What We're Still Talking About 05: Evangelism Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura Wifler: I know those of you in other countries right now—you probably have very little sympathy for us Americans who—I know you've probably been living like this for quite a while, but I think it is a new experience, particularly in the United States, where things have really changed. In 2018, we did a show called "Evangelism in the Little Years," and we talked specifically about evangelism. Honestly, through all of our shows, we do a lot of talking about how to be involved in your community—how to love others well.
There's a lot of principles and a lot of different shows, but we thought we'd revisit this topic because, since this is What We're Still Talking About, the opportunities that Emily and I have to engage in evangelism have really changed, yet we're still talking about evangelism and "What does that look like in our lives today as moms?"
Emily Jensen: I think one of the biggest things that shifted for me is—in the little years, especially when I was home with kids and I had five little kids under five, we didn't interact with people very often outside of our home, just by the function of naps and activities and things. When we did get out, we prioritized seeing our few friends from church that we needed to connect with or family, or maybe I saw the same librarian or the same grocery store clerk over and over again.
I remember feeling like I don't have as many opportunities as I would like to engage with people who aren't believers—who come with different backgrounds. We talked about that a little bit in those shows early on—how we wrestle with that and how we can create those opportunities, even with the mom at the park. I would say today, those circumstances have shifted radically for me with all school-aged children. I almost feel like I'm relearning like, "How do you do this? How do you do these relationships?" I'm glad we're still talking about this. What's something you've learned, Laura?
Laura: When I think back to the original show to this time, I know, for me, a lot of times I thought of evangelism as this one moment where you were like, "Now, Jesus rose from the grave. He saved you from your sins." It was like that moment that you were actually sharing the gospel—that's evangelism. I think I have a much broader picture of what evangelism is now. I was doing a tiny bit of research into this for the show and thinking about that original meaning of "evangelism"—well, that's a Greek word that means to "proclaim the good news." An evangelist is simply someone who tells others about the good news of Jesus.
We know that the good news is that Jesus died for the sins of the world. He was buried, rose again on the third day, and he's the one who conquered sin and death and gives us eternal salvation. Yet, as I think more about evangelism, some people have evangelism as a spiritual gift. It is literally you have the gift of evangelism, and you feel more comfortable than others. You'll likely share more quickly. You feel passionate about teaching others in the church how to do this, and you're able to cast a vision for others to get caught up in what it looks like to have a life of evangelism.
This is a gift—Ephesians 4:11—that you have been given by the Spirit to use and to go out and do, but yet, evangelism is also a command for all believers. Jesus gives this as a command to all his followers in both Matthew and Acts. So you have Matthew 28: the Great Commission. You guys are all familiar with that probably. "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you, and remember, I'm with you always to the end of the age." And I won't read it, but Acts 1:8 is another spot where Jesus gives that command to go out to the ends of the earth and to be his witnesses.
We also have Romans 10:17: "So faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." There are lots of other little spots throughout the New Testament where the apostles and the disciples and Jesus are all talking about how we're to go out; we're to evangelize, make disciples, tell others about Jesus. So that is a call for all of us.
Emily: What's interesting is even though this is Christianity 101, and we know this, a lot of us don't do it or we shy away from it. If you don't have that gift of evangelism, it might leave you trembling in your boots because, at the end of the day, I think we struggle with being self-focused.
Even in the life of a mom every day—I'm just trying to get the lunches packed. I'm just trying to look at the schoolwork that came home. I'm just trying to remember the 700 things on the calendar or the person I'm supposed to get back to. It's really hard for me to focus outward and think about what might be going on in someone else's life that I should reach out to or care for. We're afraid of being rejected, being in a social situation, and being either overtly or covertly outcast.
We are afraid of being persecuted for our faith, even though the Bible tells us we will be. We are busy with things. We don't number our days, remember our state. We don't remember that we're living for eternity, and so the things that we do now should be investing in that later. So there's so many things that we don't think about and focus on that we should, but I think we all know this concept that when something grabs your heart and changes your life, you tell others about that. That's true for a great pair of jeans, right?
Laura: Absolutely.
Emily: Somebody finds the pair of jeans—
Laura: I'm telling everybody.
Emily: —that fits, and they are 40% off, and they come in all these different styles and colors…you know they're posting that to Instagram, and they're telling all their friends.
Laura: This is influencer culture at its finest.
Emily: You and I—we talk about "This supplement really helped me. This electrolyte water"—whatever all these things are. "I liked this workout so much." And we have no problem spreading the word about things that we like, no matter how menial or like meaningless they are, and yet, when it comes to something like the transforming grace of Jesus Christ in our lives, we don't really talk about that as much.
Laura: Oh, my goodness. Absolutely. I know that often that is just where, because of all the things Emily said, we get afraid of that rejection or that that person won't receive it, and yet Christ died for that. Even for that. So he died for our sins, and then he died for all the times that we are so—
Emily: —cowardly.
Laura: Yes, that we are so cowardly. We have so much fear of man. Yet we know that we can grow, and we can change in this, and so I look back on so many missed opportunities in my life. I can think of a lot, and I know there are probably thousands that I don't even remember or recognize of opportunities that I missed.
I also know that because the Spirit is working in me and that because the Spirit is working in all the moms who are listening to the show, we can grow, and we can change in this. We can get better at that. We can repent when we decided that, "Hey, I really wanted to save face in that moment and I don't want to be bold." We can repent of that, and we can live lives that match the gospel—that match our witness. And we can be bold in sharing the gospel.
I think that's helpful to me, to just remember that I don't have to look back at all my past failures and mess-ups, but instead, I can say, "Okay, today I want to be bold in this moment going forward." And I know that if we're believers, we have the Spirit in us, helping us and giving us words when we don't have them, and giving us confidence, and even if we flub things up, God isn't looking at the perfect words. He's asking for the effort. He's asking for us to obey in that moment.
Emily: One of the principles that still rings true today is also this idea that we can take the pressure off because God is in charge, like what you're saying. We do have the Spirit inside of us. Salvation is a gift of grace so that no one can boast. It wasn't anybody's perfect strategy or anything that we concocted that saves people. It's God that draws people to himself.
We have to remember that the New Testament talks about unbelievers as haters of God—people who think that the cross is just absolute foolishness. And additionally, Scripture talks about, again, unbelievers as being blind and deaf and sick and dead, and all these things and situations where people literally cannot help themselves, and so we have to remember it's God that allows the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dead to be born again and raised from the dead.
All of that is a work of God, and I think whenever we keep that in mind, it helps us go into situations realizing, yes, we need to be obedient. We need to share as God calls and leads us to share, but it's not ultimately up to us. I heard a story recently that just reminded me of this. Our friend Gretchen was sharing on another podcast interview that she had a young man at her church who at his baptism was sharing about running across a video on TikTok that shared the gospel, and he was in this dark place, and he was depressed and whatever, and the algorithm just for whatever reason, popped this gospel story in front of his face, and he was saved.
Laura: Wow.
Emily: He went to church and got baptized.
Laura: That is insane. The most dark place in the world: TikTok. [Laughter]
Emily: You just think—God can use anything. We've heard those stories of people in very unreached places where they have a dream about Jesus Christ and then they realize a missionary moved in next door to them, and the missionary shares the gospel with them, and they're saved. God can do anything through anything. Nothing is impossible for God, and so he can certainly use us in our imperfect efforts. We don't know. That's the reason why we should keep doing it because we don't know what the one word or the one phrase or the one conversation is that's going to impact somebody.
Laura: Absolutely. In the last show that we will link in our show notes, we gave a lot of tips around the myths and the pitfalls that many of us fall into with evangelism, and we talked a little bit about how important it is to get reps in—to get more comfortable in this skill. So head back to that show if you want a little bit more of that. Today, we want to talk about what it looks to be a faithful presence in our communities.
Now, this is a phrase that my church uses often—to be a faithful presence—and it has been really, really helpful. We want to be a faithful presence in our communities, to build relationships in a way that, when there are needs, you are the person that they call. So we talked a little bit about the changing culture and the climate and how it's maybe less accepted to just be like, "I'm a Christian, and here's what you need to know."
I remember five years ago, I felt I could say that in a room full of people who were at different spots in their religion and their faith, and it would be like, "Okay, cool." Now it feels like if you say something like that, you may turn someone off completely or they may never come back again to this event or they may feel like, "Hey, that's a space for me that isn't okay for me to be in."
I have seen that firsthand in my own life, and that has been a hard realization, but also recognizing that, okay, as things have changed with evangelism, there are still vast numbers of opportunities and ways that we can represent Jesus to people and to draw them in. And the first thing to start with perhaps is just remembering there is a verbal and a non-verbal witness.
Roman 10:17 talks about "Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." I mentioned that earlier in the show, so you need words. You have to actually tell someone why you are different. "Well, I'm different because of Jesus." We need those words to explain our behavior, or we'll be just like these moral people that are—I don't know—very upright and conservative is what people will think, but we do need our witness to match the words that will eventually come, and this is what a faithful presence is.
It is someone who acts on and lives out the gospel that we believe, so we want to make sure that our behavior matches the words that we hope to eventually share. So we're going to talk through a handful of things that you can do to be a faithful presence in your community.
Emily: I think one thing that I often remember is that everyone is an image bearer. They are a person with a story and with real griefs and real hurts, real struggles, real questions about life. They're not projects. This is not like a conversion project that God has given me. So even though I want to have evangelism and conversion in my mind as I'm thinking about people, I think we want to recognize that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. I need Jesus just as much as that person, and God did a work of grace in my life. When I wasn't seeking God, he was drawing me to himself. He can do the same thing for that person. I want to participate in that and that really takes a long-term view. I think one thing that's helped me with a paradigm about this, especially in a post-Christian culture, is to think about a missionary preparing to go to another country.
They often take training classes, they take language classes, they go visit beforehand, they take some time to acclimate when they arrive, they set down roots. They're going to have to build trust with people. Yes, they are going to share the gospel. Yes, they're going to start to invite people to Bible study, but they have, again, this, "Hey, it's going to be five years, and it's going to take us first two years just to learn how to talk to people, and then it's going to take us another year to get trust for people to come into our homes." There is this strategic, long-form view, and so I know as I'm engaging in relationships with people who I don't know where they're at spiritually or I don't think that they are a follower of Christ, I want to also learn that language with them, build that trust with them, and care about them and what God might be doing in their life and to keep pressing into that over time.
Laura: Yes, I think we need both of those types of evangelism, right? We have some of those people who have the gift of evangelism or maybe you're an amazing apologist and you are able to be sharp-witted and quick and talk to people and really help go to bat with some of those apologetics.
Emily: Yes, like the person who'll just share the gospel in the Uber ride.
Laura: Exactly.
Emily: We need that. Keep doing that.
Laura: Exactly, and many of us who prefer the slow burn—we also need to be bold in certain moments. So we need both of those things. Long-term relationship building, but also, like Emily's saying, some people get converted on TikTok because someone just shared the gospel on a video. We need both of those things, but also recognizing she's saying that people are people. They are not projects.
Another thing that has really been helpful for me is being influential in the circles that you're already in. In the past few years, I think things got a little bit crazy of feeling like "I have to be passionate about everything, and I have to give to all of these causes. I have to be super smart about all of these issues, and I have to make sure that I am speaking, writing checks, discussing, and arguing on behalf of, and standing up for, basically every issue out there."
This is an exhausting way to live. We cannot be passionate about everything. I am passionate about people not being passionate about everything. That is what I'm passionate about.
Emily: You are.
Laura: I am. I have said this probably before on the show. As my kids have gotten older, and as God has put certain types of suffering and hardship and circumstances into my life, I have found that he has naturally given me things to be passionate about.
He has given me ministry, he has given me influence, and that has been incredibly formative for me to understand—okay, these are the areas that I can be influential in, Lord. I think one of the things that can happen to us is that we just feel it's overwhelming when you are trying to tackle all of the world's problems. This is why we have the church, and we have the body. And different people can be passionate about different things and to care about things and be experts.
As your kids get older, take heart. If you are a very young mom or if you are in a stage like Emily and I or a little bit older, you can see how God has probably shaped and formed different spheres of influence for you—different friendships. Like Emily— she's serving on a board of a nonprofit that does a topic that she cares about deeply, and so she has these relationships that are naturally occurring. Just remember that you don't have to have like the social media syndrome of going out and caring about every single thing, but, instead, you can focus and hone in on some things that are specifically mattering in your life in that moment.
Emily: Speaking of issues, I think it's important that we keep the difference between the gospel and the essential truths of Scripture as separate from the specific issues that we might be passionate about or the matters of conscience or the parenting choices or political views or our thoughts on different medical decisions, et cetera, et cetera. Again, those things are okay to talk about, but we have to realize that as we are putting our stick in the ground and we're saying, "This is the thing that I'm going to speak with a loud volume and a passionate voice and I'm going to argue with somebody about"—was that a gospel truth, something that is really clear from Scripture—the true message of good news that we want to get out? Or was that something that was more a matter of conscience? It's going to vary by circumstances and it's, again, great to talk about to be a faithful presence.
Honestly, being a faithful presence buys you some relational capital to talk about hard things in those situations because they know who you are. They know how much you love them. They know how quick you are to be gracious and to serve and to give an encouraging word and to be patient. When you have a hard thing to say, sometimes that can really draw people in to listen.
Laura: And like Emily said: we are to expect persecution—and so often I think we can get caught up in feeling like, "I want the comfortable American life. I want to not face any hardship." That has been the climate for many, many years where it has been fairly easy to be a Christian. Yet as things change, we know that this is what's to be expected. This actually is more aligned with what Jesus talks about in John 15. He says that "The world hates you. Understand that it hated me before it hated you. If you are of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you. A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours." This feels really hard when you feel you're battling negativity or depravedness, ignorance or animosity at every turn, and yet, when we change our expectations about what this life is about, it helps us to bear it. We can't expect us to experience heaven on earth. We're in the already-but-not-yet, right? Yet, this is probably the reality that all of us need to start gearing up for. All of us need to start becoming more accepting of saying, "Hey, the world is going to hate me. Jesus says that they're going to not like what I have to say, and yet, they know that when they come to me, I will be Jesus to them. I will love them well. I will show them God's grace and God's goodness and God's mercy." That is a hard tension to live in, but I think it's one we're called to.
Emily: We can take heart because Jesus is not asking us to do anything that he didn't walk through himself. He was spit on, he was mocked, he was rejected. Everyone left Jesus.
He obeyed his Father to the point of death. When we experience suffering or persecution, we're doing it with Christ. Scripture actually tells us we are blessed as we engage with that. We are blessed as we suffer with our Savior. That's actually a hugely wonderful, blessed place to be. I think of the story—I think it's in Acts—of the stoning of Stephen. I'm pulling this from memory right now.
Laura: Okay, keep going.
Emily: Where he's getting persecuted for sharing the gospel, and they are stoning him. God comforts him in that moment by the glory that's awaiting him. And that's us. We are getting stones thrown at us from every direction in our culture, but we are looking to the glory that is ahead. That's what we're keeping our eyes fixed on. I remember we had our sister-in-law one time—we were having a conversation about going somewhere and how we were going to portray ourselves in public as representatives of Risen Motherhood. I don't know if you remember this.
Laura: I think I do, yes.
Emily: I remember we were really harping on "People are going to overhear our conversations, and people are watching what we're doing when we're walking down the street. You don't know what somebody's listening to. You always want to be representing Risen Motherhood well." She came in with the perfect mic drop, and she was like, "We're always representing Christ." Forget Risen Motherhood; we are always showing others what Jesus is like.
I think as a mom, it's important to remember that, to the little unbelievers in our home, we are always representing Christ to them. They're always watching to see: is that what Jesus is like? Is that what God is like when my mom is like that? We can show Jesus to them. When we're in the school pickup line. When we are picking up groceries. When we are at our job. Whatever it is, people are looking at us and watching us, and we get a chance to be a reflection of an ambassador of Christ and to share in his sufferings, and it's a gift.
