When to Share Our Faith with Words

It’s an age-old question that has plenty times before tugged at the corners of my mind: When do we share our faith with words and when do actions alone suffice? Does the fragrant aroma of Christ become-off putting when we put too many words before it? Is our silence in some way grieving the Holy Spirit? When our feet teeter between words and actions, may the foundation beneath us align with the heartbeat of the Father—for people.

I can remember the moment clearly because I couldn’t wipe the sweat from my palms no matter how far I buried them into my crossed legs. My 70-some teammates and I sat on the floor in imperfect semi-circle shaped rows. We were in New Zealand, on a trip that combined hip hop and evangelism, and I was the awkwardly shy young teen who kept wondering what I had gotten myself into. But in this moment, as we discussed boldly sharing our faith, I spoke up, red-tamale-faced, to put in my two-pennies worth about friendship evangelism.

Friendship evangelism

It was a model I had recently heard about during a youth conference, and it had resonated deep inside me. I have long since lost the notes to ascribe credit for the teaching, but I remember the premise well. There are three stories, each represented with a circle: my story, God’s story, and the story of a new friend I am cultivating a friendship with. When I put my faith in Jesus Christ, God’s story becomes part of my story, just like two circles that overlap. Our stories are interconnected, inseparable. To know me is to know how God’s story flows through and shapes my story. Similarly, as my new friend and I unwrap layers of our stories, inviting each other to know the real us, we not only learn about each other, we write story of our shared experiences. Our circles, too, overlap. The more deeply interconnected my circle becomes with both God’s and my new friend’s, the greater the magnetic pull becomes of my friend’s circle towards God’s circle.

Friendship evangelism is far less linear that a model that pushes words out ahead of connectedness. Yet I truly believe it well encapsulates how discipleship is a life lived in both intimate connection to God and community with others, with words given as a ready answer when questions are asked. It is dynamic, fluid, and takes into account both our humanity and God’s perfect love that pursues each one of us.

Sharing the message of God’s relentless love is never more important than the ones He pursues—people are infinitely valued by God and so too should be by us, the ones who represent Him in a million everyday ways in our neighborhoods.

When to share our faith with words

Let’s unpack this a little more: In the context of living out our faith in our neighborhood, I cannot emphasize enough how important relationship is. Words spoken from a distance rarely feel gentle or grace-imbued. Our neighbors don’t want to feel judged, shamed, and exposed, but even our well-meant words meant don’t breathe life if there is no relationship. We may be inadvertently sending the wrong message because we don’t even know the neighbors we are trying to share our words with.

We wouldn’t’ ask someone we don’t know well or deeply trust to be an accountability partner; our job is not to provide accountability to people who haven’t given us that space to speak into their life, but to sow seeds and trust that God will cause them to grow in His time and in His way. Our testimony includes our words— words that overflow from a soft heart being molded by Him.

Live open

Live vulnerably, and we demonstrate that faith is a practice not label. Live beautifully humble and the humblest of all will truly be glorified in all we say and do. Open our hearts, homes, and lives to our neighbors and let them see us walk in peace in the middle of turbulence and choose joy in even the ordinary moments. When we are willing to offer up our own stories of how we are imperfect, as Brene Brown advocates for (15), we encourage others to also be real, and only when we are in that space can God break in. Demonstrating how we imperfectly follow a perfect God does not make His perfection shine duller—it amplifies it.

So let’s simply be relational, not religious. Present, not pretentious.

Let’s live open. Open to God, and open to our neighbors, so as we write shared stories with our neighbors, the arrows we point to God are part of the script.

A prayer for you

Father, may our lives exude Your fragrance.

May we use words, but may they reinforce, not contradict, the way we live our lives.

May our speech be gentle and always grounded in love.

May our stories be intricately wrapped up in—inseparable from—Your story.

May the stories of our lives forever point the glory to You.

May we have grace to be silent and courage to speak up, and open ears to hear Holy Spirit promptings on when to do which.

May we learn when to share our faith with words, but first how to live it.

Brown, Brené. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Hazelden, 2010.

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