I remember when I was a student with Youth for Christ, when I first heard of 3Story Evangelism. I remember thinking how complicated witnessing seemed, what a beautiful thing it was the 3Story encapsulated the basics of what I needed to do to start sharing my faith in Christ, and the difference he has made in my life with those around me. With 3Story, we can talk to our friends, family and co-workers about our faith in Christ by knowing Our Story, listening to Their Story, and dialoguing with them about God’s Story.
In high school as I became more and more familiar with 3Story (which is a method of what is called relational evangelism), it became something I grew more comfortable doing. It is exciting to think about the impact that students can have for Christ merely by sharing their whole life, including their relationship with Christ with people they already know. Then I went to college. Early on, I became involved in Campus Crusade for Christ (soon to be renamed Cru). One thing that Cru does well is initiative evangelism, which is where students and staff take the initiative to start conversations with other students, both those that they know and don’t know yet. Now, I know what many of you might be thinking and I was thinking the same thing. When I thought of initiative evangelism, I thought of someone going door to door, his KJV at the ready, asking if you would like to know Jesus. This is something that I felt I would never be able to do, and every fiber of my being wanted to fight against the very idea of talking to people I didn’t know.
Eventually this changed. After a little while I learned more about what Cru means when they talk about initiative evangelism. In fact, as I learned more, I eventually made up a new term, initiative relational evangelism. The truth is that we are called to reach out to those around us, both those that we know and those that we don’t know, with the message of Christ. In every case, forming a sincere relationship is important, whether we have just met someone for the first time, or if we have known them for years. Over the next few days I am going to write more about initiative relational evangelism, but first I would like to hear your thoughts. How can we be relational when we are initiating spiritual conversations with people we don’t know? Can you think of any ways that what we have learned about 3Story as a form of relational evangelism can inform what we do when we are engaging in initiative relational evangelism?
Jim King says
I think it’s difficult to share Jesus or even my life’s story with a stranger. Now if you’re on a long flight sitting by someone for hours then maybe you can get to know someone enough to open up to each other’s stories and share Jesus story. There’s probably a lot more baggage with people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus from lack of Biblical knowledge to a skewed negative view of Christianity. So I would ramp up spending the time necessary to get to know someone so we can share life together. People want to belong and getting them in maybe a small group where relationships can be formed and Bible study can be presented in a non threatening manner. I would be interested in hearing from Adam Wireman who went to the south of France to do eveangelism and how easy or difficult that is since they are more post christian than we. I still believe that sharing Jesus and seeing a person grow happens best in realtionshipw ith other Christ followers.
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Steve Steiner says
I agree with you Train, it can be very difficult to just make conversations happen with strangers. I think it is something that is worth trying to become better at, but it isn’t easy. I also hope eventually that Adam will weigh in on his experience in France here. I look forward to continuing this discussion this week, I plan on addressing some of the things you have brought up already, and I hope to hear more of your thoughts and the thoughts of others as the week progresses.
Karen Steiner says
I think you can talk about Christ with people, even if you do not know them. 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to always be prepared to give an answer to everyone that asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. I mean, this should mean that we are ready to talk to anyone, whether we know them or not. Just today, I ran into a young guy in our apartment complex, who was being friendly, and stopped to talk.I was running an errand, and walked down the street and back for something. On my way back, he stopped to say hi. His name was Ian. He asked me if I lived in the neighborhood, and I told him that Steve and I lived just down the street. It came up in our conversation what Steve and I do. I told Ian, that we worked for Campus Crusade for Christ. Ian asked me if that was why I seemed so nice, and something seemed different about me. I told him it was because I have a relationship with Jesus, and he lives inside me. Ian smiled and said that was very good, and that he hoped to see Steve and I around sometime.
Anyways, I didn’t know Ian. But I stopped to start a conversation with him, and somehow, my faith just came up. You don’t have to know someone very well to talk about the hope that we have in Jesus. It can happen very naturally, if you let it. I may not have presented the Gospel to Ian, but I was able to naturally, in conversation with him, bring up the hope that I have in Christ. God is always giving us opportunities like that, it’s just a matter of us seeing them, and taking the risk to open our mouths and say something.
Steve Steiner says
That’s great to hear Karen. I look forward to seeing Ian around sometime.