When it comes to sharing your faith, most of us hesitate. It is not because we don’t love our life or being a disciple of Jesus. Usually, it falls into one of three categories.
We just get busy. I mean, life happens. Most of us have no margin in our day to consider how we could share our faith. We hit the ground running in the morning getting kids ready for school with breakfast and sack lunches. After we drop them at school, we go to work and put in a full 8-hour day. Most of the time we don’t finish our work so we take it home with us. Once the kids get home, there’s homework, dinner, soccer practice. By the end of the day, we collapse into bed only to do it all again the next day.
Another is, we don’t want to be known as the weird Jesus-freak. I call them megaphone man. You see them on street corners with a megaphone calling down hate and judgment on people who don’t look like them. We just don’t want to be viewed as weird. I get that.
Finally, we don’t think we know enough about our faith. We think, “If I knew more about Jesus and my faith, I’d share more with the folks I interact with everyday.” But Paul’s prayer in Philemon 1:4-6 would indicate the opposite is true. He says that we share our faith in order to have a deeper understanding of who Jesus is to us.
With that in mind, I want to give you four ways to share your faith that you can do easily…yes, you! All of these ideas are loosely based on biblical stories from our New Testament.
You can be loving but direct. Peter used this approach in Acts 2 when we preached his sermon on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. He told the crowd the good news about Jesus and that they, the Jews, had killed the Messiah. He invited them into a relationship with Jesus. All they needed to do was change and allow Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. Now, you can’t have this voice all the time because then you simply turn into megaphone man and you’ll loose your voice.
A second way to share your faith is just to share YOUR story. How did you come Jesus? What did he do for you? You have stories of recovered health, broken addictions and healed relationships. You are a better spouse and parent because of Jesus. You have a more purposeful life because of the Risen Savior.
Third, you can invite people to church. Now, the church is more than just the four walls. There are lots of ways you can let people know about the family of believers you live life with and invite them to come and see how you do life together. Most churches have events like a trunk or treat or a Christmas event you can invite folks to. If you have an online presence on Sunday morning, invite them to check out the livestream before coming to an in-person service.
Finally, you can live a life others want. We all have chaos going on in our life. Whether it’s the loss of a family member, loss of job, dealing with cancer or the effects of COVID, the world is watching to see how Jesus-followers react. When you show joy and peace in your life no matter what is going on, the people around you notice. And they want what you have. It’s your opportunity to let them know, Jesus is the reason you have that joy, peace, and love in your life.
COVID has made it easy for us to sit back and blame the virus for not being active. But it is time we rekindle the fire and discover new ways to share our faith. You can do this with the power of the Holy Spirit living in you. Blessings on the journey.