By Jimmy Scroggins
We have lots of conversations with all kinds of people each and every day. We talk to our family, our friends, our neighbors, and our coworkers. We talk to people at the gym, at the grocery store, and at the ball field. About the weather, or the workout, or the tackle that our kid just made. What we have to realize is that each of these conversations can be opportunities to bring up the gospel.
We already talked about focused prayer and the importance of praying for those you know who are far from God. As we begin to pray daily for people, I believe that the Spirit of God goes to work. It works on our hearts giving us the sensitivity to seek Gospel opportunities and boldness to seize them. He goes to work on the soil of other people’s hearts preparing them to receive the seeds that we are going to plant. We have to accept the fact that every gospel conversation doesn’t result in an immediate conversion. We are going to deal with possible responses to the gospel, but we all know that usually it’s a process for people. It can take time for them to get to the point where they are ready to repent and believe the gospel. We aren’t always going to see immediate fruit. But we have to be faithful to do our part.
Let me just tell you up front that our method for turning everyday conversations into gospel conversations is relational and conversational. It works best when you have a relationship with someone who knows you well enough to tell you a problem, issue, or concern. Many of us live, work, and play around far-from-God people, but we don’t go out of our way to build relationships with them. We have to be the ones who are willing to go out on a relational limb.
I used to work with students and we always told our adult volunteers that their first goal was to build a relational bridge that could bear the weight of the truth that they hoped to impart. The same is true for those of us who are serious about being God’s ambassadors. We have to build these relationships, we have to pray, and then we have to be on the lookout for opportunities. We know the opportunities will come because we live in a broken world. Everyday we hear about another national or international tragedy. Everyday divorces are finalized, drug addicts overdose, loved ones are diagnosed with cancer, a woman loses her job, or a man loses his house.
Brokenness is all around us. Brokenness caused by our own personal sin, the sin of those close to us, and the sin that results from just living in a fallen world. But here’s the hope. All of this brokenness gives us opportunities to turn everyday conversations into gospel conversations.
When people start telling you that they are afraid to travel because of the latest terrorist attack, when they share with you the heartbreak they experienced over their divorce, or when they ask you what they are going to do about their rebellious teenager, these are all gospel opportunities and God is calling us to action.
I like to say that our spiritually spidey senses start going off. We know we need to say something, but we don’t know what to say and the moment is fleeting. So we mumble, “I’ll pray for you,” or something like that, and then we quickly move on. And we walk away from conversations like that knowing that we just blew it.
Well the purpose of our book and the purpose of these videos is to train us to do it in a better way. Everything worth doing is worth training for. I know when I played football my coach made us do drills every single day. We ran the same plays over and over until we could execute them perfectly. If we wanted to perform well at game time, we knew we had to get those reps at practice. We will train you to transition a conversation to share the gospel and to invite people to respond. As you hone these skills, you will get the confidence we all need to be God’s ambassadors bringing broken people to the only one who can heal them and make them whole again. Let’s do this.
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