This post is part two, to read part one of why we don’t share our faith, and find the first four reasons, click here.

5. We don’t know how to tell our story or the story. There is this gap between the understanding we have in our hearts and being able to tell it. Some people are just gifted in sharing their faith, so much so that one of the gifts we see God gives that is foundational for building up the church is Evangelism (which is just telling the good news about Jesus Ephesians 4:1-13). The role for these gifted evangelists isn’t to do all the evangelism for the church so we can put our feet up and relax, but to share their passion and equip others so that all would share in the work. While some may take the lead, we can all grow in our ability to tall the story, in fact we wrote awhile blog post on how to share your story which can give you some. practical advice. This is also why we have an evangelism team that looks for people to pray for and share their faith with in the Fall and Spring, block by block. Before we even hit the streets we help people write down their story in 2 minutes, and then we have them share that story with each other, before they share it with others who may not believe.

6. We don’t put in the reps.  Nobody will just be instantly great at evangelism, we need to put in the reps! I remember a talk by JP Moreland who was talking about the odd way that Christians misunderstand surrender. We view surrender in a hyper emotional, and spiritual way, that actually causes us to shortcut the growth that God is willing to bring into our lives. For example people come up to the altar, lay prostrate before the Church crying out to God, I’m done doing it my way! But come Monday, they are straight back. to doing it their way. Imagine Tiger Woods offered to train you to play golf, but you had to let him lead. He gave you specific times he would meet with you. You need to take that opportunity if you want to learn to play golf. Imagine how crazy I would be to fall down before Tiger Woods and proclaim. and declare your willingness to learn, but then to skip out on 2 of the 3 times that week he offered to train you.

God’s people gather and provide training, and even beyond the local church there are endless resources, not just for evangelism but every other area of life. If you want to learn how to evangelize (or pray or anything else), you need practice. You need to find people who love to share their faith and let their passion rub off on you. We all have limits and it may not be the season for you to focus on evangelism, but there is something God wants you to focus on, there’s something He wants you to take responsibility to grow in right now.

7. We don’t understand the role of the spirit. The Father’s heart is unbelievably generous.  We take risks, and we offer it to Him and the Spirit takes our words and uses the foolishness of preaching to save souls. Every time God actually shows up and saves someone it’s so obvious God showed up. Conversion is the greatest miracle we can imagine on this side of heaven. Giving a word to someone that only God could have revealed to you is great, praying and seeing the sick healed is amazing. But Conversion is when God comes and lives inside of someone so who they are as a person changes, the things they use to love, they now hate, and the things they use to hate they now love. They had no interest in God, in Church, in reading His bible and now they find LIFE in those things.

So we need His spirit to share the faith with power. This causes us to share in a very different way than we otherwise would. We don’t share as if all the pressure is on us, or if we are just smart and cunning enough we can pressure someone into believing what we are saying. We can rest in the fact that God constantly uses our foolish, incomplete, explanations, and uses them to convict and lead people to Himself. His Spirit power free’s us from anxiety thinking it’s all up to use but it also frees us from judgementalism, because know that God has to turn the light on in the eyes of those whom are still yet to be born again. One of the funnest parts of being a Christian is learning to follow His leading. When you are in step with His spirit, there may be a questions you would never of thought to ask, or a sudden change of topic, or a need to stay on something that someone may see resistant on that is going to lead them to life. If we are faithful to Him, taking risks for Him, we can trust His promise in Luke 12:12 “The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need them.”

8. We are following the 11th commandment…  If the primary reason we don’t share our faith is our rocky relationship with have with God, I think the second greatest reason, we don’t share our faith is fear. We just don’t want to look bad. Sam Storm often talks about how Christians can have an 11th command, an extra command added onto the big ten found in the Bible. That command is “thou shall not do anything, you see others doing badly.” If someone on TV is ‘profiLYING” instead of prophesying, we start to hate that ministry. If someone is selling pillows so you could have dreams, or clothes to heal your body, we start to hate the ministry of healing. He reminds us that whatever bad taste we have about spiritual gifts don’t come from an honest reading of the Bible, but from the abuses we see around us.

The same thing is at work with evangelism. We’ve seen unloving, unthoughtful, attempts at evangelism that seem to leave more of a bad taste in peoples mouth than actually bring people closer to God. We can begin to think that evangelism only pushes people away from God, and give up on creatively and lovingly seek to share the hope we have within us, with all gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15) But we also just have thin skin, and we don’t want to rock the boat at all, and the problem is, that even when we share our faith, in the most loving and wise way, it’s going to rub people the wrong way! We aren’t just afraid cause we are embraced how others have evangelized poorly, we are just afraid of rejection at all. We can’t be.

When I was a new Christian, I struggled with this a lot. We would go out and share our faith at the mall, and I just knew there was something insincere about how we were taught to do it. Telling people that God loves the and so do we. But then I was convicted that I may not know these people, but I can love them because God loves them, but besides all that, I LOVE GOD ENOUGH, to talk about Him with anyone. What I have found over the years is that people who have been taught to share their faith, gain a skill that is absolutely vital and life giving. They are not afraid of hard conversations, they are not terrified of rejection. These same people make great small group leaders, and deacons and preachers, cause they are able to take skill and speak the truth in love in 100 other ways. They are not terrified to call a brother or sister out drowning in an addiction to pornography or anything else, in a way that leads to life because they have learned to love God tough to speak the truth and get out of the way. Yes they are use to some rejection and realize they are not rejecting them but Jesus, but they are also use to seeing the SPIRIT MOVE, and seeing God use their words and the risks they took, to bring life, light and salvation!