How To Go Deeper In Your Personal Evangelism

“You’re on mute!”, “Sorry, you keep cutting out. Can you say that again?” 

If it were possible to record the most used sentences this year, those phrases would be near the top, along with “I miss you,” and “Hopefully this will be over soon.” 

Life is extremely different from what it looked like a year ago; no one would have been able to predict that this is the situation we would be in.  

Maintaining and growing strong relationships has never been harder with broken communication and social distancing. Churches have had to think carefully about how they continue to reach local communities and individuals have also had to think creatively in order to reach those around them.

Below are some ways to help you go deeper relationally with people you are trying to share the love of Christ with.

Be Intentional With Conversations | During zoom calls, make an effort to talk about other things other than the activity or just themselves. Talk about a funny experience you’ve had that week or something relatable that can ease that tension slightly and allow relationships to become stronger over common interest or experience. 

Furthermore, the pandemic has given us more permission to talk about spiritual things. Loneliness has affected all of us and death is no longer the taboo subject that it was. Sam Chan, author of ‘Evangelism in a Skeptical World' uses the example of an onion. In normal circumstances, we sit comfortably in the first layer of the onion, which is talking about our interests. This includes weather, what we did at the weekend, what we’re watching on Netflix but during COVID-19, these things have been hugely affected resulting in it being much easier to get to the next layer: values and emotions. This is the layer where people start to talk about their opinions, fears, and other emotions. This means there are now more opportunities to get to the core of the onion, the center of what someone thinks: their worldview. This is where people will start to talk about what their hopes are, what they believe about purpose and is where we can share freely about Jesus.

Do What You Can In-Person | Invite them for socially-distanced walks, they are a great way to have open conversations and can even be less intense than a coffee date because you are both distracted and not only looking at each other over a coffee table. If your church is running services in person, meet outside and sit near each other during the service. It will also allow people who are new to the church to see that online church is not a replacement for the in-person fellowship. 

Get Them Involved in Church | Make sure they are getting involved in other church activities and meeting other members of the church. Are there regular zoom meetings you can invite them too? This will also help to widen the burden as we know that lots of zoom meetings are draining. It will also help them to have a taste of church fellowship.

Going Deeper | The ‘What is Christianity?’ video tells the story of Jesus from the Bible in two minutes. It is designed to take conversations deeper, beyond faith in general towards the person of Jesus in particular. It invites viewers to answer the question Jesus asked, "Who do you say I am?" opening up a conversation about the identity and work of Jesus.

If you find someone who shows interest and is open to discussion, why not invite them to go through the Christianity Explored Bible plan on YouVersion? It was created to help you open up Scripture during a time of distance and is a helpful resource to use 1-1 with someone by showing Jesus’ life and work in the gospel of Mark.