How to Share Your Faith When You're Not a Preacher

You freeze up. Somebody gives you an opening, asks a real question, and you feel the sweat, because in your head sharing your faith means winning a debate you are not equipped to win. So you say nothing, and you feel like a coward the whole drive home.

Let me take that weight off you. You were never called to be a lawyer for God. You were called to be a witness. And a witness does not have to be brilliant. A witness just tells what he saw.

There is a man in the Gospel of John who is the patron saint of every nervous believer. Jesus healed him, and the religious experts hauled him in and tried to trap him with theology he could not answer. His entire defense was one sentence: "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see" (John 9:25). He did not out-argue anyone. He told them what happened to him. That is evangelism. You do not need every answer. You need your own before and after.

So here is what actually works for a normal man.

Stop trying to win the argument. Nobody gets debated into the kingdom by sheer cleverness, the Spirit is the one who opens a man's eyes. Give your reasons, Paul did it constantly, but the outcome was never riding on you out-talking anybody. Your job is to be honest about what Jesus did for you and let that be attractive: "always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence" (1 Peter 3:15). Gentleness. And reverence, aimed up at God, which is exactly what keeps your tone toward people from turning into a fight.

Live a life that makes them ask. Most doors open long before you say a word. The man who watches you stay steady when your world falls apart, who sees you own your mistakes, who notices you are not chasing what everyone else chases, eventually he asks why. That question is the opening, and you did not have to force it.

Remember whose job the outcome is. You are not the one who saves anybody: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). You still have a real part, plant, water, but the growth is not on your shoulders. Sometimes you are one seed in a field a dozen others watered. It still counts.

And quit being ashamed of it: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16). You are not peddling an opinion. You are carrying the one piece of news that can save a man's life. You do not have to be slick. You have to not be silent.

Start with the people already in front of you. The brother, the coworker, the guy at the shop. The ones who watch your life. Love them, be honest that Jesus is the reason you are the way you are, and when the door opens, do not freeze. Just tell them what you saw.