The Reluctant Witness

Discovering the Delight of Spiritual Conversations

Don Everts

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780830865567
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

New research finds that Christians are less involved in spiritual conversations today than we were twenty-five years ago.As society has changed, it seems we have become more uncomfortable talking with people about our faith. We are reluctant conversationalists. The reality is that many of our churches and communities are shrinking instead of growing. What can we do about this?Don Everts, himself a reluctant witness, grew up assuming that spiritual conversations are always painful and awkward. But after falling into one spiritual conversation after another, he was surprised to discover that they aren't. Don's surprising—and sometimes embarrassing—stories affirm what Scripture and the latest research reveal: spiritual conversations can actually be a delight. Unpacking what God's Word says about spiritual conversations and digging into the habits of eager conversationalists, Everts describes what we can learn from Christians who are still talking about their faith.With original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries on spiritual conversations in the digital age, this book offers fresh insights and best practices for fruitful everyday conversations.

Reluctant Conversationalists

Getting Honest About the State of Our Witness

I’m sitting at a gray metal desk in the basement of a nearly abandoned local church that has donated office space to some of us campus ministers. It’s snowing outside the church, a beautiful Boulder, Colorado, winter day. But I’m not gazing out at the snow, I’m staring down at a blank sheet of paper that is confounding me.

This is odd. I’m a writer at heart, I like blank pages. I usually never meet a blank page I don’t like—they inspire me and help me think. But I’m having a problem with this particular blank page. I work on a nearby campus for InterVarsity and I’m supposed to be writing my monthly report. My supervisor has asked me to look back at the last month and characterize my efforts on campus and assess the fruit that has resulted. Sounds simple enough. But I’m grousing. I’m confounded. I don’t like this assignment.

Characterize my efforts on campus? How can you sum up in mere words and sentences thirty long days of labor that have been so messy, so sublime, so context-driven? And assess the fruit? How do you count spiritual fruit? Is it possible to quantify the fruit of relational evangelism? Is it even right to try to count spiritual fruit that only God can produce?

These were the lofty thoughts and justifications rolling around in my head as I stared at that blank sheet of paper. But mostly I was just insecure.

It is a tender thing to characterize your own efforts to share the gospel. All Christians are sent on a mission: Again, as Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). A witness talks about what they’ve seen or experienced. In this case, Christians are called to talk about their experience with Jesus so that others may have a chance to meet and ultimately follow Jesus.

Many of us know this. But to reflect on and characterize our faithfulness in that mission can be tender. Vulnerable even. It’s enough to get your justification juices flowing, just like mine were while sitting at that metal desk staring at that blank sheet of paper.

This is especially true if you dare take the second step of evaluation I had been asked to take: to assess the fruit of my efforts. Have I been a witness? is a scary enough question to ask (though there’s still plenty of wiggle room in that question). But to ask, Have I made any new disciples? That is an entirely different level of scary. It is vulnerable. And uncomfortable.

And for this reason, it is, I’m assuming, mighty tempting to lay this book (and topic) aside at this point. What good could come of getting honest about the state of my witness? A renewed sense of guilt? A burst of inspiration that sets me up to be disappointed once again? If these thoughts are going through your mind, I urge you to keep reading. I invite you to dare to get honest about the state of your witness for this reason: honest self-reflection about mission has been an explicitly important feature in the lives of Christians from the very beginning.

The Importance of Honest Self-Evaluation

The Acts 2 passage that you read at the beginning of this chapter is pretty well-known. It’s exciting and inspirational. Luke (who wrote the book of Acts) gives a summary of the church’s efforts and the resulting fruit that has motivated many generations of Christians as a beautiful snapshot of Jesus’ church doing what that church was meant to do.

But it is also meaningful to pull back and notice the simple fact that Luke summarized a snapshot of the church. Luke did what was so difficult for me to do sitting at my desk: he characterized the church’s efforts (they devoted themselves to . . .) and he quantified the fruit that resulted (and the Lord added to their number day by day). And here’s something that should get our attention: he kept doing this, over and over.

Scholars have noted this important literary feature in Acts: regular snapshots of the church’s efforts and the resulting fruit. In fact, many scholars suggest these 30,000-foot snapshots mark the basic structure of Luke’s writing: a few on-the-ground detailed stories of God’s work through the church punctuated by snapshots that characterize the church’s mission and the resulting fruit.

These snapshots do two things: they characterize the church’s labors (notice the verbs), and they also assess the resulting fruit (while the fruit of the kingdom of God is not always numeric in nature, here in Acts Luke does place an emphasis on the numeric). See table 1.1 for a few examples.

Luke didn’t balk at providing a snapshot of the church’s labors and resulting fruit, rather he leaned into it as if this were an important thing to do. And this should get our attention. If it was so important for the early church to regularly take a look in the mirror and have an updated snapshot of the “state of the church’s mission,” perhaps this is a habit we shouldn’t set aside too quickly.

CHARACTERIZE THE CHURCH’S LABORS	ASSESS THE RESULTING FRUIT
…they were speaking to the people… (4:1)	But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. (4:4)
Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. (5:12)	And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. (5:14)
And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. (5:42)	…the disciples were increasing in number,…and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (6:1,7)
So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. (9:31a)	And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. (9:31b)
And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly… (13:46a)	And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. (13:49)
As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached… (16:4a)	So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily. (16:5)

Table 1.1

It can be painful to honestly evaluate our own witness. But it might turn out to be vitally important. I got a taste of that back in Colorado. Rather than give in to my insecurities and loftily justify my way out of writing an honest monthly report, I dared to look into the mirror. I characterized my efforts at sharing the gospel. (How often was I engaging in conversations with the people around me? Was Jesus ever coming up in those conversations? Was I spending any time with non-Christians, or had I filled up my life with Christian students?) And I even tried to assess the fruit that had resulted from my efforts. (How many non-Christians were involved in our group’s events? Had anyone begun to trust Jesus for the first time?)

Writing that monthly report was awkward, but over time, month by month, I began to gain an appreciation for the model Luke left us. There is something right and healthy and refreshing about regularly taking a look in the witness mirror.

The State of Our Witness

How would you characterize your own witness efforts? A characterization must be accurate enough to truly name reality, but short enough to be memorable and useable. Getting to a place where you can honestly characterize your own witness efforts should take some time and work. The process should force you to reflect and think. We read one of Luke’s characterizations of the witness of the early church at the beginning of this chapter: they were devoted followers of Jesus and they had favor with all the people. And the result? God was adding to their number daily.

So, how would you characterize your own witness? This is a tricky thing to do. It can be difficult to get perspective on ourselves, and Luke certainly isn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: Are My Feet Beautiful?
• 1 Reluctant Conversationalists: Getting Honest About the State of Our Witness
• 2 Why We Stopped Talking: Meeting the Postmodern Cat That’s Got Our Tongues
• 3 Delightful Conversations: Debunking Five Myths About Spiritual Conversations
• 4 Eager Conversationalists: Learning from Those Who Are Still Talking
• 5 Everyday Conversations: Exploring Four Simple Conversational Habits
• Conclusion: Back on the Bus
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix 1: Research Partners
• Appendix 2: Research Methodology
• Appendix 3: Definitions
• Notes
• Praise for Reluctant Witness
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright