAKER_00: If you lean towards evangelism as an event versus a relationship, shift your perspective to be a relationship with people.
SPEAKER_00: If you lack interest or you lack compassion for the lost, pray that your heart gets shifted.
SPEAKER_00: That God would transform your heart to care and love people who are far from God.
SPEAKER_00: See, God's plan for evangelism is that all of us will be involved.
SPEAKER_00: That when we leave the church and we go out into our neighborhoods, we go into our workplaces, and we go to the store, wherever we are going, that we bring this light of Jesus along with us, that is spread across our entire community, that it infiltrates, that it permeates, that the gospel is everywhere because Christians are spread out and going everywhere on the way.
SPEAKER_00: And you are a key part of that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we are thankful that you give us this call, this command, this opportunity for us to share this great news we've done in our lives with our people.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that all of us, every single one of us in this room, even this week, would take steps towards sharing our faith with people.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just praying that our heart would be aligned with you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's listening to the friends of ours who don't know who don't know you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's getting friends that are that are not part of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that might be, Father, I pray you would equip us well.
SPEAKER_00: Give us a passionate desire to love people.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray more and more people would receive your gift of salvation and come into your family.
unknown: Amen.