How to Share Your Faith: Relate, Ask, Pray, and Stay Patient

Key takeaways

• Relate first. Sammy teaches people to start with an ordinary, friendly conversation about what the person is wearing or doing, and to build trust quickly.
• Ask questions that open the door. Three simple questions help you move past a quick yes when someone says they already know Jesus.
• Offer to pray. Even when someone is not ready to decide, Sammy says people almost always welcome prayer.
• Admit what you don't know. When someone raises a hard question, you can say so and share what God has done for you.
• Stay long enough to see fruit. Seeds sown in a conversation may grow years later, often where you never see it.
• Treat it like a muscle. Practice, role play and recording yourself make sharing the gospel easier over time.

A series that began with a verse in Acts

The conversation on the Beyond the Letter podcast began with a story from Pastor Adam Mesa. Several years ago, while his father was on vacation in July, Mesa was given three weekends in a row to preach. He titled the series "Regularly Mentioned in Hell" and printed shirts with the name on them.

The idea came from reading about the demons in Acts 19, who knew Jesus and knew Paul but did not know the people trying to imitate them. Mesa's question for listeners was whether their names had ever come up in hell. Are you submitted to Christ, and are you reaching people for the kingdom so fully that the darkness would recognize you when you walk into a room?

Students wore the shirts to a private school with strict dress codes, and some got dress coded for them. That question of what it looks like to actually share your faith carried the rest of the episode.

What the Way of the Master got right and missed

Mesa described the style of evangelism that spread in the nineties and 2000s, often called the Way of the Master. You ask a stranger whether they are a good person, walk through a few of the Ten Commandments, ask whether they would be guilty on judgment day, and then ask for a decision. Jesus steps into the courtroom and takes the judgment.

Mesa learned it at a young age and practiced it every Saturday at Ontario Mills, so he knows it well. He still thinks parts of it are worth keeping, such as seeing that we are sinners who need a Savior. But he named a weakness: it was built for strangers. As Mesa put it, "you shake the person's hand, and they leave." No discipleship, no church, no community followed, and people walked away with more questions than they had before.

Sammy added that it can feel like a funeral. He wants people to hear the joy too, that God sees them as a son or daughter.

Sammy's approach: talk like a friend

Sammy's background is training students and others to share the gospel on university campuses and in grassroots events. His first rule is to "talk to someone how you want to be talked to." He compares it to introducing a stranger to your best friend, who is Jesus, and says you would not begin that introduction with a warning.

So he starts with whatever is in front of him. In Colorado Springs, he saw a man in a T-shirt with cuss words on it and began by asking about it. It was the man's band. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes later, the man gave his life to the Lord, and Sammy gave him a Bible and told him about churches nearby. Sammy also said he has been cussed out and walked past many times. His answer is that we "got to see ourself as seed sowers and not just soul winners."

Three questions and an offer to pray

Sammy shared three questions that help when someone says they already know Jesus. The first asks whether they have heard about him or know him personally. His line for it was "do you know Jesus like Obama or do you know him like your mama?" The second asks them to tell you their conversion experience. The third asks what is standing in the way of a deeper relationship with the Lord.

He also listens for the Holy Spirit and asks God for an encouraging word for the person in front of him. When it fits, he asks plainly whether the person wants to give their life to Jesus. Whether the answer is yes or "I'll think about it," he follows with an offer to pray for them. Sammy said people almost never refuse, and that even when someone he prays for is not healed, no one has been upset with him. People are grateful that someone believed for them.

When you don't have the answer

Many Christians stay quiet because they fear a question they cannot answer. Sammy's advice is to say, "I don't know the answer to that," offer to look into it together, and then tell what God has done in your own life. He pointed to the line that we overcome by the word of our testimony, and put it this way: "a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument."

He also described a picture a professor shared with him. Too often the church works like a pipeline, with everything flowing to one end. It would be better as an irrigation system, where the water reaches the whole field and we sow seeds everywhere we go.

Friends need patience

The hosts agreed that sharing with friends differs from sharing with strangers. Sammy warned that people who only want results can start treating others as numbers, and he pointed to the patience of love in 1 Corinthians 13, which he said means long suffering.

Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,

(1 Corinthians 13:4, WEB)

Still, he said patience does not mean silence. If you have prayed for a friend for years, you can tell them so and ask whether they have thought about their relationship with the Lord. The conversation cited a figure that only 2 percent of Christians have ever shared their faith, and Mesa recalled a church series on that number fifteen years ago. He guessed it has not improved.

Seeds, practice and staying put

One of the hosts described a man he had not messaged since 2017 who recently said he was ready to go all in with Jesus. A grandmother thanked him for a youth ministry conversation from six years earlier. His point was that you often will not see the fruit, and that people who keep moving between churches and relationships may never stay long enough to see it.

Mesa recalled lunch with John Maxwell, who asks leaders at gatherings to raise a hand if they led someone to Christ in the past month, then asks them to keep it up only if it happened outside the church. Most of the hands came down. Maxwell told Mesa he does not trust a pastor who won't talk about his faith in public. Mesa said it convicted him, and he asked God to put him in situations to share his faith. He now has stories of a nurse and a jeweler.

Sammy trains people by having them record a minute or two of the gospel, practice for days, and record it again. The difference is striking. His summary: "the more sweat and practice, the less blood and battle."

What this means for you

You do not need a perfect script or a special gift. You can begin with a kind word, a real question and an offer to pray, then trust God with the result.

Think of one person you could encourage this week, someone you know or a stranger you will meet. Ask God what to say to them, and take ten seconds to step past the fear. The speakers believe that small step can matter for a long time, even when you never hear how it ended.