Where the Light Shines Through 3

Methods of Sharing

What did you think of TA’s message you listened to this week?

Cocoon? Value? Motivation?

A common statement in every resource I am pulling from for this study:

In addition to the message we share, we must also consider the life we present to the world.

In addition to the message that we share, we must also consider the life that we present to the world.

the life that we present to the world.

What was the first command given to people in the bible? - be fruitful and multiply To whom? Where? When? God wanted what He had created to be filled with people who would worship and glorify Him. Opposite is seen in

Romans 1:21–25 ESV

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

be fruitful and multiply

The desire to proclaim, evangelize, do missions, share the gospel, share our faith is born out of a heart that worships. If we have any other motive, we are at risk of “legalisticizing” the most natural of responses.

Methods of sharing

( Methods of sharing

The early church saw what we might call evangelism as an overflow of their worship.

Great Commandment

Both evangelism and worship are expressions of a life totally committed to Jesus Christ. As such, they allow us to live out our primary purpose as followers of Jesus. That purpose is defined well by the first line of the Westminster Shorter Confession: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."

Methods of sharing

We have begun to establish a foundation:

The character of God

Salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit

Relationships where there is meaningful conversation

Worship as the vessel for evangelism

So lets shift our focus to the actual conversation. Did the video we watched last week help you? Sometimes we worry about how to start those conversations.

Remember: Pray ahead. The Holy Spirit is faithful to soften the heart. Listen patiently. To both your friend and the HS. Trust that He is putting words in your mouth. He was sent to remind you of all Truth. He will be doing that in the conversation you are having.

Tools - LISTENING! How many teachers? Remember ‘teach, check for understanding, reteach’?

Any teachers?

Three circles

Gospel bridge

Do vs Done

Timing - in the fullness of time because, relationships

If God was willing to wait until ‘the fullness of time’ for Christ to appear on the scene, what makes us think we should get in a hurry and rush what God is doing in the life of our friend?

https://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/christian-trends/evangelism-for-introverts-what-you-need-to-know.html

Life together

For back of handout:

Sharing your faith in the ordinary course of life

the ordinary course

of life

A Paradigm Shift

After I came to faith in Jesus during my high school years, I absorbed the message that it was my responsibility to ‘witness’ to everyone who happened to be next to me — on a subway, in a checkout line, or in English class. It was my responsibility to figure out how to witness to as many people as possible.

If I didn’t, “they might get-in-a-car-wreck-and-die-and-go-to-hell-and-it-would-be-my- fault-because-I-had-been-too-chicken.” I lived with a residual guilt after every conversation; every encounter with quasi- strangers at the grocery store or or hair salon, where I just couldn’t figure out how to bring Jesus into the conversation.

I remember feeling like a failure; like I just couldn’t “do” evangelism.

Something changed . . . . .

Something changed when I did my student teaching in the early 80s at the University of Texas at Austin. My supervising teacher, Helen (not her real name), and I really connected. She was a counter-culture, earth-loving, free-thinking, warm and winsome woman about 10 years my senior. She owned a home with a guy she wasn’t married to. We both loved the kids we taught, and found ourselves intensely immersed in their lives.

I found myself not wanting to try to “save” her or “witness to” her. I found myself intrigued with her and wanting to be her friend. I didn’t hide my church or para-church involvement, but she didn’t ask any questions and I didn’t push it. We ate lunch together in her classroom. She taught me about teaching writing; about how to call forth words from the heads of high schoolers, how to urge them toward journalistic and linguistic excellence. She invited me to her home for dinner. We talked about music, movies and men. She showed me her freezer full of marijuana, neatly packaged in baggies. She couldn’t believe I’d never seen packaged, frozen marijuana. Present in the midst of pain. The phone rang late one night, and it was Helen, sobbing. The man she lived with, her boyfriend of nine years, had moved out. Came with a U-Haul. Took furniture. All his clothes. She could barely talk. She hadn’t seen it coming. “Helen — Just hang on. I’m on my way, “ I said. As I sped towards South Austin, I was overcome with Helen’s situation. It hit me that she had no anchor, no foundation. Her boyfriend had been her world.

I realized how much I loved Jesus. He was my anchor, my foundation, my Lord, my Best Friend. However, I believe God let me feel what Helen must have been feeling. During that dark drive, I realized how badly I wanted Helen to meet Christ. She was in the yard waiting for me. We embraced, and she shook, taken over by the grief.

Intuitively I knew that all this had to do with God’s drawing Helen unto Jesus. I don’t remember much of the conversation. I remember hurting for her. I remember being shaken by the depth of her despair. I also remember saying, “Helen, I need to tell you something. I need to tell you that people are always going to let us down. They will bring their Uhauls and move out; they will get cancer and die: they will get tired of us and move on. But Helen, there is One Person who will never leave us....” And then I told her about Christ. Right there in the yard in front of the house they owned together with the marijuana in the freezer. She listened. I got my first taste of what it’s like to be obedient to God’s loving initiative in the life of a not-yet-believer. To love someone like Jesus might love them. Helen didn’t “pray the prayer” that night, or during the course of our friendship. But I trust that God in his sovereignty will bring her to Himself (He may have already.) It’s been 27 years since that night. But I’m grateful to Helen– and eternally grateful to Jesus —for showing me what it’s like to participate with Him in loving lost people and to let Him be in charge of creating the moment for speaking of faith.