Sam Chan, How To Talk About Jesus (Without Being THAT Guy)

 

Sam Chan, How To Talk About Jesus (Without Being THAT Guy): Personal Evangelism in a Skeptical World

Zondervan Reflective (2020)

ISBN: 9780310112693 pb 153pp

 

Sam Chan (an Australian medical doctor with a PhD from TEDS) has written a helpful and accessible book of practical wisdom on evangelism in a post-Christendom context.

 

The main thing of course is to love Jesus and love your neighbours, and be prayerful and ready to speak. This book is not long on what is the gospel or motivation to share it, but it comes out of practical experience of friendship, hospitality and seeing others come to Christ. And helping Christians to come out to their friends and talk about Jesus.

 

This is a quick engaging read I reckon many believers would benefit from.

 

(Chan is also the author of a bigger book: Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable (Zondervan) and blogs at http://www.espressotheology.com/)

 

 

Stetzer in the Foreword: “Jesus’ last words [in The Great Commission] should be our first priority.” (p.xi)

 

Don’t just do evangelism, be evangelistic. Evangelism is a lifestyle change.

 

8 tips:

 

Tip 1 (p1ff) - Community (your friendship circle) strongly influences your plausibility structures, what seems believable to you. Seek to merge your Christian and non-Christian friendship circles. Evangelism is a team sport! Belonging often precedes believing.

 

It takes about two years to form a new network of friends (p10)

 

Sociologist say we need a tribe of 150, a network of 30 friends and an inner circle of 5 trusted friends. And in the West we often lack these. (p13)

 

Asking for a favour is a great way to build relationship (p14)

 

Tip 2 (p23ff): Go to their things and they will come to your things. Get involved in the village hub. Build trust and social capital.

 

Showing up need to mean total approval / adoption p31ff

 

Tip 3 (p35ff): Three concrete bite-sized achievable steps of evangelism: coffee, dinner, gospel. Or it could be beer, pizza, gospel – be creative!

 

Conversations typically progress through layers: (1) coffee, descriptive of interests (2) dinner, (prescriptive) values (3) worldview, frameworks by which we interpret the world (p36ff)

 

Nudge questions can give permission to move through the layers towards religion / spirituality / what really matters / God (p41f)

 

Hospitality in the NT (p44)

 

Hospitality is the secret sauce of evangelism which gives space and permission for gospel conversations to occur (p44f)  Share food, connect, relate, listen (p47)

 

Of course hospitality can be costly in terms of time, effort, money etc.

 

Tip 4 (p51ff): Listen! The golden rule of evangelism: evangelise as you would be evangelized!

 

Unless your friends feel heard, they wont listen

 

Hear, understand (summarise), empathise (how do they feel?)

 

Let the other person speak first and more. They will likely reciprocate and listen to you.

 

Logos (what is said); pathos (how it makes one feel); ethos (how one lives)

 

 Tip 5 (p63ff): Tell a better, more attractive story, which makes them wish that Christianity is true

 

Western Christians can sometimes feel or be told that they are on the wrong side of history. “Right now, secularism is actually declining all over the world – and Christianity is the fastest-growing religion.” (p68)

 

Some stories about Jesus etc. we could share with our friends in different situations (p69ff)

 

Ditch the Christian jargon (p71ff)

 

A helpful gospel outline (cf. Tim Keller): manger (incarnation), cross (atonement), king (restoration) (p79)

 

Telling your story (p81ff)

 

Tip 6 (p91ff): Tell them stories about Jesus

 

We should see our friends as gifts from God, not means to an end. But we also want to look for opportunities to speak of Jesus. We are looking for that sweet spot of continuing the friendship but speaking about Jesus. (p93)

 

The value of a nudge question to move the conversation deeper (p93)

 

Perhaps we should evangelise more like counsellors than preachers – being skilled at asking the right questions to help others talk and discover answers for themselves. Evangelism through conversation not monologue (p94)

 

Tip 7 (p103ff): Become their unofficial de facto chaplain so that in a time of crisis they will look to you for connection to the sacred / transcendent / God

 

The value of wisdom / living wisely as a way of making the Christian faith seem believable

 

Chaplains know people’s names and remember their kids, what they said etc. – take an interest, show you care, pay attention – be a calm, non-anxious presence – offer to pray

 

Medic joke: You only need to ask two questions to be a psychiatrist: (1) “How are you doing?” (2) “How are you really doing?” (p112) – The power of the second question

 

Tip 8 (p117ff): Lean in to disagreement

 

It is inevitable that our non-Christian friends will disagree with the gospel at some point. We don’t need to be disagreeable. They are really disagreeing with Jesus, not with our personal views.

 

Gently challenge – “Everyone is only two “why” questions away from not being able to give a rational answer.” (p122)

 

e.g. what basis for human rights / dignity / equality / freedom beyond Western convention

 

Not only responses to some common non-Christian objections / defeater beliefs but also positive reasons to believe / want to believe / need to believe

 

Win the friendship not the argument. No one really wants to have to admit they were wrong and lost the argument. It is not us verses them. We may want the same things as our non-Christian friends but have different starting points. We are not trying to beat them but to invite them to consider something from a new perspective (p130f)

 

Appendixes on resources and work place evangelism (coffee – dinner – gospel – next steps leaflet)