Witness 04: Share the Good News
This is the entire (I hope without too many mistakes) script from this video:
You’re listening to the rule of life podcast from practicing the way. In each season, we explore an ancient practice from the way of Jesus and its relevance for the modern era. This is season 9 witness.
Welcome back to our fourth and final episode of the Rule of Life podcast, season 9. Here we are. We have covered some ground. Last episode of the last season. Wow. See, I got to drink that in for a moment. Yes. Dang. Okay. So, we’ve covered lots so far. We started at the beginning, episode one, talking about the practice of witness beginning with love. Yes.
And then the role of hospitality and how it has the power to build bridges um to other people as we engage them in this practice. And then last week we talked about the role of the Holy Spirit, partnering with the Holy Spirit in three-way listening. And today it brings us to this simple but for some intimidating invitation of sharing the good news of Jesus not just with our actions and our lives but with our words. And so and we need to hear that particular those like me that are more fearful or quiet. We need to hear this is about totally words not just deeds and John Mark I’ve heard you talk about how there’s two key parts to this practice of witness. One is to live a compelling beautiful life that’s shaped by the gospel and the other part is to actually share the gospel with our world. The gospel is good news. It is an announcement of the king. So talk to us about why we need both.
There are few things that are more compelling than when you come across someone who is not just offering a beautiful message but is living a beautiful life. True. And is living with an integrity. Those people you know that are exactly the same. Yes. On stage and off stage, so to speak, in every room, who are deeply at home in their body and living a compelling, beautiful man, that is that is a really stunning and rare experience. The opposite is horrible, you know. So whether it’s like the preacher who’s railing against liberals in his sermons while secretly like having multiple affairs or Harvey Weinstein up, you know, advocating for women’s rights, you know, weeks before he’s outed. We are so rightly turned off by that level of hypocrisy and it just it does damage. The opposite is true. So the opposite of hypocrisy is beauty where people just living this beautiful integrated life and those are the kind of people we want to be and we’re all in process and so sometimes that just begins with just humility and honesty but those are the kinds of people we want to become through following Jesus over a long period of time.
And so then talk to me about what happens when we emphasize one without the other. So if you are someone who you’re living a beautiful life, but maybe you’re not flexing the muscle of like actually sharing the good news of Jesus, what would you say to that?
Yeah. Well, you’re not going to experience first off the joy that Jesus has for you. And because there’s so much joy that comes on the other side of this practice, you know, we quote Frank Labbach at some point in the teaching series who was a missionary to the Philippines. Actually, a brilliant kind of real foundational thinker for a lot of different people and he has this wonderful line where, you know, in order to possess God, I must give him away. Yes. And it’s like there’s this secret law of the kingdom that you only get to experience what passes through you. the what you give away. You only get to keep what you give away. And so if you want to keep God in your mind, if you want to in context what he was writing about practice the presence of God, you have to give God away. You have to talk about God and share God and bless others with God. And so the more we do that, the more we just come alive in the spirit of God. It is deeply energizing to our faith. I will often notice when I get numb or apathetic or tired or fatigued, if I will have an experience of telling somebody about Jesus who’s not a Christian, not a follower of Jesus, I will just feel this like life and vitality and energy come into my inner man. It’s like inexplicable. So, you are missing out on that. And your friends and family members, people you love or pass on the street are missing out on what we take for granted, life with God. And so, man, we just absolutely have to people are not just going to figure out the message of Jesus and the kingdom of God and how it all works by just you being a nice neighbor and mowing a lawn occasionally or dropping off food at your local food pantry. Those are all really good things to do. But at some point, the gospel is a verbal announcement. And it is a message and it has to come through a whole life and through words and through deeds and through proclamation and demonstration. But it is a announcement that Jesus is king and that has to come through your life.
Yes. That’s so good. I found that to be so true that bit that you were talking about. The more I actually give this away, the more alive it is in my own life. And I don’t think that’s something that we talk about enough, but I’ve found just in the last few months of trying to put this into practice more and more of how true that really is. And there is a profound joy that you experience as you lean into it. I love that.
Yeah. In fact, if you pay attention to people that are strong in this discipline, yeah, I’m weak in it. They tend to be really joyful people. Beautiful. really rare to meet, you know, what we would call quote an evangelist who’s just like telling people about Jesus and walking people into the kingdom of God and have them be really like morose and depressive and anxious. Just really rare. Most of those people are really joyful. That is not a coincidence.
You know, one of the things I feel aware of is how many of us have been formed in a culture that socializes us to stay quiet about our faith to make it a private thing. Yes. And so I’m wondering if you could just talk to us about how we can begin to push back against that impulse to stay silent about our faith.
Yeah. You know, like when you walk into a restaurant or a room and it’s really quiet and you’re kind of talking loudly and nobody says anything to you, but the whole room kind of glares at you. That feeling of, oh, I’m I need to be quiet. I think that’s like the emotional feeling of being a Christian in the post-Christian West. Even if nothing is like nobody has ever come up to me and said Christians need to never talk about their faith ever in the public square and if you do you are bad but yet that is a thousand% the like implicit feeling I get of being a follower of Jesus at least in a coastal city and a very secular part of the world. So, what I like to remind myself when I’m feeling that kind of bristling hostility in the air is just that everybody is preaching a gospel. M whether it’s the gospel of Jesus and the coming of the kingdom of God or the gospel of third wave anti-racism or all things LGBTQ or capitalism or socialism or MAGA or this or that or health and wellness or psychedelics or cold plunging like or veganism everybody is preaching the gospel. Everybody’s is offering a message of where they think hope is to be found. Where we can become part of a community and find belonging, meaning and purpose, how we know if we are a good person or a bad person. How do we know if we’re in or if we’re out? Like everybody’s offering a message and it’s not all bad. Like we naturally as human beings spread the word about things that we love. True. If that’s like right now I’m listening to the new Bahamas record and I’m just like texting it to all my friends. You got to listen to this. You got to listen to that. If there’s a new restaurant or a coffee shop we love or a it can be anything at all. My sister just on a little break a minute ago was texting me a podcast link to this. She’s like, “I’m texting all parents of teenagers I know. You need to listen to this podcast.” And so that’s what we naturally do. We’re we’re transformed. We’re touched by something and we want we want to pass it on. That is a good right human impulse. We are followers of Jesus are just those who are preaching his gospel because we have been transformed and touched more so than by cold plunging or wellness shots or essential oils or our view of economic theory. We have been transformed by the person of Jesus and it is only right and fitting that we would want to pass that on. Yeah, that whole bit about recognizing that everyone is preaching a gospel has been so helpful for me to be aware of and kind of like building my confidence and pushing back against that impulse that I know lives in me. Like just the other day I was on the bus and this woman out of nowhere across from me strikes up a conversation, tells me her whole story of the last 20 years of what her career was and why it mattered to her, etc. And as I’m listening, I just felt so aware and even convicted by just her willingness to like share this bit of her life that was really important. And it was confronting because Jesus is the one that I say is the most important person in my life, the thing that I care about the most. And so it was confronting to me of like, why don’t I share? Why don’t I share if she’s that passionate about her career?
I think often that voice in our head that says, “Shut up. Be quiet. People don’t want to hear. people are hostile. Sometimes that is like accurate perception of reality. But often that is like straight up demonic deception. I mean straight up often it is not like one of the first skills you learn in like relational intelligence is stop mind reading. Oh yeah. The ways that we just assume we know another person’s motivation and you know the the level of miscommunication between people is off the charts, right? Stop mind reading. Don’t assume you know that somebody is hostile or this that or the other. You may be misreading that person. And don’t assume that voice in your head is accurate perception of reality. It may be the evil one. You just at some point have to just put away the fear. Cast out all fear in the language of the New Testament and share the good news.
That’s good. I think it is good to be aware that there are forces at large that don’t want us to engage in this way and in the economy, in the world, and in our own mind. Totally. So helpful to keep in mind. So, for this final episode, we took to the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia, and we asked people this simple question. And here it is. If a follower of Jesus were to share their faith with you, how would you want them to do it? Here’s what they shared.
I wouldn’t really want them to kind of be just like discussing the religion, but maybe how it impacted their life, how it guides them, how it kind of improves their life in a way that’s specific to them rather than just like, you know, regurgitating facts and stuff like that. I don’t think anyone wants to be talked at super harshly. I think um if it’s done in a respectful way, I’m definitely more willing to listen to their opinion and what they have to say.
You can still share your beliefs, share your values while still respecting that the other person might not fully identify with that. I believe the people who I’ve connected with have shown such grace in understanding hey we don’t agree with that but we accept that it’s you. I know for me for example my grandmother was really religious like going to church like uh practicing and she didn’t try to push that on us but just in a matter of like you know asking open question about do you think there’s a god what do you think about Christian religion that type of topic I’m pretty rooted in in what I think but I’ll take little tidbits it’s not necessarily like a 100% I’m jumping in because of something you said it’s more so a couple things that might stick with me and I’m like yeah That’s interesting. I didn’t think of it like that before.
The witness practice is designed to be run in your church, small group, or community. It combines teaching, conversation, and spiritual exercises, all designed to help you bear witness to the good news of Jesus in our cultural moment. Over four sessions, the witness practice will help you intentionally open up your lives to others in love and testify to the gospel through your words and way of life in community.
The witness practice is completely free thanks to the generosity of those giving regularly through the circle and other givers. Available now at practicingtheway.org.
Next up, we have a conversation between John Mark and my friend Shayla Visser. Shayla is the national director of Alpha Canada and the global senior vice president for Alpha International. If you’re not familiar with Alpha, they exist to equip the church with resources to help people explore their questions about faith and God in a safe and non-judgmental way. And this is the culture of Shayla’s life. She has such a sincere heart to see people come to know Jesus and to play her part. It’s inspiring. Here’s her conversation with John Mark.
Shayla, it is great to be with you. You are an internationally well-respected leader as well as an evangelist in your own right. And I love that you call Vancouver, BC home. That’s one of my favorite cities on the planet, bar none. And I I would love to start just by hearing what are you seeing kind of on the ground in Vancouver and British Columbia and across Canada. I came across some research a few weeks ago by Aaron Ren and it was American data and he said that 1994 was the year that Americans turned neutral on the Christian faith. Before that it was positive like the general American had a kind of mostly positive view of the Christian faith. 1994 it turned neutral and that’s kind of what I grew up in. And then 2014 it turned negative or hostile. So now the average American’s kind of perspective on the Christian faith is generally negative. But I also know that Canada’s a little farther ahead on the secularization trend overall. And I’m just curious like what are what are you seeing? Are you seeing that hostility? There are rumors of, you know, the quiet revival of an opening in Canadian and British contexts that are more secular to faith among young people. What are you seeing right now in real time?
Well, John Mark, it is honestly the best time to be a Christian right now, I think, at least in Canada. I talked to my friends in France and Norway, in the UK, and they feel very similarly like God is just doing something new. I don’t want to put a label on it just to say it feels like his spirit is moving right now in such a way particularly amongst the young under-30s where they are coming to faith and they are walking into churches. Some because someone’s invited them and others because the spirit of the Lord just brought them in and I find those the most fascinating. Uh we had one young man probably 30 years of age walk into our church on a Sunday and he said to our pastor I had a two weeks ago I had a dream about Jesus and I woke up in the morning thinking Jesus is real and I googled how do I learn about Jesus? I went to the local bookstore because it Google said you know buy a Bible. I went bought a Bible started reading on page one. Didn’t know what the heck I was reading. Couldn’t find Jesus. Googled again what should I where should I learn about Jesus and the Bible started at Matthew didn’t understand it and so googled again Google is our friend right now says you should go to a church to learn about Jesus and the Bible and so he showed up at our church and he was so convinced that Jesus was alive because of his dream that everything else was gravy it was like oh I just want to know more and more and more about him 6 months later he’s baptized and so what we’re seeing in Vancouver Vancouver is actually a post-secularity. Uh the people under 30 have no understanding of Jesus. If they didn’t grow up with it, it’s likely their parents rejected it or their grandparents. And so we’re seeing this move of the spirit that So they don’t have that same hostility or skepticism. We’re just not seeing it. Not with younger people. You get older people, yes, they’ve got some memory of Christianity or Christian they knew or the church, but as soon as you go under 30, they’re postular. They’re very disappointed with the world they’ve inher they’re inheriting and they’re asking a lot of really good questions and they’re looking for meaning and purpose. Our research in Canada tells us that Gen Alpha, which is, you know, the oldest are sort of 14, but we did a study on pre-teens with one hope and it says that 19% of them are already playing with the supernatural on Tik Tok. They’re curious. They want to know, is there a God? Is he supernatural? So, we’re seeing this real curiosity amongst the younger demographic, and they’re open to learning about Jesus and coming to church to find out more. Now you’re talking about the younger demographic in post-secularity kind of outside the church. Let’s talk for a minute about the younger demographic inside the church. I feel like there’s a generational shift where you know maybe the generation above me had an enthusiasm for quote unquote evangelism and like it energized them the thought of like telling people about Jesus. But I know at least from my age and often younger it’s the opposite. there’s almost like an emotional allergy to it or we’ve been so socially conditioned by the wider culture to like faith is a private thing, keep it to yourself and don’t tell other people what to believe or think, which is ironic because other people tell us what to believe and to think constantly. But are you seeing a shift there amongst younger Christians or are you still seeing kind of a hesitancy to kind of boldly proclaim the actual story of Jesus?
The younger they are, the more bold they are. So, high schoolers are some of the most bold people you’ll ever meet. I have talked to so many people who are like 14 and 15 and they’re like prayer walking their school. They’re, you know, we had one kid that we know that whose parents wanted to move her to a Christian school and she said, “Let me praywalk the school for a week and see if Jesus thinks that’s a good idea.” And then she said, “No, I’m supposed to be a light in my school.” So there’s a boldness in these young sort of uh gen alpha young gen Z’s. But I would say some of the allergic reaction in the church is actually based on methodology. They’re rejecting a method that they saw as a heaven and hell equation versus follow Jesus your whole life here. That there’s value and beauty to that and meaning and purpose to following Jesus here, not just in the afterlife. uh there might they might be rejecting an approach you know where I work at Alpha we talk about the good news in a good way and sometimes what they’ve witnessed is the good news in a very bad or off-putting way and we’re trying to say how do we tell the good news in a good way and so I’m always when I’m speaking at churches or I’m speaking to uh pastors or even in in congregations I’ll just say listen we need to redefine the word evangelism because people do have an allergic reaction to it. And I always use our friend Daryl Johnson’s quote. He says, “Evangelism is joining a conversation the Holy Spirit is already having with another person.” And so when you hear that, suddenly it’s like the weight is off your shoulders. And so it’s it’s not about the methodology you’re rejecting. It’s about the Holy Spirit that you are joining. And that’s a far different proposition for people in the church that are say over the age of 30 that are wondering, should I do this or not?
I love what you said about good news in a good way and older formulations that were either good news in a sketchy or off-putting or manipulative way or frankly often like not even great news. Like the way the gospel was understood was so far from the gospel you read on the lips of Jesus that at some point you’re you have to ask the question, is this even the gospel? But let’s imagine somebody has like a robust gospel based on the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That their gospel sounds something like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It is the story and the message and the person and the beauty and the victory of Jesus himself. What would be a good way in your mind to communicate that full beautiful Jesus gospel to somebody else in Vancouver or LA or whatever?
Yeah. Well, just go to the book of John and be like Philip to Nathaniel, right? Come and see. I think it’s a come and see approach. You know, you have nothing to lose. Come and see. Uh I think the primary focus of evangelization and I love that terminology is the good of another person to have a relationship with their creator. And so that has to be based in love. Do you actually love the person?
Wait, say that again. The primary goal of evangelism is the good of another person.
Yeah. The good news for the other person. It’s it’s good news for them to meet Jesus. It’s good news for every single element of their life is better. Not in a my life is better way, but is richer uh in in every way. By sharing our faith, we’re adding to a person’s life. We’re we’re bringing such love and goodness into their lives when they start to hear about Jesus. And so I’m really motivated by love first of all. I think second I think we have to be curious. We have to be curious about the other person. Who are they? What what makes them happy? What makes them sad? What makes them cry? We need to be radically hospitable with them. Are we inviting them into our homes and into our lives or are we just kind of keeping them at arms length? Uh, I want the people that I’m inviting to take Alpha or to consider Jesus or to come to church. I want them to actually see my whole life and there’s no perfection here and and they see how does Jesus make a difference in my everyday living. My husband as a police officer in Vancouver, same thing. How does Jesus make a difference in how he works with his colleagues, how he arrests people? What difference does Jesus make? And it profoundly touches people when you are those things. You are loving, you’re curious, you’re radically hospitable, and of course then you’re invitational. You’re just like, “Come and see.” And we have so many stories between my husband and I of people that just wanted to come and see. And recently, his uh former police partner and her husband have been on a come and see journey because of his impact in the workplace. He just loved her well, like a little sister, got to know her husband. And this is how secular Vancouver is. Her husband had never been to church in his whole life. Not a wedding, not a funeral, nothing. He’s 30 years old. Zero background. She had had some Christian background like years ago. Had kind of left church and all of that in her late teens and never gone back. And this is what Jesus is doing. He is using people and he’s using the spirit. The spirit is always the first person in to have a conversation with someone about Jesus. And then he always does the follow-up as well and he’s everything in between. But he uses us as part of it. And in in this one example, my husband was such a great witness because he didn’t talk about Jesus all the time, but he was faithful to Jesus in the way he worked. He would say talk about it a little bit in the police car. And she has come on a journey. And this summer she was on the beach in Vancouver. And literally Jesus appeared to her out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. John Mark. Like she’s on the beach. She looks up at the sun, sees a half rainbow, says it’s beautiful, looks up again, sees a full rainbow, looks up a third time, and sees the face of Jesus in the sun. And she said to me, Shayla, do you know that Jesus’s face shines brighter than the sun? I tell you to I tell this story, by the way, with her permission. And that night, she hears whales off the beach. So she goes out to a rock where you can usually see them, and she can’t see them. They’re far enough away. And what happens is she starts to talk to God for the very first time. And she says, “God, I believe you’re real. I believe Jesus is alive. I’ve seen him.” And she said, “Will you come and change my life? I don’t know how to bend the knee because I want to rule my own life.” Like, she’s telling me this and I’m like, “This is the perfect prayer.” And at the end of the at the prayer, she’s like balling, she said, like a baby because she was just giving it all to Jesus. Yes. Yes. And she finishes wiping her face and she looks up and two humpback whales perfectly jump out of the water in unison and dive under. So her question to me was, “Do the whales know Jesus exists?” That’s officially a question I’ve never been asked before. But isn’t it beautiful? Because my husband and I, I hope he played a major part. You know, we loved, we were curious about their lives. we were hospitable. Uh we welcomed them into our circle and and then Jesus just short tracked it all by just appearing to her. But yeah, I mean what was the backstory before that extraordinary book of Acts kind of moment on the beach? Like how long had she and her husband been in process with you two? Been probably for four years. Okay. For four years friendship and delight in conversation and enjoyment and we’ve been around when their first baby was born. and like just all these things. And her husband is interestingly on a journey now too because his wife had such a crazy moment that he’s like, I don’t know anything about Jesus. And so he comes to Alpha every week and he’s like, I’ve never heard any of this. Their first week on Alpha was hilarious. They said, I didn’t know scientists were Christians. That makes us feel better. Like so you just open up this world by loving people going on a journey. Sometimes it happens like that where it’s suddenly right unexpectedly but actually when you look back it was a journey and the Lord uses us in it. So I really encourage people to be on a journey with others and not think that it’s a short-term goal to see someone come to know Jesus when you’re in a long-term relationship. Only the Lord knows their timing.
Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting just the older methodologies of evangelism that you were referring to. I think of the two most common that I grew up with, which were either like street evangelism. You kind of go out and just hit a random person, a stranger that you don’t know on the street and strike up a conversation. Um, or kind of invite your friend to church to hear the pastor give like a proper sermon, you know, with the evangelism in it. Both of those kind of have like a time span of minutes. Yeah. Not years. You know what I mean? Like you’re like, “Okay, let’s get this done in, you know, 30 minutes, an hour or two max. Let’s see if we can quote make a decision here.” But you’re you’re measuring time in years, not minutes. It just it makes me think of one of the most influential books I’ve ever read, which actually much of it is on evangelism, is the patient ferment of the early church, which is by the Anabaptist scholar Alan Krider. He just writes about what a virtue patience was. And we think of like, you know, the Christian movement spreading through the Roman Empire and toppling Rome itself and we forget it was like 300 years. Yes, that’s all true. Over 300 years. Even the book of Acts, you know, we read and it just feels like miracle after miracle after miracle and you forget the book of Acts takes place over 30 years. This is like the headlines, the highlights of three decades of the Jesus movement. and he just writes about like what an emphasis there was in the early Christian movement which was obviously much uh less Christianized than the the world that many of us came up in how patience played such a central role it’s so important to remember that and that’s why I come back to Daryl’s quote about it’s joining the Holy Spirit right in what the Holy Spirit’s doing is because the the people that are best at being on mission are not the people with the big e evangelism gift who can share their faith anywhere or it’s the people that have learned to be attuned to the spirit in the midst of a conversation with another person. It’s like they’re listening in two directions. They’re like listening intently, being very present with a person while saying to the Holy Spirit, “Is there anything you’d like me to add to this?” And I’ve found as I do that, sometimes it’s like, “Don’t say a word. Yes. Just listen.” Or, “Here’s a question.” Yeah. Yeah. And other times it’s like, “Be a little more bold than you even feel like being today.” So it really is a radical listening discipline of being able to listen in two directions.
I feel like that’s one thing that alpha has taught me like you know for those listening if you’re not a leader on alpha like part of the training um my understanding is and correct me if I’m wrong is that leaders are actually asked to basically not correct you know heresy or wrong opinions or outlandish ideas but just to basically set the table literally and make space for people that are not followers of Jesus just to process to air their thoughts feelings beliefs you know heresies whatever whatever it may be and just create space. Thank you for sharing. Which goes kind of against so much like ingrained Christian like doctrinal policing, you know, where you just want to pounce on an idea or correct an idea or, you know, defend the Bible or Jesus against a false allegation. But man, there’s there’s a patience to that approach. uh we talk in this final session in the practice about how there are times when you know the gospel is more of a monologue as we imagine a sermon or something like that and there are examples of that in the book of acts but often it’s more of a dialogue it’s more of a back and forth is is that kind of what you’re getting at that people need a space to kind of interact more relationally yes and I would say it’s the Christian’s responsibility to do more listening than talking I think we can see through the gospels that Jesus was brilliant brilliant about asking questions and he answered very few. And I think as Christians we get it the opposite. We’re like, I’ve got lots of answers that you’re not even asking. Um, you know, questions you’re not even asking. And so what we’re trying to say to people is listen, if you lean back, even physically and enter in with curiosity, you’re just going to hear what’s really going on. What’s really going on? And when you get there, you’ll you’ll know like, “Oh my goodness, I can see how the Lord’s either at work in their lives, allowing them to be disoriented in their current lives so that he may come in.” And so I think curiosity and love go hand in hand. And asking great questions is actually the most important part of sharing our faith. For example, I went out with a new friend. She was introduced to me. I didn’t even know, but I trust this friend. And she’s like, “The two of you should meet. My friend lived in a different city. We got together and in 1 hour time we got to an alpha invitation, which doesn’t always happen, but I just said, “So, tell me about your life. Like, tell me some highlights. I know nothing about you. I just love to hear more about you and some of your story.” I said, “You pick what parts you want to tell me.” and she just picked the parts that were important to her and she was telling me how she’s quite young and she’s already been divorced and um she just told me how painful it was and how she’s just come out of it and then said weirdly, she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know what I do. She doesn’t know I’m a Christian. She said, “Weirdly, I thought maybe I should go back to church.” I said, “Oh, you went to church before?” She said, “I went four times when I first moved to Canada and I’ve never been back since, but recently I’ve been thinking I should go back to church. And I said,”Wh do you think that is?” She’s like, “I have no idea.” And then I said, “Well, I don’t think it’s a mistake that we’re here. Do you?” And she’s like, “Why?” And I just said, “I think perhaps we could do this exploration of church and Jesus together.” And then it led to a conversation, but it started with just tell me the bits of your story that you want me to know. And often times, and there’s the Daryl Johnson like God was already at work. She’s sitting there thinking, I should go back to church and quote coincidentally finds herself across the table from the leader of Alpha Canada. And what what’s wonderful is she’s taking Alpha, she’s super skeptical, but last week she leaned over to our small group and said, “I have a secret to tell you.” We said, “What’s the secret?” She said, “Every week when I hear something more about Jesus, I go home and practice it.” So, I’ve been practicing asking for forgiveness, it feels really good. I’ve been practicing praying. I never knew I could pray. And so she’s she’s excited, right? But she’s on a journey. But this journey didn’t start somewhere. It started in her early 20s when she went to church for four Sundays and then let it go. But life circumstances really have changed her life and so she’s searching again. So I think we’re being curious to find out where are the gaps in people’s lives where they have a need and the right questions can get to it.
How do you approach people like the husband of your husband’s police partner? Yeah. With no who’s never been to church, no Christian background. Uh my wife and I have become friends with somebody like that from Europe. I mean literally zero like just even familiarity with the basics of the Christian worldview, you know. And um I feel like again back to the older methodologies, they assume that somebody already knows about 70 or 80% of like the Christian body of teaching or message and they kind of just need some like precise detail and then they really need to just be emotionally moved to act on it, you know, and Billy Graham and others said as much that people basically already believe what we’re telling them. We’re just calling them to act on what they believe. I when I came across that quote from I think that was Billy Sunday I was like oh wow that makes so much sense of how evangelism was done in America in recent kind of the last 150 years but when you’re with somebody who does not know that I mean they don’t even they’re at 20% at best of the Christian message like how do you where do you even start? I think it can feel really overwhelming for some of us who are just trying to figure out what the Bible actually says for ourselves. How in the world are we to communicate this to somebody that has, you know, so little overlap in their mental maps?
I think the greatest opportunity we have for people like that is to pray. Not just pray for them behind the scenes, but pray with them and for them. And this may sound really countercultural, but with this guy in particular, uh, zero Christian, like 0000, and he had a terrible, terrible accident and ended up in the hospital. And so my husband and I built a relationship with him. So we go to visit him and I said to him, “I know this is going to sound really weird and you know we’re Christians, but I believe that prayer can change things and if you’d be open to it, I’d love to just pray for your healing.” And he looks at me strangely. He’s like, “Okay.” And I just laid my hand. I prayed a very simple prayer. Father, you love this man. and we’re asking now today that you would heal him in the name of Jesus. Amen. And that’s it. Fast forward a year later, he’s going through a very dark time in his life. And I said to him, “May I come over and just pray for you? I know that sounds really weird.” And he says, “Yes.” And I do the same thing. Can I pray now? Uh, can I and I pray very simply and I just invite the Holy Spirit to come and we just pray. And honestly, I think that is the best missional opportunity we have before us with people that know nothing. Just start by praying for their needs with them. So, you might have to do baby steps and start with, hey, I’m even going to admit to you I’m going to pray for you and then you like disappear and cower cuz you’re like that I got all sweaty just telling someone I’m going to pray for them. Second step is can I pray for you now? and then say to them, “Did you feel anything? Did you see anything? Did you experience anything?” And most times they’ll say, “No, but it leaves them with a question. Was I supposed to? Is Jesus real? Is God real?” And you can just see his journey, but prayer, love, and curiosity about who he was and genuinely loving him leading to prayer moments leading to an invitation to church, which led him to Alpha. That’s beautiful.
Shayla, as we come to an end here in this conversation, like what are some parting words of exhortation would be the New Testament word for it that you would give to those listening as they’re imagining or reimagining what evangelism could look like, their particular friends and family and relationships and co-workers and neighbors. What what are a few thoughts that you would leave us with or exhort us in the direction of?
Well, first of all, I want to speak to those that have maybe given up on the people they love ever coming to know Jesus. And I just want to remind them that Yahweh is steadfast love. The Lord God is steadfast love. He has steadfast love for your friends, your family members that don’t know Jesus. Please don’t give up. Keep praying. You just don’t know the difference you’re making in their lives, even if you’ve been praying for a decade or more, keep praying. The second thing I want to say to those who are like, I’m afraid this is nerve-wracking. I cannot imagine going to the bank where I work and praying for my colleague and I just want to tell you the Holy Spirit will give you the courage and confess your fear, walk in faith and just say, “Come and see.” And then I want to say to all of us and this is a me as a reminder for you John Mark for the listeners is every morning just pray come Holy Spirit let me join you in what you’re doing all around me and just watch what he does in you and through you because he wants you to be available and when you say I’m available he’ll give you amazing opportunities that you never expected and you will end up sitting across from someone who knows nothing. And you’ll think, I am the first person who gets to give them a little bit of a taste of Jesus and the kingdom. And there’s nothing better than that.
You know, you’ve mentioned a couple of times throughout this podcast series that this practice is a weakness in your apprenticeship to Jesus. And I’m wondering if you could just reflect on and share with us a little bit about what keeps you leaning into this practice and what’s helping you grow in it.
Yeah. I mean, this was such an intimidating one to work on because it’s not other practices are like, man, woven from top to bottom through my whole life. Totally. And this one is like, oh wow, like I’m I can give a teaching on it or a sermon on it, but this is like a growth edge in my life. And insight is not the same thing as, you know, integrity. Yeah. And so I’m aware of that. My friend AJ Cheryl writes about upstream disciplines and downstream disciplines, meaning that there are some practices or disciplines that are downstream. They just feel so easy. They just feel like coasting almost like just being who God made you to be and you feel the wind at your back and you feel joy and no fear. And then other disciplines are like, you know, I think it’s pretty obvious. They’re upstream. It’s just like, man, this I’m just trudging. This feels counterintuitive to me. This feels like a a weak muscle or a non-existent muscle. And I think this one more than any other practice, way more than any certainly of our other eight, this is the one that just feels so upstream, you know, and my life architecture doesn’t help. I work from home in a kind of rural environment. When I do work, I’m almost always with Christians. And so like I have to go pretty far out of my way in order to be in friendship with people that do not follow Jesus. Yeah. And yet that is exactly what God did for me. And so what keeps me coming back is the person of Jesus. Yeah. And knowing that to follow Jesus is to follow him out of my comfort zone into people who are in his own language lost. Jesus is what keeps me coming back over and not self-help, not my emotional felt need. I don’t have an emotional felt need for it. I’m an introvert. I’m happy to just read books about witness and be by myself. But Jesus is what keeps me at the table.
I would identify it as an upstream for me as well. But only within the last few months have I began to practice it more. And a lot of that is because of being a part of our church in New York City. It is a regular practice that they call people to. And so because of that norm that now you’re living in totally and so it was really confronting for me and just became very aware of like oh this is a deficit in my apprenticeship and so becoming aware of that. Um I have a friend who yeah being around her is like experiencing a master class and I would say she has the gift of evangelism. We all need to be friends with some people just like walking around talking about Jesus. Yeah. And so she was spending a few months in the city and um I just asked her, I was like, “Can I just be with you and we go out and share the gospel and I can just learn from you?” And she said, “Yes.” And so weekly we try to just have a rhythm where we set aside time to go out and do that. And so it’s still upstream for me. But I think the thing that’s helped me grow in it and keeps me leaning into it is the encounters that I have had when we’ve gone out and done that. And granted, it’s not like I I don’t even think that we’ve had one experience where someone actually crosses that threshold that we talked about earlier of like, you know, death to life in the kingdom. That’s not happened yet. But I have had an experience where we were chatting with this one woman. English wasn’t her her first language and she was having a really hard time understanding us and she also had some ear pain. So, we just asked if we could pray for her ear. And so, I put a hand on her ear. We pray and then we begin to share. My friend Ashley shares the whole gospel with her. And with tears in her eyes, she just began to say, “I know that God is real because I would not be able to understand or have a conversation with you because English isn’t my first language, but I understood everything that you just said to me.” So, it’s like you have an experience like that and like we talked about earlier, when you’re giving it away, it just becomes real to you. Totally. I’m aware of how real he is. Yes. But I feel so aware of my starting place. Like it was really helpful for me to have a model. So our church engages the three circles model. I keep it on my phone as a reminder. And it’s actually a really helpful way when you’re bumping into so many people in the city to just pull out a picture and start a conversation by, you know, it doesn’t usually start this way, but at some point I’ll just say, you know, can I share a story of hope that uh anchors me in my everyday life? I have this picture to remind me. It’s just a way to move through it. But when I was first introduced to this as a model for sharing the gospel, I like couldn’t even practice it with my friend Ashley. She came over to my apartment and she was like, “Cool. So, let me walk you through this model and then we’ll just practice with each other.” And so, she does it and then she’s like, “Your turn.” And I’m like staring at it. I can feel just like in my body. I’m sweaty. And I couldn’t do it. I was literally like, “Can we just like hit the streets and maybe I’ll do this with you later, but like I just couldn’t even bring myself to do it.” And I’ve been pastoring for 10 years and like it’s in me and I can get up on the platform and share it. But to learn how to engage this practice conversationally, uh just felt like a massive growth edge. And so I think reps has been really helpful. But yeah, like what you were saying earlier, it’s the person of Jesus that Yeah. keeps me leaned in. I had a friend one time say, and I love this. He said when he walks into the room, he wants to be the most saved person there. Meaning, he wants to be the person that is most aware of how Jesus has encountered his life, transformed him from the inside out. He wants that to remain top of mind for him. And that’s just been so helpful for me of like when I reflect on and meditate on who Jesus has been for me and who he is to me, it’s like, oh, that that keeps it fresh in my heart for wanting other people to taste and see that he really is good, you know? So, those have been some things that have been helpful for me.
Well said. I think the key is just to do what you can, not what you can’t. Yeah. You know, and often I think we don’t do this practice because the examples we have in our mind are just too far of a reach for where a lot of us are at. That’s where hospitality for me has been such a win. Like, oh, I can do that. Like walking up to a stranger in Manhattan and pulling out the backside of my phone with the three circles like shoot, I don’t know if I can do that. But you know what I can do is make really good homemade pizza and invite a friend or a neighbor or somebody from the gym over for dinner and ask questions and listen really well and love them and serve them and model for them a different kind of life. Like I can do that and that is all like it’s an act of sacrifice. There’s a discipline to it. There’s some risk to it but I feel like okay I can do that. So, I think the key is don’t stay where you’re at, but what can you do? Right where you’re at right now, this stage of life with little kids or no kids, single or married with a home or without a home. What can you do now to begin to practice? And what role do you play? Like again, we think we all have to be the quote evangelist. What role do you play? You know, what what where do we fit in the ecosystem of God and how do we serve and play our part? Really, that’s that’s all we need to ask. How can we be helpful? So, good.
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For our final story of this season on Witness, we want to introduce you to Chris and Deandra. After leading a church in the suburbs of Vancouver for a number of years, Chris, Deandra, and their two kids moved to a neighborhood further in the city to plant a new church. Initially, they were stunned by the resistance they experienced from their neighbors towards anything to do with faith. Here’s their story of faithfully loving their neighbors over years and what has become possible through their long patient approach of sharing Jesus with their life and words.
My name is Deandra and this is my husband Chris. I think our hope uh early in our marriage was that wherever we would live, we would know our neighbors and that the neighborhood would be better because of our presence in it, as audacious as that sounds. And so we always wanted to be really intentional about getting to know our neighbors. Before we moved uh to plant a church in Vancouver, we lived in the suburbs. We had developed a very close community in our um townhouse complex and we had built a lot of relationships, a lot of meaningful relationships with neighbors and it led to just having spiritual conversations um with them. It led to them coming to church and just kind of it just led to an openness to the gospel and um and it was very um special and meaningful and we thought you know when we moved to Vancouver uh it would kind of continue along. People said to to us you’ll never have that in the city. It’s it’s a cold city and there won’t be the same kind of fruit and knowledge of your neighbors and their lives and opportunity for sharing Jesus. And so we left with that kind of in our heads. I believe the words were, “Good luck knowing your neighbors in Vancouver.” I remember being at the park one day with my kids and we uh ran into one of Ma’s classmates. And so I got the talking with uh the classmates’s mom and we were having a great conversation. Things were going well. And then inevitably the question would always come up, oh, you’re new to Vancouver. Uh, where did you move from? And I would say, oh, we are from the suburbs. Um, and yeah, we moved to the city um because we are starting a church in the city. And I just I will never forget um her reaction once I said those words. It was kind of like dismay. um just kind of like fear, just kind of like disgust. It was all kind of rolled into one. And she kind of said, “Oh, um okay. Um I’m I just have to go get something.” And she left and I never uh spoke to her again. And that was not um unusual. It was not unusual to have a reaction like that when uh anyone asked us why we moved to the city and I told them the reason or relationships would start but then quickly kind of wilt. Yes. Based on the uh just kind of hostility that I was feeling after multiple conversations I started to realize like never before that it’s only the Holy Spirit that can draw people to himself. It’s not people. It’s not going to be personality, charisma, um, winning smiles could only get you so far. It has to be the Holy Spirit. And so that really changed how I prayed and what I came to understand in terms of people coming to the Lord. For us, it was just about utilizing every opportunity that we had to uh get to know our neighbors. I remember um a friend of ours once saying uh when he was hosing his lawn, he ended up having a really good conversation with a neighbor and he said he wouldn’t have had that conversation had he not looked up. And that always resonated with me like it just it it stayed with me all these years, those words just look up. There is one particular uh couple um on our street that was particularly well the husband was particularly hostile uh towards Christianity and the wife was more mocking of Christianity. One day I remember just praying specifically that the Lord would give me opportunities to uh share the gospel cuz I I realized I hadn’t really been praying that in a while. And a few days later I was walking down the street and my neighbor was um on her balcony and she kind of waved me down and said, “Hey, want to come up for some tea?” And I remember thinking, “Oh, wow. I’ve never actually gone inside her house.” We’ve never just hung out, me and her. What a neat opportunity. And so I went to her house and she started to ask me questions um about my brothers and my relationship and uh how we were so close because she was experiencing just kind of tension in her relationship with her brother the last few years. And so she was really curious to know how uh my brother and I were were so close, how we managed to have a close relationship. What’s interesting is that my brother and I never did have a close relationship until he became a Christian. That’s when our relationship shifted to a real friendship. And and I couldn’t tell her about my relationship with my brother without telling her that because that was the reason. And so I I got to share with her. Well, it was actually because my brother became a Christian and uh he just really changed. His countenance changed and he he became loving and he he he acknowledged my presence and she was just so um in awe. She was she was fascinated. And so that was really special. Our old pastor used to say, you know, talk about anything and everything and sooner or later you’ll talk about Jesus, you’ll talk about the gospel. And I feel like that’s been the story of our life um in Vancouver. And you know, it’s just about being being open to talking about anything they want to talk about. What we have found is that it has led to questions about Jesus and about about the gospel. And so we found that to be true uh in our relationships in the neighborhood. And now what we have uh in Vancouver is richer and deeper than what we ever had in the suburbs before we came. And we wouldn’t have thought that was possible. It took about 6 years, but it was worth it. Mhm.
Well, in every episode, we like to ground it in this reminder that we don’t want to just ideulate or talk about these things. We want to put them into practice. And so, our exercise going into this week is to practice articulating the gospel in your own words. And so, again, we’re not asking you to go out and share the gospel with the non-Christian, but just to get together with a friend like I did with Ashley. It was so helpful for me at the start to just have a friend, even though I completely bombed it and didn’t even share it, but to get together with someone and to begin to just put the gospel into your own words so that it can begin to flow out of you. And again, it was helpful for me to have a model, but when you get together with a friend, it’s just helpful to begin to learn how to articulate it. And if the opportunity arises, you know that you’ve put some thought and some energy behind preparing for that opportunity. But as we wrap up this episode, I feel so aware that we’re at the end of what’s been a journey through nine practices. And so, John Mark, I just love to hear from you. Any last reflections that you have for us as we go from here?
Well, I think first off, just thanks for all of those who’ve been listening over the last nine seasons. Thanks for your companionship and listening ear and your time. We don’t take that for granted. We saved this one for last for a few different reasons. One was just procrastination in my own life. How long can I not live this stuff? Cuz you have to live it, right? Um but no, more seriously because there isn’t like a linear sequential flow like you don’t start with Sabbath and then eventually get up to, right? We just follow Jesus and we live and we all have different strengths and different weaknesses and different growth edge, right? But there is somewhat of a progression. Even in the four gospels, you often see Jesus first call disciples to himself, just come and be with me and then they would just wander around with Jesus for a few years and then he sent them out to preach. It wasn’t at the same time. And that doesn’t mean like if you’re a new Christian, like don’t share the gospel. In fact, new Christians tend to be the best evangelist there is out there. You have this incredible network of all your non-Christian friends. So, it’s not what I’m saying at all. But what I am saying is as we follow Jesus, as we begin to adopt a well-ordered life, as we begin to live a contemplative life with God and a communal life with each other, as we are formed into the image of Jesus, the natural byproduct of that is going to be love. And one of the most salient examples of love is we are going to tell people the good news of Jesus. So if you want to measure the effectiveness of your formation or practicing spiritual disciplines or your prayer life, measure love. And if you want to measure love, one of the metrics you can look at is am I telling people the good news of Jesus? Am I practicing hospitality? Am I serving other people? Am I giving generously to other people of my life and my love? And so we saved it in a sense for last because it really is the telos. We want to become these people that live as ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven in word and in deed.
So good. What a gift. Thanks, John Mark.
Well, friends, thanks so much for joining us for this last episode of the witness series. We hope this season has come alongside and encouraged you to intentionally open up your life to others in love and to testify to the good news of Jesus through your words and your way of life. As we bring our time to a close, it would mean so much if you would share your favorite episode or moment from this season with whoever you think it might encourage. And with this being our final practice, we encourage you once you spent enough time sitting in this witness practice to go back to a previous season of the Rule of Life podcast and step into another practice you think God might be leading you towards. So, as we wrap, let’s now bless you one more time with our benediction for the witness practice. I invite you just to open up your hands again as a way of saying, “God, I want to receive this blessing.” Let’s take one deep breath together.
As you go, may you receive the power of the Holy Spirit. May the spirit of Christ cause you to be his witnesses in your neighborhoods, in your communities, and to the ends of the earth. And may the beauty of your words and your lives serve as a sign of the kingdom of God.