Sharing Your Testimony Can Be Hard
When you become a follower of Christ, you accept God’s gift of grace and forgiveness and will be welcomed into heaven when it’s your time to leave this earth. It’s a moment of celebration and hopefully, you have other Christians in your life who can celebrate with you.
But often, we separate what we do at church from other areas of our lives. You aren’t any less saved when you’re at school or work, yet the social pressures of these environments often make it easier to not talk about your faith. The longer it’s been since you’ve said ‘yes’ to Jesus, the harder it can be to bring him up in a conversation outside the walls of the church.
And yet, we’re all called to do it. The Bible says that we are all to be “fishers of men.” (Matt. 4-19). God asks every one of us to be constantly fishing — seeking out people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus and inviting them to get to know Him.
The Bible says that we are all to be “fishers of men”
Learning to fish
When you’re fishing, you change up the bait based on what kind of fish you are after. The same is true when it comes to sharing our faith. This is what the apostle Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 9 when he said “to the Jews, I became like a Jew that I might win the Jews, to the Greeks I became like a Greek that I might win the Greek.” He ends that passage by saying “I became all things to all men that I might save some.”
In other words, we need to tailor how we talk about Jesus to the people we’re talking to. There’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all evangelism, nor should there be.
Toss out the bait
You don’t need to dive into a full-blown spiritual conversation right away. The first thing you want to do is see if they are interested. If you are out to eat, just ask if you can pray before the meal. If they say yes, ask if there’s anything they would like you to pray about for them. You will be surprised at how many people, even if they don’t believe in God, are happy to have you pray for them.
Think about your fishing hole
God calls all of us to evangelism because we each have our own sphere of influence — friends, family, coworkers — that make up our fishing hole. And, as we said, everyone needs to be approached differently. Thinking through how best to approach the subject of faith with the people in your life who don’t know God can help alleviate some of the anxiety you may be feeling about it.
What stops you from throwing out a line?
What God has done for us is amazing. Naturally, we want everyone to feel the joy that comes with salvation. So, why can it feel so intimidating sometimes?
For many of us, talking about God is hard. So, instead, start by living it. One of the defining characteristics of Christians isn’t what we say, it’s how we live. We are called to be a reflection of God’s love to the rest of the world. As the Bible says, we are to be living proof of a loving God to a watching world. We can’t expect people who don’t know God to seek him out. But the people who know us can encounter him through us.
How do we do this? Jesus gives us the perfect example through his own life — he loved people who were nothing like him. Jesus spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes, and all sorts of people that polite society deemed unworthy. Everyone was worth Jesus’s time and attention.
The point is that we aren’t supposed to live in a bubble and only associate with people like us. If you want to fish, you don’t go and hang out with other fishermen. You go where the fish are and begin building relationships.
Empowering thought: You will never be rejected.
No one likes being rejected. We’ve all been rejected in one way or another — romantically, by friends, our jobs, or on college applications. The fear of rejection is strong with strangers but even stronger with people we know. It is natural to wonder, “Will my friends that aren’t Christians still want to hang out with me if I tell them my story? Will that person I’m interested in still want to date me?” The fear of rejection can be paralyzing.
If you share your faith respectfully and people aren’t interested, they are rejecting God, not you. And that’s ok. God is big, He can handle it. He loves that person more than anyone else and you may be just one domino in a long line that ultimately brings them to know Christ. Remember, our job is to tell our story, God is the one that does the saving.
“God is the one that does the saving.”
Tips on fishing for men
Sharing your testimony (and fishing) is like anything else. No one is very good at it when they first start, and everyone could use some help. Here are some things you can do to start telling your story the way God intended.
- Pray for those in your life that are far from God.
When you regularly pray for people, God places them on your heart in a powerful way. When you pray for someone and ask God to open up doors for them, he will be faithful in doing it. There are few weapons as powerful as prayer.
- Invite someone to come to church with you.
If you don’t know what to say to someone, then the easiest thing to do is to invite them to church. There, they will get to hear a message from God that will speak to their heart. Even better, they’ll get to meet other Christians who will show them what it means to be changed by God’s love.
- Tell your story
You don’t have to be a pastor or an evangelist to tell your story. You don’t need to have a ton of Bible verses memorized or have some tragic backstory. All you need is the truth about what God has done in your life. What were you like before you met Christ? What are you like now? There is nothing anyone can say to refute what you know God has done in your life, and there are few things as compelling as letting someone in on the most important moment of your life.
Final thoughts
Sharing your story can be hard, but we’re all called under the Great Commission to do it. If it helps, ask a fellow believer that you are close to if you can practice with them. It might feel silly at first, but the only way to get comfortable with something is to do it. And, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. You’ll become more comfortable and actually be able to enjoy sharing.
Treat people like they belong. We need to treat people like they belong with no set of rules or restrictions. God does not put any qualifiers on his love for us and we are called to extend that same grace to others. When you make other people feel like they belong, regardless of how they act or what they believe, you are showing people what it really means to be a Christian.
If you’d like to read more about deepening your faith, you can read more of our blog content here. Or, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our ministry team, we’d love to talk to you.
