How often do you share your faith?

[Sharky]

I heard on preacher tape that only 2% of christians share their faith regularly. Which is pretty shocking.

As christians, we must be sharing out faith regularly. Not only because we're christians, but because God commanded us to. Jesus said "go out into the world and preach to every creature." "If you love Me, keep my commandments."

We can't be locked in praise and worship all the time. We got souls to bring to Christ. We gotta share the good news to them and tell them the terrifying consequences of hell on judgement day.

How often do you share your faith? Commonly known as witnessing or evangelising. How many are you going witness to today?




EDIT: from below

Witnessing on this measure is literally talking to someone about Jesus Christ, heaven, hell, judgment day etc. Not just showing (by actions) that you're a christian. So just saying to someone for example "I'm a christian." or bringing them to church, or showing them by your actions, your love for others, basically doing it indirect ways is not evangelising (for this poll )

Evanglising, walking up to someone, stranger, relative or friend and telling them about it. One on one or street preaching etc.

 

[foursquareman]

It depends on how you measure witnessing. Do you mean actually telling people they need to be saved? Do you mean not hiding what you do and bringing these things up in conversation in a non-confronting manner? Do you mean inviting people to church or christian events?

I think the most effective way of evangelising is by just loving people. Eventually they will ask you why.

 

[Sharky]

I think the most effective way of evangelising is by just loving people. Eventually they will ask you why.

Pesonally for me, i don't find it that way. People see it, but they won't usually ask. I've always had to ask them.

 

[thejesusfish90]

lol, nowhere near as much as I would like to...Im a bit of a chicken, but everynow and again I do build up the courage to do so....probably around once every 2 months-but in reality whenever I feel called to, I can talk to my friends about how jesus is important, and I run a group at my school called CIA which is about encourgaing people onwards in their faith, organising outreach events and teaching people the basics of christianity, and the gospel, etc, but I unfortunately have never been able to go so far as to just talk to people out of the blue who you dont really know about jesus...Im a chicken and I admit it

YBIC

Chris

 

[foursquareman]

Pesonally for me, i don't find it that way. People see it, but they won't usually ask. I've always had to ask them.

Fair enough. For me, the people who I actually say, "You know I'm a Christian and God loves you" go "whatever". The people who ask me why I'm always happy, no matter what happens are more receptive. They see something and they want it.

But that's just my experience.

It's like that guy who said "Go and preach the gospel, and if necessary use words".

 

[TheListener]

I heard that said in our Church, WE are to reflect the Gospel.

 

[marduke]

Fair enough. For me, the people who I actually say, "You know I'm a Christian and God loves you" go "whatever". The people who ask me why I'm always happy, no matter what happens are more receptive. They see something and they want it.

But that's just my experience.

It's like that guy who said "Go and preach the gospel, and if necessary use words".

yep i have the same experience. im not a talkative person, so i find it really hard to go up to someone and start talking to them normally let-alone the gospel! lol
i am the same just love people unconditionally and eventually they will wonder "hey why is this person so happy and friendly all the time" and they will want to know so they ask you.

thats my experience.

 

[pokinatcha]

Personally I've always liked this quote as used earlier...
"Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words" - St Francis of Assisi

Which pretty much sums it up for me. The people I've looked up to and who have unknowingly been a mentor to me have been the people who live what they believe and show in their thoughts and actions that they posess something of value to me, that I want to gain for myself. I've never been enlightened by the people who tried to force things upon me.
And let's face it... if someone was advising you on buying the right car, would you prefer talking to a pushy salesman who drives a poorly maintained bomb, or a mechanic who races his restored classic vehicle for a living?
Which of the two would are you more like in sharing your beliefs?

 

[LivingWorship]

I do think that while love in action isn't necessarily the act of "evangelism", the EVANGELISTIC power of it should never be underestimated... I, like 4square and Rob, have found that when I open my mouth and boldly declare the gospel to them - and there is definitely a place for this!! - they turn a blind eye. On the otehr hand, when my workmates and uni friends see the joy in my life and wonder why, this is usually a far easier door to open. This was seen one particular time at work when I was bouncing around the place like I can be known to do, and some girls who've known me for ages finally asked the question, and to summarise, I spent over an hour with these unsaved girls sharing the Word with them, it was awesome and God was all over it.

Another time, I felt led God wanted me to stop in at the church office after uni that day. This in itself wasn't a huge step out of the way and I do it regularly, once a fortnight maybe. So I'm there, but before I went in, I went for a walk. I don't really know what motivated me to do that - well ok it was the Spirit! - but I went, and I noticed how much rubbish was on the streets. I was horrified, and then I thought I heard God say "Pick it up". SO I ran back to church to get the largest garbage bag I could find. The pastors saw me and scratched their heads but stayed silent for the time being. I went round and after only 15 minutes the bag was almost busting with rubbish. I turned into one street and I'm talking to God. "Lord I really sense you're doing something here... please confirm it. Send someone to me..." and that was it. As I went to the end of the street, I turned around and headed for home. At the top of the street a man was walking home with a bottle in hand, he said Hi. I replied "how are you". Man did that open up the floodgates! He then told me his whole life story and how he was a Christian and moved away from God and all... anyhow to end this, he died of a drug OD and then was raised to life again, and then came to our church! Praise God for what He can do with me picking up papers - sucks when you're a musician but hey I just wanna be used!!!! Hope that's encouraged one or two of you

 

[Racheal]

Thats a beautiful story LW... Praise God!!

 

[The_White]

My experience is actually quite bad with trying to tell people.

In my old school i told everyone when I became Christian and they were all like "Damn, now we got one of them Bible Bashers with us" So instead of talking at them which I could see would make them fully hate me and ruin any chance of me ever talking to them again I just tried to act differently and mentioned Christ if a topic of converstaion deserved it (maybe once or twice a term). Despite that I was eventually accused of "Ramming religion down their throats" late year 12. Only about five of them accepted that I wasnt doing that (2 of them were Christian anyway and 2 of them I have known since I was about 5) and only 1 who wasnt Christian was in anyway interested but that was just to say that it was cool but he wasn't interested.

Due to THAT experience it is my view that just opening with "hey, I wanna talk to you about Jesus" is possibly one of the best ways to force people away so I will only mention anything more that "I am a Christian" if someone actually seems to care or if the conversation lends itself to talk about my beliefs anyway.

 

[Bevlina]

Must admit I voted "other way". Have too many testimonies to talk about. Too many things to explain about here.

 

[Sharky]

My experience is actually quite bad with trying to tell people.

In my old school i told everyone when I became Christian and they were all like "Damn, now we got one of them Bible Bashers with us" So instead of talking at them which I could see would make them fully hate me and ruin any chance of me ever talking to them again I just tried to act differently and mentioned Christ if a topic of converstaion deserved it (maybe once or twice a term). Despite that I was eventually accused of "Ramming religion down their throats" late year 12. Only about five of them accepted that I wasnt doing that (2 of them were Christian anyway and 2 of them I have known since I was about 5) and only 1 who wasnt Christian was in anyway interested but that was just to say that it was cool but he wasn't interested.

Due to THAT experience it is my view that just opening with "hey, I wanna talk to you about Jesus" is possibly one of the best ways to force people away so I will only mention anything more that "I am a Christian" if someone actually seems to care or if the conversation lends itself to talk about my beliefs anyway.

9 out of 10 people will reject you. that's what i found. Either they don't care or they get somewhat hateful of you.

Try it with strangers. The best part about being rejected by strangers, is that they don't have to be a friend So if they reject you, you're just like, yeah, big deal. Least chances are i won't see him/her again

 

[jbarcher]

Sharky has great sigs.

As for this Kanatian chipmunk, I'm the young Christian apologist sitting in class with (people say this, I don't) superior logic and a very wide field of study. I actually haven't talked about God's wrath directly. I find that if you state what you believe but don't get a chance to say why, people view that as just another opinion, (and given what Christianity is, a distasteful and unfashionable religion)...my approach is firstly negative (by exposing the flaws in current philosophies), and only when the conscious desire for truth is planted, is the ground good...

 

[The_White]

9 out of 10 people will reject you. that's what i found. Either they don't care or they get somewhat hateful of you.

Try it with strangers. The best part about being rejected by strangers, is that they don't have to be a friend So if they reject you, you're just like, yeah, big deal. Least chances are i won't see him/her again

Yea but 9/10 is not quite the same "everyone I knew bar those who were christians anyway, had known me for 12 years and 1 other"

The thing I find really sad is that because of how they all saw what I was doing most of them will never want to look at any religion ever so my supoosed ramming of it down their throats has turned them right off christianity, which was actually the point of my post (not that they rejected me) and I know that most people hate when Jehovas Witnesess come door knocking and I would imagine that doing that to a stranger would be roughly the same.

 

[Sharky]

Yea but 9/10 is not quite the same "everyone I knew bar those who were christians anyway, had known me for 12 years and 1 other"

The thing I find really sad is that because of how they all saw what I was doing most of them will never want to look at any religion ever so my supoosed ramming of it down their throats has turned them right off christianity, which was actually the point of my post (not that they rejected me) and I know that most people hate when Jehovas Witnesess come door knocking and I would imagine that doing that to a stranger would be roughly the same.

Door knocking is scary. Mormons sometimes come to my house to evangelise to my house. This happened at night which is often freaky enough.

 

[The_White]

We had Jehoves at our place once.
That house is half an hour away from the nearest big town
down a dirt driveway
and cannot be seen from the road.

Gotta admire the determination of those people

 

[Bevlina]

OOOOO Don't mention the mormon's and Jehovah's Witnesses....especially the mormon's.....

But you have to admire their determination. But, the problem is, they tend to try to convert people into an established religion.

Sharing the truth with folk is a different matter really don't you think?

 

[The_White]

Yea. The kind of way I share with people is things like...

I was down the street buying some stuff from the general store and the owner (who has seen me there a few times) asked me if I had far to carry the stuff. I said "no, just up the hill to the college" and he went "Oh, are you christian?"
discussion followed

 

[Sharky]

LOL BEV!

Sorry i just had to. We won't mention them

It's weird, i'm not sure how they think but older people get offended. In fact, i haven't come across one who wanted to listen, except christians One nice lady was at a train station, she's a christian but when she found out i was witnessing to her she was like "Woah! you're not a pastor. Wow you witness to peopel is good." Pretty encouraging