Transcript
Sharing the gospel with your neighbor is not about making self-righteous lectures to disinterested sinners who have no idea why I'm talking to them about the thing I'm talking to them and are rather interested in getting away from this awkward, ideological moment where they feel buttonholed. You know, be a person. Love people. Be interested in people.
Evangelism Is Questions, Not Statements
Here's what I want to say to you. I think one of the most powerful means of evangelism is not statements, it's questions. Care about people. Care about their lives. Care about what they're doing. Ask good questions, questions probably better than they've recently asked themselves.
I'm convinced that insightful people are not just the people with the right answers, but the people with the right questions because you don't get to the right answers unless you have the right questions. And what will happen is, as you are now allowing a person to tell their story, my experience is people love to tell their story. They love to have somebody who will listen to their story. That's already the move of God's grace. God cares about our story and you're representing that care, but as you're getting people to tell their story, listen for entry gates. It's just a way of thinking about how to advance that conversation.
What's an entry gate? It's something that gives me an opportunity to talk about this message of hope and new life. If you listen, every person's story will give you entry gates. Maybe in their story is a moment of rejection. Maybe their story is a struggle with depression. Maybe in their story is family chaos. Maybe their story is the fact that they have just given up on the church or they don't think that religion has anything to do with everyday life. Always, there's something for you to grab a hold of.
Now, here's what's happening. You're now talking of something that interests them or they wouldn't have mentioned it. Rather than just talking about what interests you -- and they're not interested at all -- how about finding what interests them and using that as a means to begin to talk about the beautiful message that's been entrusted to you? Listen, in every conversation, there are entry gates. Their entry gates are always there. The question is will you listen long enough and loving enough to find them? And when you find them, what will you do with them?
