The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations

by Mary Schaller

  Another hurdle to overcome is our fear of receiving a negative response. At some level, we all want to be liked, and most of us avoid offending or bothering others. The fear of being ostracized or rejected is a powerful force. Our culture has a negative stereotype of people who proselytize, and we don’t want to be labeled as intolerant, narrow minded, or “one of those people”—even if we do have something we believe our world desperately needs. I love the reminder in 2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT): “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” It’s also helpful to remember that “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18).

  Finally, our third hurdle is based on the thinking that sharing the good news about Jesus is a job for pastors and those with the spiritual gift of evangelism. We have adopted the mentality that we should bring our friends to someone more qualified (pastors, evangelists, Bible experts), and they will “deliver the goods and close the deal.” Hopefully, these 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations have given you a different perspective on this. Anyone can notice, pray, listen, ask questions, love, welcome, facilitate, and serve together. Sharing is natural in the context of a trusting relationship.

  The apostle Peter wrote, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). We are all—and always—called to be prepared in advance for an opportunity to give a reason for our hope in Jesus. And if God wants us geared up at all times, he must plan to send many opportunities our way to share our faith.

  My (Crilly’s) buddy Dan was sitting on the bleachers, waiting for his men’s flag football game to start, when he met Johnny. They connected quickly over sports and Italian food. After the game, Dan told me about this bleacher connection, and we began praying for Johnny. Within a couple of weeks the conversations between Dan and Johnny transitioned naturally from sports to more substantive spiritual topics. Johnny had questions about his religious upbringing, and he wondered about this Jesus whom Dan talked about. What the sidelines didn’t allow, the local restaurant did: food and an opportunity to talk more deeply.

  With Johnny’s permission, Dan took his best stab at summing up what the Bible teaches about Christ, why he had to come, and what it all means for our lives. Using two water glasses and a straw, Dan laid out the classic bridge illustration in full 3D: The glasses represented us and God; the distance between the glasses, the separation caused by our moral failure. But thank God for the straw—that is, Jesus, who alone bridged the gap through his life, death, and resurrection.

  Feeling bold because of his deepening friendship with Johnny, Dan issued a challenge. “Johnny, there are just two kinds of people in the world: those swimming around in this glass without God, and those on this side who’ve crossed over and are now swimming in this glass with God. Which one are you?” Johnny indicated that he had never asked Christ to be his Savior and Leader, and politely declined Dan’s invitation. “Not ready!” Johnny said. Dan replied, “Fine. Then you can pay the bill.”

  After a good laugh, the two parted with the understanding that Johnny’s decision wouldn’t affect their relationship. Two weeks later, Dan got a call. “Yo, Dan . . . I did it.” Dan knew right away what that was about. Johnny had walked over “the straw,” the bridge connecting him to God, and now, through Jesus, he was on God’s side!

  Discover

  What is the biggest obstacle for you when sharing God’s story?

  Why do you think people are afraid to tell their personal stories about becoming a Christ follower?

  Practice

  Get together this week with someone who will role-play with you, and explain God’s story of redemption as you would to a non-Christian.

  Practice sharing your personal faith story with a friend in under two minutes. Ask for feedback on how it was received.

  GOD HAS PLACED people in your life who might not attend a church but would be willing to talk about spiritual matters in a small-group community if it feels safe for honest discussion and discovery. Starting an ongoing spiritual conversation group is an effective way to engage others in the big questions about life, God, and the Bible. It begins when three or four Christians join together to facilitate a discussion and learn along with the group participants. No one is an expert. Everyone is a learner. At the heart is the inductive learning approach, because people learn best when they discover truth for themselves through dialogue—as the early followers of Jesus did with him.

  CHAPTER 12

  STARTING A Q PLACE

  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

  MATTHEW 28:18-20

  Who is to bring the knowledge that will answer life’s great questions to our world today? That would be you. If you are a follower of Jesus . . . you have a calling far more important than you may know.

  JOHN ORTBERG

  MY (MARY’S) FAMILY LIVED in Portola Valley, California, for nineteen years. During that time, Paul and I coached our three kids’ sports teams, volunteered in many school functions, and led several community groups. We knew a lot of people there. Most of them were not regular churchgoers.

  In late 2001, I spoke to two of my Christian friends, Kristin and Judy, about the possibility of starting a spiritual discussion group for friends in our community. We started praying about whom to invite and when to start. Most of the people we considered inviting would have told you at the time that they were not actively seeking anything spiritual. They were more skeptics than seekers. But God placed them on our hearts as potential participants in our big experiment to have ongoing spiritual conversations with our friends.

  We invited thirty women to come to my house to check out the possibility of a spiritual discussion group, which we described as “a nonthreatening place to have conversations about God.” Fourteen women came that first day, and they eventually brought friends. Each person who came back in the subsequent weeks and years has been profoundly touched by this life-changing experience, including me. I believe that God guided us through our discussions about faith-related issues, and as a result each person’s understanding of him deepened. Concurrently, we came to genuinely love and respect one another and had a ton of fun through these weekly authentic conversations about God.

  Many participants had not known what it meant to be a Christian, even though they had grown up attending Catholic, Protestant, Christian Scientist, or Mormon churches. Others had no background at all in Christianity, describing themselves as agnostics, atheists, or New Age. It was a pretty diverse group!

  One of the regular participants was Denise. She and I had become friends when she was a Brownie troop leader and I volunteered at the troop meetings each week. When I started this group, she was one of the first people I invited because I sensed that she was spiritually curious and I thought she’d trust me enough to check it out.

  An attorney who worked part-time, Denise enjoyed our discussions so much that she regularly arranged her work schedule around our group meetings. After several months of discussing difficult faith questions and considering Scripture in our group, Denise stayed around to talk with me after one of our meetings. In the process of responding to one of the questions that day, I had briefly shared that I had a personal relationship with Jesus. Another participant had shared with the group that the previous week she had made a decision to become a Christian.

  These comments were on Denise’s mind. She told me that even though she had gone to church most of her life, she didn’t think she had a relationship with Jesus, and she wanted to know how she could. I shared with her a simple way to invite Jesus into her life, and she chose to do so right there in my living room that day.

  Denise was eager to
share the good news about Jesus and invite others to explore faith the way that she had. Over the next few years, she brought several women to our group, including her sister-in-law, Monica. Monica had been struggling with infertility, and every week Denise asked our group to pray that Monica would conceive. When Monica did end up getting pregnant, she discovered she was going to have twins! Our group celebrated with a baby shower. Overwhelmed by the love and prayers of this group, Monica decided she also wanted to have a personal relationship with this God who had provided such a miracle.

  Denise’s husband, Brad, was another person affected by her growing faith. In between our Tuesday group meetings, Denise shared with him what she was learning about God and the Bible. Before long, Denise and Brad were attending church again and getting fed spiritually. Two years later, at age forty-six, Brad was in a fatal ski accident. This was tragic for Denise and her family, but she was confident that a few months before he died, Brad had figured out what was true about Jesus and had made a decision to follow him. “While his death is devastating news to all of us, I am at peace knowing that Brad was finally on a spiritual path, getting to know Jesus, right before his death,” she said.

  The previous chapters describe practices that equip you to engage in meaningful conversations about God. However, without intentionality to create an ongoing opportunity, your conversations may be hit-or-miss. In chapter 9 we looked at the value of small groups and facilitating them well. When safe, meaningful conversations get started, the most natural next step is to keep them going by gathering a group of spiritually curious people who are interested in learning more about God and what they believe. The result will be ripple effects in everyone’s lives. New disciples make more new disciples.

  It’s All about Relationships

  Greg Ogden, pastor and author of several books on disciples and leadership, says, “If the mantra regarding the value of real estate is ‘location, location, location,’ then the core ingredient in making disciples is ‘relationship, relationship, relationship.’”[89]

  As Christ followers, we know that being a Christian is not about following rules but about having a relationship with Jesus because of what he did for us on the cross. Yet as we’ve discussed throughout the book, so often our approach to making new disciples misses that very point. Rather than being in a relationship with followers of Jesus who talk naturally about God, most people have experienced the gospel message as a one-time hit from a stranger or a download of information from a speaker—or they have never heard it at all. The ministry example that Jesus himself gave us is one of relationship—of pouring his time and energy into a small group of twelve. He prayed fervently in choosing his disciples, and over three years’ time he experienced life with them, engaged them in discussions, and challenged them to take action as well as to observe, think, and draw conclusions about who he was.

  Jesus’ life contains an even more profound illustration of relationship that is readily taught as doctrine, yet so easy to miss in significance: the Trinity. Luke records the event at Jesus’ baptism: “While He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22, NASB).

  In everything Jesus did during his earthly ministry, as well as throughout time and eternity, he was in a perfect relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the most perfect community ever, there are three persons, and each one is in constant fellowship with the other two. This divine triad is equal in all ways, equally expressing the fullness of the attributes of God—his love, grace, truth, holiness, and power. What can we learn from this beautiful illustration of a triad that is relevant to disciple making?

  Finding Twelve through Three

  When Jesus led his closest followers, he wasn’t acting independently but in perfect communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit. If we follow his example in making disciples, we’ll set out not by ourselves but with the community of a triad of like-minded believers.

  No matter the strengths and weaknesses of individual facilitators, triad leadership fosters greater success and greater synergy through the power of partnership. The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes describes this power and highlights the unique advantages of three working together:

  Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. . . . A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

  ECCLESIASTES 4:9-10, 12, NLT

  Any discussion of triads warrants considerable study of Greg Ogden’s work regarding making disciples a few at a time, which is the subtitle of his book Transforming Discipleship. Ogden addresses the assumption that the best biblical paradigm for making disciples is the Paul-Timothy model, with an older, wiser follower of Jesus making a disciple of a teachable younger person in a teacher-student or parent-child kind of relationship. Ogden maintains that this one-on-one relationship sets up a hierarchy that tends to result in a dependency of the disciple on the discipler, a false perfectionism on the part of the discipler, and too much primary influence on the new disciple that limits his or her development as a follower of Christ.[90]

  Ogden proposes an alternative biblical model: a side-by-side relational approach to disciple making that reflects the nature of the Trinity and involves three people (or four at most). This shift from the hierarchical relationship of two to an “alongside” relational approach of a triad creates a “mutual journey” in which the focus is not on one discipler as much as it is upon Christ as the teacher through God’s Word and his Spirit.[91]

  Ogden identifies several shifts that take place when three (or four) people work together rather than just two:

  From unnatural pressure on the discipler to his or her natural participation

  From hierarchy to a side-by-side personal dynamic

  From dialogue between two to a dynamic interchange among three

  From limited input by one to wisdom in numbers

  From addition to multiplication when all three reproduce the discipleship process

  Ogden is careful to clarify that he is not attacking one-on-one mentoring relationships. In fact, he affirms the great value of three types of such relationships: spiritual director, coach, and sponsor. But as a primary strategy for discipleship, he sees triads as “hothouses” of Christian spiritual growth. Just as a hothouse maximizes the environmental conditions for living things to grow at an optimal rate, discipleship through triads can create a hothouse effect when specific “climatic conditions” are built into the relationship:

  Condition #1: Transparent trust—the ability of people to open their hearts to one another.

  Condition #2: Truth of God’s Word—a focus on Scripture to transform us.

  Condition #3: Mutual accountability—a willingness to be accountable to each other.[92]

  When a group of three followers of Jesus cultivates these conditions in their relationship, they grow together spiritually, and they have a community that can easily expand to include others who don’t yet have a relationship with Jesus.

  Church planter Neil Cole has designed a similar strategy for “micro groups” of two to four that he calls “Life Transformation Groups” (LTGs). These groups place a high value on “accountability that consists of three essential disciplines for personal spiritual growth: a steady diet of Scripture, confession of sin, and prayer for others who need Christ.”[93] No experience or training is necessary to be in one of these groups, as they are highly organic.

  Jesus also demonstrated this model of forming a smaller circle of disciples with a greater level of accountability, transparency, and sharing in the revelation of truth. As mentioned in chapter 9 of this book, Jesus prayerfully selected twelve individuals to follow him closely. He invested even more o
f himself in three men: Peter, James, and John. In one instance, related in Mark 9:1-12, Jesus took these three to be alone with him on a mountainside to witness the Transfiguration—to get a glimpse of Christ’s radiant glory and his interaction with Elijah and Moses! How amazing that must have been! And then the three were told not to tell anyone, including the other nine disciples, until after “the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

  From biblical example and also from personal experience, we believe that a powerful way to make disciples relationally is to start with a triad of three committed followers of Jesus who are transparent, accountable to each other, and centered in Scripture. When these three followers spend time in prayer together, grow together in the Word of God, and take action to serve others, they can select and walk alongside nine others in a small-group community to discover who Jesus is. This is what we are calling the Jesus 3:12 strategy. It’s modeled by Jesus, in community with the Trinity, walking alongside a handful of people and letting them see who he is. The strategy is simple but profound, and it’s easily reproducible.

  It starts with three Christians we call initiators, who are willing to be discipled by Jesus as they walk with each other. He is still at the center of this group when they invite nine more to join them—people who are not yet ready to follow Jesus but are curious about him at some level. When the group of three Christians and nine non-Christians meet together, all twelve people can learn from one another in community by engaging in meaningful conversations about God and the Bible, even though they may not all believe the same thing. Because Jesus is at the center of the three initiators’ relationship, the nine are not only experiencing a trusting relationship with the three, but they are also seeing Jesus in them!