Why Is My Evangelism at Work So Lame?
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:05.000 | Bryn from Houston, California writes this,
00:00:08.000 | "I want to be a bold witness for Christ before the men I work with who are all unbelievers.
00:00:13.000 | My heart is breaking for them and I am so frustrated at how hesitant I am.
00:00:17.000 | I don't speak when I should speak. My plans to make opportunities come to nothing.
00:00:20.000 | And when I do speak, I look back dissatisfied and wonder if I said anything worth saying or hearing.
00:00:25.000 | I second guess myself and hesitate myself out of an opportunity.
00:00:29.000 | I leave work most days feeling like a failure and doing nothing for the sake of winning souls.
00:00:33.000 | I feel like I don't love those men like I ought to love them, and I don't love God like I ought to love Him.
00:00:38.000 | I can't really think how to state my question other than, 'What would your advice be to me?'"
00:00:44.000 | Pastor John, what would you say to Bryn?
00:00:46.000 | Well, here's just one simple suggestion.
00:00:52.000 | I don't feel like an authority in this.
00:00:57.000 | I don't consider myself to be a gifted evangelist like some friends of mine, some pastors who are so wonderfully adept.
00:01:05.000 | I just spent time recently with one of those friends, and I watched him manage conversations in the most natural, loving way.
00:01:14.000 | And I just, I was filled with envy.
00:01:19.000 | I hope godly, I hope godly envy.
00:01:23.000 | Oh, Lord, I want to be more like this.
00:01:27.000 | But here's what I have thought and tried over the years.
00:01:32.000 | One of the things that makes speaking of Christ often in casual work-related environments is that those environments seem so unsuited at the moment for the seriousness of what we need to talk about.
00:01:54.000 | In other words, you may be talking about a game or a movie or some style or fashion or a new technological device.
00:02:04.000 | And you want to talk about heaven and hell and sin and righteousness and justice and forgiveness and death and life.
00:02:14.000 | And they don't fit.
00:02:16.000 | They're like oil and water, and they really don't.
00:02:19.000 | Some strange change in tone would have to take place in order for the weight of what's at stake in the gospel to fit into that situation.
00:02:29.000 | I think that's one of the big obstacles to why we don't go there.
00:02:34.000 | So instead of beating ourselves up about that, just recognize that and think maybe another way.
00:02:42.000 | Namely, am I willing to go ahead and participate in those conversations and make my comments about the new phone that somebody bought or the movie they saw or whatever?
00:02:54.000 | And that might tip people toward what you believe about your worldview.
00:03:00.000 | But are you willing to befriend one or two or three of those friends and say to them, "Could we do lunch together sometime?"
00:03:10.000 | In other words, here you're taking, you're being proactive in trying to create a situation where you could talk to them on different terms.
00:03:20.000 | Just the two of you or maybe three.
00:03:22.000 | You've got to be careful here about manhood and womanhood things, but I'm thinking of two guys, for example.
00:03:28.000 | And over lunch, you just be right up front and say, "Could we trade stories?"
00:03:35.000 | I would love to hear the story of your life, the 15-minute version of how you got here.
00:03:41.000 | And I'd love to share my story because there's some things in my story that have just blown me away and have been such good news to me I'd love for you to know about.
00:03:50.000 | And you just take it where you want it to go, and you might even be right up front and say something like, "This all depends on the kind of person you're talking to and what your relationship is."
00:04:01.000 | And you just say, "You know, I would love to know more about what makes you tick, and I would love for you to let me tell you some of the things that make me tick."
00:04:12.000 | Because I can tell maybe in our conversations we're not ticking exactly the same, and I just love some things that I'd love you to hear, and so on.
00:04:20.000 | You just be right up front.
00:04:22.000 | And the point is not trading stories. The point is intentionality and the openness of your life, doing it on your dime.
00:04:33.000 | And they volunteered, and if they say to you, "No, don't want to tell you my story, don't want to hear your story," well, then you're not going to go there.
00:04:42.000 | You're not going to push in on that at all.
00:04:44.000 | You've offered yourself to them, you want to share your life with them, and if they invite you in, and most will, I think, then they've invited you and you haven't done anything inappropriate to press yourself in on them.
00:05:00.000 | So that's my simple suggestion.
00:05:03.000 | Instead of constantly thinking, "I've got to figure out a way to turn a twins baseball game into a lesson of life and death."
00:05:13.000 | It's so difficult, and I think God probably would like us to use those ordinary moments in life to draw people into situations where it feels more natural to talk about ultimate things.
00:05:32.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:05:35.000 | Email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org, and visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper.
00:05:45.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
00:05:47.000 | [end]
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