Witnessing is easy. It's especially easy when you're in a foreign country and the people that you're talking with know all of the right answers. You ask if they have a relationship with God or know Jesus and the answer is a firm "of course!" You ask if they go to church and you either get a "yes, I'm there every week" or a "no, but I pray and read the Bible every day at home". The downside of asking these questions in this manner and getting these answers is that it is ineffective. It is surface level. It is what we want to hear and sometimes it is a lie. During the visit they hear about Jesus but, unfortunately, many times it doesn't stick. It is like the seeds that landed on the path but got eaten by the birds. The Enemy comes in and takes away the seeds that have been planted so that there is no chance for them to really take root. I want to propose that witnessing should be hard. It should be uncomfortable. It should go to the very core of who we are and who the listeners are as well as who God wants us and our listeners to be. After all, this is a matter of life and death. I learned this lesson this week while going door-to-door with my team and one of the local pastors. We stopped at the home of woman and her mother and children and began a discussion with her. We told her that we were from the United States and Canada and that we had traveled to Nicaragua because we had a relationship with Christ and that he had been called us to share his love with others and that he specifically wanted a relationship with her. At this point we asked her the question that I mentioned at the beginning, like we had done many times before but this time something interesting happened. She hesitated and responded with a simple "Yes" and that's when it hit me that she had no idea what we were really talking about. I preceded to ask her what she thought it meant to have a relationship with Christ. She responded that it means that God gives blessings to your family. I realized that she didn't truly understand the full measure of what Christ had done for her. Something was missing. We were able to talk with a little more and explain that those blessings come from knowing Jesus in a personal and intimate way. We explained that those blessings that she mentioned are a byproduct of our faith in and obedience to him. In the end she didn't except Christ but I walked away with a new perspective on how to share the Gospel.
As a social worker I ask a lot of questions. Many of my questions are pretty standard. They are used to gather basic information about a client or a situation. The key to being truly effective is recognizing when it is necessary to go deeper, beyond what is appearing on the surface, listening to more than the words that are being said, looking for clues other than those that body language is giving away, and listening to the Father for what and when to speak. Effective evangelism is the same. Many people are content to tell you what you want you hear, especially if it will get you off of their front porch but that's not going to save them. I'm learning to not be afraid to ask the difficult questions because I know that there is going to come a day when the right question will yield the right answer and lead someone into a new life.
