The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations

by Mary Schaller

  As Colin concluded his personal story, he briefly shared what his life is like now.

  Now I know that I’m a child of God. Jesus isn’t an idea to me—he’s the leader of my life. My focus is to love and serve God.

  Colin’s short story could read like this: Before, I was self-focused. Then I met Jesus personally, and now I am God-focused.

  Sharing God’s Story

  If you have simplified your own story, how can you share God’s story in a way that is also simple and compelling and leaves listeners wanting more? For some of us, the tendency is to tell more than people are ready to hear. For others, the tendency is to shy away from the conversation and say very little. What if there was a way to share God’s story that would pique the listener’s interest to hear more?

  Every year, movie producers filter through hundreds of screenplays to find the next great film. To get their attention, writers create a simple plot description with an emotional “hook.” It’s called the “logline.” Here’s an example: “A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea” (Titanic). Screenwriters have found that a clear, concise logline is essential to stimulate interest in their story so that studio executives will give the pivotal invitation: “Tell me more.”

  How can our approach to sharing God’s story be more like a logline and less like a lecture? What if it took only fifteen to thirty seconds to share? What if we told the story of God’s incredible offer of love, grace, and real life in such a concise, compelling way that seekers burned with curiosity and wanted us to tell them more?

  In 2011, Christian Century invited some Christian authors to summarize the gospel in a maximum of seven words. Here are some samples:

  “God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow” (Martin Marty).

  “Divinely persistent, God really loves us” (Donald Shriver).

  “In Christ, God’s ‘yes’ defeats our ‘no’” (Beverly Roberts Gaventa).

  “God is love: This is no joke” (Kathleen Norris).[85]

  These statements are likely to intrigue a listener by virtue of their brevity, provoking thought and inviting further conversation: “Tell me more . . .” or “So what do you mean by that?” But you can’t say something in a few words if you’re not clear on the essence of the message.

  Most of us have a big gap between understanding the gospel and being able to explain it to someone else. We “get it” when it comes to God’s story, facts of Christianity, and themes of the Bible. We may know the right answers to a list of multiple-choice questions. But could we actually teach Christianity 101 from memory? And if a listener were hostile, would we be completely at a loss to defend our ideas in a compelling, convincing way?

  The first step is to know the essence of the Christian message so that we can explain the truth clearly and concisely to someone who wants to understand. With brevity that doesn’t sound condescending, what is the simple message God wants us to share with people?

  Just as Jesus modeled teaching through storytelling, it’s a good idea to know several simple analogies and illustrations to help you tell God’s story clearly. However, filter them into a conversation rather than presenting them as a monologue. While you’re sharing, continue to notice, pray, listen, and ask questions so that you’re in tune with the person you’re sharing with. It’s much more than a quick presentation; it’s a dialogue. Be sure to choose illustrations carefully, paying attention to what might resonate most with your listener and his or her questions about God.

  These may seem familiar or even too simple, but a straightforward analogy can still communicate powerfully when you share it with someone with whom you’ve developed a relationship over time. Here are a few simple, time-tested illustrations.

  1. God as a Good Judge

  We know from the Bible that God is both loving and just. We’ve discussed his tremendous love for us throughout this book, but he is also the God of justice, who will one day judge every person. How do we reconcile that? This simple story might help explain it.

  Suppose you rob a bank, get caught, and are brought to court. You are clearly guilty when you go before the judge—who, as luck would have it, turns out to be your father. The judge, needing to be impartial and uphold the law, must declare you guilty of the crime and sentence you to time in prison. But because he loves you so much as his child, he then takes off the judicial robes he is wearing, comes around to the other side of the judge’s bench, and agrees to take the jail sentence in your place. You don’t have to pay the price for your crime, because he is choosing to pay it for you.

  The apostle Paul says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that we will be accountable to God, our ultimate judge who views our sins against his perfect standard of holiness. Paul goes on to explain that “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25-26).

  In the powerful movie Courageous, police officer Nathan Hayes talks to a fellow officer about God as a good and righteous judge:

  Okay. Suppose [your mom] was brutally attacked and murdered in a parking lot. The guy was caught and put on trial. But he says, “Hey, Judge, I’ve committed this crime, but I’ve done a lot of good in my life.” If the judge let him go free, would you say he was a good judge or a bad judge? . . . The Bible says that God is a good judge, and He will punish the guilty, not for what they did right, but for what they did wrong. Because He loved us, He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to take the punishment that we deserved, and put it on Himself, and that’s why He died on the cross. But it only applies if you accept it. That’s why I asked for His forgiveness. I asked Him to save me. And I’m a new man because of Christ.[86]

  This presentation was simple and natural, and the timing of Hayes’s sharing was appropriate.

  In telling your own personal story of why you asked for God’s forgiveness and accepted his atoning gift of grace, you could reference these other important verses in John 3:16-18:

  For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (NASB)

  2. The Bridge

  The Bible tells us: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, ESV). On a piece of paper, you could draw a stick figure on the left side. Write us under it. On the right side, write God. Draw a horizontal line above each word, with lines extending down so it looks like there are two cliffs with a wide gap between us and God. Explain that because each of us has moral failures (what the Bible calls “sin”), we have all “earned” separation from God, or spiritual death. (Write death at the bottom of the paper.) There’s a gap between us and God. We can’t jump across the gap or earn our way across it; trying to cross it ourselves leads to death. The only thing that can bridge the gap is Jesus. (Draw a cross that connects the two cliffs, connecting us to God.) He made a connection possible; now all that remains is for us to walk across the way he’s given us by accepting Christ as the forgiver and leader of our lives.[87]

  The bridge is one of the most common illustrations seen on gospel tracts handed out on street corners, and some would claim it has outlived its usefulness. However, I (Mary) think it still has great merit—if used when people are ready to see it. For example, Alice, a woman who had been coming to my first spiritual-conversation group for several months, had heard me say that I had a personal relationship with Jesus.
Alice had started coming to the group when she lost her executive job with a large company and her husband left her for another woman. She had attended church on and off for most of her life, but she had not understood the core message about Jesus and his forgiveness of our sins when we believe in him. She hadn’t understood that we as humans have a sin problem that separates us from God. She also was not desperate for God—until this season of her life when things were going much differently than she had expected.

  Living without a close relationship with God was increasingly problematic for Alice, especially when she saw people like the group facilitators who were in close communion with God, living with peace and joy. She wanted that for herself. After one of our discussions, I showed Alice the bridge illustration, and it enabled her to know what she needed to do. The following week, she came to me privately and asked if she could become a Christian, knowing that Jesus would forgive her and be the leader of her life.

  3. Do versus Done

  On a piece of paper, you could write the word DO. Explain that a common misconception about Christianity is that it (like all religions) consists of a set of rules to be obeyed or practices in which to engage, all so that we can earn God’s approval. This frame of reference sees religion as DO; it is all about our activity, self-improvement, and hard work. Now add an N and E at the end to spell DONE. Explain that becoming a Christian is about accepting what Christ has done—not about our own actions. The new birth Jesus talked about (see John 3) actually comes from ceasing to do anything we think would earn God’s favor (which is, if you think about it, spiritual pride masquerading as “good character”). Like children, we are to accept that it is “done” and there’s nothing we can add to Jesus’ finished work on the cross. We don’t earn forgiveness through a life of dos and don’ts—that would be impossible, even if we tried. Instead, salvation is already done, completed; so we simply accept God’s grace as a gift, and we experience a new life by faith.[88]

  Two women named Chelsey and Pam began attending a spiritual conversation group a few years ago in the Pacific Northwest. When they joined, they were convinced from their experience with churches that they were not good enough to become Christians. They thought they had to get their act cleaned up before God would love them and accept them. They learned in their group—by studying the Bible and talking about what it meant to be a Christian—that they would never be good enough to please God on their own merits. Jesus paid the ultimate price for sin by dying on the cross so that we can be right with God when we admit that we are sinners and need God’s unmerited favor, called grace. Both women decided to put their faith in Jesus, knowing that they didn’t have to do anything but repent and believe. The work of salvation was done through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

  Sharon, one of their group facilitators and a friend of mine, explained the beauty of God’s grace by reading The Message’s rendering of Ephesians 2:1-10 in their group:

  It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

  Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

  We cannot brag or take any credit for this saving act by God. Reading this simple passage to people who are ready to hear it can help people understand the amazing gift of grace God has given us through Jesus Christ.

  4. God in the Driver’s Seat

  Almost everyone understands the difference between driving a car and riding along as a passenger. Another simple illustration is to suggest that putting Jesus, rather than yourself, in the “driver’s seat” of your life will give him the authority to steer your life in the direction he wants to take it. When we direct ourselves, we tend to make mistakes and focus more on ourselves than God. That often results in self-induced suffering and pain, harming others around us and negatively impacting our own lives. But when we trust Jesus to take over the steering wheel, he guides us to the destinations God has for our lives.

  My husband, Paul, is a private plane pilot. Several years ago, we were flying back from a resort community with my nephew Tim, who was actively seeking God at the time. We had engaged in several spiritual conversations with him over our family vacation, which was now concluding with a flight home in Uncle Paul’s plane. Due to some bad weather and slippery conditions on the runway, it was a rocky takeoff from the resort airport, and even I was feeling a little anxious about our safety. As Tim and I sat in the back seat of the plane after takeoff, I asked him whether he was nervous about our departure. He said no, because he fully trusted Uncle Paul as a pilot. His response prompted me to say that faith in Christ was like that too. When we trust Jesus as the pilot flying the “plane” of our life, we know that he is worthy of our faith in him.

  At the time, I thought this might be a little cheesy for my twenty-year-old nephew, but he said he got it. I asked if he would be ready to invite Jesus into his life as Lord, and to my surprise he said yes. At 22,000 feet above the ground, with our Piper Malibu airplane noise surrounding us, Tim prayed a simple prayer to do just that.

  5. Believe + Receive = Become

  Following a simple Scripture—“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12)—you can write the above equation on a piece of paper to explain the simple steps to accepting Jesus.

  First, explain that it is necessary to believe Jesus is who he said he was—the Son of God. But belief is not enough. You also must receive that truth into your heart and soul. Once you have done that, you will become God’s child, adopted into his family, forgiven of your sins and promised hope and life at its fullest now and into eternity.

  My father believed almost all his life that Jesus was the Son of God, and he had been a regular churchgoer since his youth. But it wasn’t until he was in his late seventies that he began to receive the truth about the saving power that Jesus gives. He let that truth start to transform him as we began regularly talking about spiritual matters. Dad could become easily irritated by aggressive drivers or people he thought were trying to cheat him in some way. He also had some irrational fears and guilt that went way back to his childhood. His little sister Betty was only four years old when my dad, who was only a year older, walked her across a busy street. She let go of his hand, ran in front of an oncoming car, and was killed. He carried that guilt and shame around all of his life. Yet decades later, when Dad and I lived in different parts of the country, we started to read the Bible together weekly on the phone. As he slowly began to believe and receive the truth of God’s Word and apply it to his life in new ways that healed him, Dad became one of God’s children and was more joyful, knowing he was fully forgiven, accepted, and loved by God.

  Ready to Follow?

  Telling someone about Jesus is different from asking them to open themselves up to him—either by way of investigation or, if they are ready, to receive his forgiveness. Just knowing God’s story is not enough; after all, the devil knows lots of bi
blical truths!

  God wants our hearts; we need to respond and surrender our lives to him. If you’re in conversation with a person who is ready to do that, you can lead him or her in a simple prayer, either to ask that Jesus make himself real to the person or to invite Jesus to be their leader (Lord) and forgiver (Savior). One way to structure this prayer is with the simple outline Help, Sorry, Thanks: Help, I need your forgiveness, God. Sorry for the way I’ve shut you out of my life. Thanks for what you did for me through Jesus.

  Young Life expresses it this way: Coming into a relationship with Jesus is as easy as ABC: Admit that you are a sinner, believe that Jesus died for your sins and is God, and commit to follow Jesus as the leader of your life. I really like this one for its simplicity. When someone is ready to follow Jesus, using this model seems to lead naturally to praying with that person and letting them use words that have meaning to them.

  Overcoming Obstacles

  To engage with people who believe differently and to share our story and God’s story, we must identify and overcome three primary hurdles in sharing our faith: (1) We’re unclear about our understanding of the gospel and how to explain our experience with God, (2) we are afraid we’ll receive a negative response, and (3) we think that evangelism is the job of the professionals. By facing and understanding these barriers, we can intentionally overcome them.

  The apostle Paul recognizes the first hurdle. He asks the church at Colossae to “pray that I may proclaim [the gospel] clearly, as I should” (Colossians 4:4). If we sincerely want help, God loves to answer that prayer! With the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit and some intentional practice of the simple suggestions given in this chapter, anyone can share his or her story and God’s story in a winsome manner.