How To Evangelize (2) Friendship
Friendship is a very successful method
of evangelism. If you review the first
evangelistic work in the New Testament in John
Why would people listen to a friend or
someone they know?
People don’t talk to strangers, and even when they
talk to strangers they exercise great caution.
However, they are more open with people they are already acquainted
with. Also, friendship
adds trust to the relationship, and gives friends open ears to their friends. Some even suggest that it even gives friends
the right to speak and the right to be listened to.
Friends can talk freely with each other about topics that they
would not usually talk to others about it, and this is the key to
evangelism. In evangelism, you like to
talk about spiritual life and relationship with God. These topics are not easily accepted from a
stranger on a one-to-one conversation.
It would probably be more acceptable from a book, and this is why I recommend giving spiritual books that speak to the
person’s mind and spirit as gifts.
How You Could Evangelize To Your
Friends?
I know some would have many questions and concerns
about evangelizing to their friends. Let
me lay down some good rules:
1-
Love others dearly with a true Christian love and don’t make
friendship that lacks true love just to evangelize.
2-
Let
your behaviors, practical love, and
sacrifices for others speak about your
Christianity before opening your mouth with words about God. As someone put it: ‘Talk as you walk.’
Remember hypocrisy hurts Christianity and prevents others from opening
their hearts to God.
3-
Never
talk about something you did not experience yourself
4-
Before
talking about God and church you need to
experience a good relationship with God and enjoy good spirituality in the
church. At least you should have experienced repentance. You need to convince yourself of God’s way
before you can convince others.
5-
Keep
in mind that being a friend doesn’t mean you forget about your spiritual life
to satisfy your friends. Doing that will
hinder your evangelistic efforts. When
you don’t compromise your spiritual principals,
Christ will shine through your life.
6-
Don’t rush to talk, but rather use the time to pray deeply for the person. Prayers allow God’s light to enlighten the
person’s mind and spirit and open his eyes.
7-
When
you start talking to a friend about God, make it brief, quick,
and watch how comfortable your friend is with your words. You don’t like to offend your friend. In the first
few times just mention God’s name. The
more comfortable your friend is, the more you can give.
8-
Speak as though you’re sharing something with him or her,
but never speak as if you are a person who is better than your friend.
9-
Always be joyful to give your friends a picture of the peace
and joy we have in Christ.
10-Even when they start to listen to you, don’t rush
it. Give
them time to think about what you say, and to let them decide on their own. Never, force them to say something or to do
something they are not convinced of yet.
11- Even when you talk about
their need of salvation, give them respect. Choose the words that will not put them down
or injure them. Learn from the great
examples of our Lord when He talked to the Samaritan
woman. He did not talk about or even refer to her shortcomings
explicitly or implicitly.
12- Use the same language
your friend uses. If he/she
is a scientific person, use science as your vehicle, and if his/her interest is
philosophy use a philosophical approach, and so on.
13- Pray and be prepared. Think about your friend, the best approach
that you can use with him/her, and the best words you can use.
14- Remember, God opens
hearts and not you. There is
time when God will open your friend’s heart.
Don’t expect quick results. Working with individuals could take many
years until their hearts are open. At
the same time there are others who are ready and waiting for anyone to talk to
them about God.
15- However, your job is
similar to the ‘sower’ who Jesus talks about
him in the ‘Parable of the Sower’ in (Matt13:
3-23). Your
daily job is to sow, as someone said, "Evangelize
daily to everyone you meet, and when necessary use words." Some seeds will fall by the
wayside or on stony places or even among thorns. For some
people you will see acceptance in a short time, but for others it might take
them years until they open their hearts to God. Therefore, don’t
look for results, but look for a faithful job you do. The results are in the hands of God. He will bring forth fruits at the right
time. After our Lord spent over three
years in His service, people cried angrily ‘crucify him.’ For people who are looking for results, they
may think that our Lord’s service was fruitless. However, waiting a few days and months after
crucifixion, you will see the spreading of the
16- Concentrate
on your mission. In other
words, don’t waste your time on listening to personal
problems or personal sins that could impact your spiritual life, but
rather quickly bring up God’s love and mercy into the conversation and let the
person see the positive side. However,
that doesn’t suggest that you don’t listen attentively to people with respect
or to be rude in your conversation. The
opposite is true. The more you listen to people, the more they will love you
and love to talk to you,
especially when you encourage them always and give
them hope.
17- Don’t miss an
opportunity to talk about God.
There are certain times when a person needs to have support and when
he/she many questions about life and God.
This is your golden opportunity. This usually happens when a person or a close friend is fighting a dangerous
disease or has experienced a death in the family or a divorce or going through
any disaster. A word of
caution should be mentioned here. Some people react angrily at God when bad
things happen to them. You will see both
attitudes towards God. Some get closer
to God because of tragedy, while with others, the incident drives them
far away from God for years.
18-There are other kinds of happy
opportunities like graduation, marriage, having a baby, or
birthday. Use these opportunities to mention God’s love and mercy and talk about the
need to add spirituality and God to our life.
19- Invite them for a
dinner at home. Home is
usually a more relaxed area and people feel more apt to talk about personal
matters.
20- Continue to show
love, care, and support even when they receive your initial words
about God with coldness or worst with an attack on you.
21-When you feel that your friend opens his/her heart
to God, invite him/her to a Bible study. Don’t rush to invite him/her to attend a
lengthy liturgy. That could
be the last time you will ever see them in the Coptic Church. Bring your
friends to the church after a long preparation or bring them to a short service
only. Let me share with you
one experience that I had. After
printing an article about the Coptic Orthodox Church in a newspaper, I received
calls from a few people. One of them
showed a lot of interest in the church.
He attended a few meetings and was ready to convert to Orthodoxy. I invited him to attend the church when a
bishop visited our church. The service
on that day continued for about five hours.
I never saw the person after that day.
However, since he loved Orthodoxy he joined another Orthodox church
where the liturgy is in English and it is for less than two hours.
22- Give spiritual gifts
to your friends. Although
spiritual books are great, but for some this is too far. In this case, I suggest other gifts that have
mention of God. Remember your service of God is your investment. You serve not only
by devoting time and efforts but also through using your money too. Let me share with you another experience of
using gifts. I saw the ‘Foot Print’
story hanged in a Hindu’s office. When I
asked about it, the person told me that this was a gift from a friend and that
she was touched by the love and care mentioned about God in the story.
Finally, above, I covered important rules that actually don’t apply to friends
only, but in different aspects of God’s service in general and in evangelism in
particular.
Although when working
with friends it may take a longer time to bring just one person or
two to Christ or to the church, it could be a very
attractive way to evangelize,
especially with youth. I will not forget my Indian coworker who
attracted all her friends and classmates to Christianity. They were all Buddhists. She told me that first thing she did and
continued to do was loving them. They loved her to the extent that they could
not turn her down in any request she might ask.
Afterwards, she started to ask each individual to keep her company when
she went to church, and they individually accepted. Little by little they started asking
questions and she answered them. One by
one they went to talk to the priest to ask for baptism.