Holidays are a good time to have a great conversation, especially holidays focused on Christ. We put together a PDF that has Easter-related activities for you to invite people to do with you. We know that sometimes starting specific conversations can be a challenge. An Easter activity might make it a little easier to discuss things related to Jesus and his resurrection from the cross. Once you’ve invited people over, you can use the fun facts or questions to start the conversation.
Transcript:
Hi, my name is Jack. Why do you budget your money? This is a question that I got from one of my coworkers. For context, I work for a cancer research hospital in the United States. My co-workers and I, most of whom are surgeons, are constantly faced with the answers to our research, sometimes meaning the difference between life or death for our patients.
And so naturally, I thought that conversation or spiritual conversation with my coworkers would revolve around this context. So I was a little surprised when Jesus was prompting me to provide a spiritual answer to a seemingly simple question about budgeting from my coworker. Up to this point, we’ve been discussing the high financial costs of medical training in the United States. When asked why I budget, I sensed an opportunity from God to share how he has changed my life as well as my perspectives, including those on money. So I began my answer about how I started following Jesus as a freshman in college.
My coworker slowly leaned in, an inquisitive look on their face, clearly wondering how I would connect this back to money. I continued, Jesus talks more about money than almost any other topic in the Bible. Previously, I saw money as a resource to get what I wanted. However, whenever I started reading the Bible, money wasn’t described as a resource to be owned or hoarded. Rather, it was a resource given to us by God to be borrowed for his purposes here on this earth.
And so now the reason that I budget is so I can give generously to others, recognizing that I have been a recipient of the generous giving that God has done in my life. Slowly, the conversation switched over and kind of died out. But before the end of the day, my coworker grabbed me and said, “I didn’t realize that Jesus talked about things that really matter in our lives today.” I thought back to myself laughing about how I originally thought a spiritual conversation between my coworkers and I would go. Instead, I knew in this moment that he used this conversation to plant a seed of curiosity about him in my coworker’s mind.
I was also reminded at this point that God can use any person, in any situation, in any conversation as a way to share the gospel to those who desperately need it.
I truly desire to have meaningful conversations about faith with others, especially at times like Christmas and Easter, when spiritual conversations are easier to bring up. Before I try to have a meaningful conversation, I find myself engaging in a personal routine that begins with prayer for the person, inviting others to pray with me, and finding the courage to initiate a conversation. After this routine, my hopes are high, so when that person rejects the gospel or my invitation for discussion, the last thing I feel is joy or peace.
I imagine I am not the only person in this situation. Like me, you might have experienced disappointment with unmet expectations or the feeling that your effort was a waste. Perhaps you haven’t experienced that disappointment yet, but what if you do?
When you’ve prayed and had a conversation with a loved one or someone you have compassion for, you have taken steps to care for them. Therefore, it’s understandable to feel sad when you discover they don’t share in your joy for the Savior.
In these moments, what helps me is remembering Jesus is the Savior, not me. Jesus is alive and seated on his heavenly throne, and Jesus loves this person more than you possibly could. When you pray for others and start conversations with them about Jesus and faith in him, you are being faithful to God. Isaiah 52:7 (New International Version) says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” It’s your job to speak the good news; it’s God’s job to change hearts.
Even when others reject Jesus in conversations, it is up to God to work in their lives. God might use you to have more spiritual conversations in the future, to study the Bible with that person, if they’re willing, or to simply pray for them. But only God can transform the person’s spirit, and no one is better equipped to perform such work than Him. While God is working, you can continue as his ambassador with friendship, kindness and displays of Jesus’ love.
Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross is the most powerful demonstration of love, and it means God cares even more than you do. So when spiritual conversations don’t go as you hoped and you feel disappointment, rejoice because although they rejected him, God is still able to work in the person’s life. Therefore, rejoice, be at peace, and don’t stop praying and loving because God is working.
Transcript:
Hey, I’m Samm, and I work in full-time ministry, which means sometimes people hold me to a higher standard to live out the Bible perfectly. Well, I want to tell you about a time when I had the opportunity to hold the doors to God’s kingdom wide open for someone, and I didn’t.
I moved to the Middle East for a year in college to study abroad, and I had the desire to share the gospel with other students on campus. So in between classes, I found ways to have these spiritual conversations using a pack of pictures. I found that when people could answer questions with photos, not only would they answer more honestly, but they would share a lot more than without them.
I once sat down at a table with two guys and a girl just started chatting, and I asked them if I could talk with them about spiritual things using these photos, and they were totally open to talking about it. And so after a few minutes, only one of the guys really seemed engaged in the conversation still. And so I asked what his relationship was like with God or his view of God was like. And he shared that while he grew up in a home that practiced a different religion, he went to a private Christian school, which I was surprised by, but he told me that wasn’t really uncommon for the city he lived in. He said, “There’s this little boy in my kindergarten class who prayed to God like he was real, like he had a real relationship with him.”
Then he said, “I wish somebody would tell me how I could have a relationship with God like that.” I was shocked. Like, when you think about sharing the gospel, this is what you hope for. I was nervous that the other two who weren’t really listening to the conversation anymore would take away from me sharing the gospel if I started right then.
I wanted to share the good news of Jesus with him. So I asked like, “Hey, would you want to get together later this week?” And he was like, “Sure.” When we left the conversation, I prayed that I would see him again so that I could share with him. And I actually only saw him two other times, and both times he was literally running off to class.
And so I was so disappointed in myself for not taking the opportunity that God clearly gave me. I’ll never forget him. I wish I had trusted the Holy Spirit to speak through me, risked getting interrupted and actually share the gospel. Sometimes you aren’t going to do it right. And thankfully, God isn’t surprised when we mess up.
And he’s so kind to continue to give us chances and opportunities. So don’t let failure stop you from trying to share again.
Transcript:
What’s going on? My name is Carlos, and I’ll be sharing a story with you of how God reminded me of his faithfulness and his pursuit for his people. Even when we disregard him, he still pursues us and he’s still faithful. And it reminded me how I need to continue to pursue and be faithful to others. See, I’ve been inviting three guys to come over to my house for dinner and Bible study.
And in one day in particular, AP was the only one who was able to make it. Now he’s actually the most stubborn one, but yet the most transparent one of the whole group. It was me and my wife. And he started sharing things that was news to my wife. Gang banging, demonic dreams, drug dealing, fighting, all of that. More and more.
The only thing that was new to me was when he started saying how he started dabbling with voodoo and witchcraft. I’ve shared with AP in the past that a lot of the things that he’s been doing has been allowing either the presence of evil and darkness to come into his life. And as he starts growing and maturing, he started seeing that for himself. So he’s trying to figure out where he could find peace.
And I’ve given him a resource. I’ve given him the understanding of where the true peace can be found, and yet he has not accepted that yet, and he has not found his encounter with God. I still believe God has something for him. I still believe God is going to use AP in his life whenever that happens.
And this allows me to know that God has not given up on him and I know I should not give up on AP. You see, it takes me back to when I was questioning my faith. I was trying to understand what does this look like? What is my relationship with Jesus? Am I even a Christian?
As I started giving up on myself as a follower of Jesus, I knew God was not giving up on me and he gave me the eyes to see that. I assume Christianity is all of what the Christianity of America is versus what the Christianity of Jesus Christ is. And so that gave me more hope to allow me to find my identity in Jesus Christ alone. I say all this to say this, if it wasn’t for what God has done for me in my life, I wouldn’t have been inviting AP into my home and I wouldn’t have been finding in the Bible how Jesus demonstrates true discipleship, therefore allowing me to invite AP into my home and into my life. And so as God continues to pursue me, I know God is continuing to invite me to pursue AP, even when things aren’t as ideal as I want them to be.
Transcript:
Hi, my name is Sarah, and I want to share a story with you about my previous student, Bri, who I’ve had the privilege to stay in touch with for the last couple years since she graduated from high school.
One day Bri and I were out to dinner, and she brought up a pretty heavy conversation topic. For context, I work on a Native American reservation, and only about 3% of Native Americans are evangelical Christians. This is largely because of what’s called colonization and the way the U.S. government historically abused Native peoples — especially through the use of physically and emotionally abusive boarding schools. A lot of these schools even continued until the mid-1900s, and the trauma that followed still affects Native Americans largely today through very high numbers of poverty, addiction, unemployment and homelessness.
Bri knew that I was a Christian, and at dinner that night she told me that she couldn’t understand how people could be Christians when they had done such horrible things. She told me she’d recently learned a new term — “generational trauma.” And she was starting to see how these horrible events of the past were affecting her present and the current hardships in her life.
It made a lot of sense to me that she felt the way that she did. It was a very real moment, and I was honored to have built enough trust with her to have a conversation like this.
I told her that the Jesus that was spread through colonization isn’t the real Jesus at all, that [the real] Jesus loves diversity, and that “every tribe and people and language” will worship him, like it says in Revelation 7:9. The real Jesus does not want cultures and languages to disappear.
Something clicked for Bri that day. And about a year later, she was softened enough to the gospel to want to get to know Jesus more intimately through reading his Word. We’ve been studying through the Bible together since this past spring and are reading John 13 this coming week! She is eager to get to know the real God of the Bible.
What I think is most important about all of this is that this kind of stuff happens as a result of building a genuine friendship or mentorship with someone, as well as having a willingness to invite deep and real conversation. Many people do want to know the real Jesus. We just have to be willing to take steps of faith to talk about him with the people in our lives.
Hi, I’m Nathan. I remember some years ago I was reading in the book of Matthew, where Jesus said that the harvest was plentiful but the laborers were few.*
And I remember thinking that I wanted to be a laborer too. But I never really quite took it to heart. Would God actually use someone like me to share the gospel? Well apparently, yes, he can and he would.
I was just meeting with a friend — his name is Aiden. And I felt like God was prodding on my heart to share the gospel with him even though I knew he had class pretty soon. And so, I decided to take a step of faith and asked Aiden, “Aiden, on a scale of 0 to 100%, how certain are you that you would get into heaven right now?”
And Aiden took a second and just contemplated on what I’d asked him. And I remember he responded, like, “Honestly, I’m not that sure.”
I mean, Aiden’s a lot like other students here at my university. Some can drop 20 verses of Scripture at the drop of a hat, just out of memory. While others don’t know anything at all. Aiden is a lot like others where he’s just kind of in the middle, in between. He’d grown up in church but never really took the time to consider where his eternal destination might lie.
And so that gave me a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with him and explain who Jesus was. And I asked him if he wanted to place his faith in Christ’s death and resurrection and if he wanted to have a relationship with God. And Aiden said yes!
And so it’s crazy for me to think back about how Jesus really did promise that the harvest was plentiful and that God really can use someone like me to lead someone to himself. All it really takes is one single step of faith.
*Matthew 9:37-38 — The “harvest” represents people who are ready to say yes to Jesus and “laborers” are those who are ready to go tell others about Jesus.
Has anyone ever been truly curious about you as a person? If so, did it make you feel cared for when they asked you questions that showed interest in who you are?
Curious people have a learner’s mindset. They want to learn about others. When you desire to talk with people about faith, it’s helpful to first focus on learning about them. A learner’s mindset, in dependence on God, helps you to have effective spiritual conversations as you grow in understanding about the other person.
So here are three things you can do to develop a learner’s mindset and become a person who is curious about others.
Start by asking God to give you a desire to see people the way that he sees them. Jesus deeply cares about the people you interact with on a daily basis. Every person is valuable to him. It’s good to remind yourself that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4, English Standard Version).
Pray that God will give you love for others and that you would reflect God’s character to the people around you. Pray specifically for guidance with what questions to ask people in conversation as you seek to learn about them.
Also ask God to give you boldness, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to show the person intentional care. Ed Welch, in his book “Caring for One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships,” explains an important truth about this way of relating to people.
“So we move toward others. The extroverts among us seem to make it look easy. The more shy might be intimidated by the potential awkwardness or silence. But loving pursuit is neither easy nor natural to anyone. All of us need both humility and help from Scripture in order to navigate the early stages of a helpful conversation.”
Yet as you “lovingly pursue” people through being curious about them, keep in mind one thing that kills curiosity: assumptions.
Another way to gain more of a learner’s mindset is to recognize and turn away from assumptions you might have about people. Assumptions can prevent your personal relationship with someone from going to a deeper level.
For example, let’s say you assume that a person you work with does not want to talk about spiritual things. In that case, you might not bring up spiritual things in your conversation. The problem though is that your assumption is causing you to miss the opportunity to hear about their thoughts on Christianity.
Think through what you’ve assumed about people in your life. Then seek to learn what is really true. Ask them about a topic that you think you already know their thoughts on, like if anyone they know goes to a church and what they think about that.
It might feel easy to put people in stereotype boxes. Maybe you’ve placed someone in a category based on their political views or their hobbies. Seek to break down those boxes and see people as complex instead of just a stereotype. A simple question to start could be, “What is something that people don’t often know about you?”
Along with letting go of stereotypes, trust God to work in the person’s life. You might be surprised at how he is drawing them into a relationship with him. Ask God to show you how he is at work in that person’s life.
And as you do away with assumptions and begin to see the person for who they are, continue with curiosity. Seek to put the puzzle pieces together and understand their spiritual journey and life story as a whole.
Everyone is on a spiritual journey. Each person you interact with has a story and a spiritual background. This might be easy to think about in your own life. You had a journey to come to faith and you continue to experience change and growth in your spiritual life.
Seek to uncover and put together the pieces of another person’s story. Discover the who, what, when, where and why of their life. Ask about their family, major life events, career choices, places they’ve lived and their reasons for thinking the way they do about certain topics.
When you’re in a conversation, listen carefully to the person’s answers. And remember, your conversations don’t need to look a certain way or like you imagined they would before you started.
Take a step of faith to ask another question, and then another one. Through your curiosity, you can discover more about the person, leading to deeper spiritual conversations in the future.
Who knows you better than your friends and family? Sometimes that’s fun and sometimes that’s awkward. But as well as they may know you, do they know the details of what you believe about spiritual things? And do you actually know what they believe about God?
It could be that you’ve never asked what your aunt thinks about Jesus. Or maybe you asked her five years ago how her spiritual background shaped her current beliefs. Sadly, her answer made it obvious she wasn’t interested in talking about God. So in your mind you put her in the “not interested in God” box and there she’s stayed.
But did you know that what a person believes can change over time? It might be a subtle change or it might be a huge shift. Just look at your own life.
Pastor and author A.W. Tozer said, “What you believe about God is the most important thing about you.” This is true, whether you live like he doesn’t exist, believe he’s a tyrannical God waiting to punish you when you mess up, or think he’s a loving God overflowing with grace and mercy.
A number of factors have shaped, and are still shaping, your beliefs. For instance, the environment you grew up in, the government you live under, the culture that surrounds you, and the amount of time you spend online or with neighbors, friends or mentors.
Your family culture also affects what amount of brokenness you’ve been exposed to. The world is full of evil and sin. And the brokenness that saturates every area of life affects you to some degree, shaping what you believe about God — if he is real, good or just plain mean.
As you grow up and have new experiences, there will always be something or someone that can change your beliefs and perspectives. Whether you know it or not you are growing and learning on a daily basis as you interact with the world around you. One person, podcast, image, story, conversation or experience can change the way you think about everything, including about the spiritual side of life.
Take a moment to reflect on the different stages of your life and how you thought about God in each of those times.
Then think about how, if your beliefs can change, so can the beliefs of those closest to you.
When you think about how you’ve changed, it can remind you just how much someone else could have also changed, even in a short amount of time. Staying curious about your own beliefs, especially as they develop, will help you be curious about the lifelong faith development of your family and friends.
But what are some ways you can find out what they actually believe about God? Here are three things to try:
As you try to find out what your friends and family truly believe about God, remember that their faith development is a lifelong process. Everyone is on a spiritual journey and you never know where that journey has taken someone. Yesterday may have been the day they totally changed their mind about God.
Learning what your friends and family believe can help you talk with them about the good news in a way that makes sense to them. So stay curious. Then let the gospel shine into the dark places of sin and brokenness in their lives where its light has not yet reached.
Transcript:
Hi, I’m Mario. Six months ago one of the guys at the gym approached me and asked me to spot him while he did squats. We started talking, shared our names and what we do for work.
When I mentioned that I make videos about Jesus, he was very interested to know more about why I do this. So I shared my testimony with him. It turned out that he was so thirsty to know more about God because he was going through a hard period in his life.
Our conversation was very smooth and natural, as I shared about how the Bible had impacted my life when I started reading it and keeping my focus on Jesus and his promises. He was so encouraged by what I shared because we had been through very similar challenges in our lives.
He was interested in reading the Bible as this is something he always wanted to commit to, but he didn’t know how to start and where to start.
I showed him the Bible app on his phone and asked him to start reading from [the Gospel of] John and let him know that I will help him with any question he may have or any part that he didn’t understand.
Since that day we have formed a strong friendship where we talk about God all the time. He’s had all sorts of questions about the Christian faith. He would send me screenshots over WhatsApp of different passages of the Bible that he couldn’t understand. I would then send him different videos that I made that answered some of his questions and, of course, discuss these things together.
He was very committed since day one. And after a little while his life began to transform. He started to experience God’s love, joy and peace and decided to get baptized.
He even started to share his faith with his friends and family. We now meet almost every Saturday with one of his best friends for spiritual conversations.
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