Resourcing Gospel Conversations

• Posted on sdgale
• in 'CHOP Talk' Blog
• on August 19, 2012
• 1 Comment.

I’m not sure resourcing is an actual word but since any noun can be verbized nowadays, I’m sure you get the idea.  When we talk to people about the gospel, it is helpful to have something to put in their hands to reinforce the conversation.

Some of you are aware of my recent hospitalization for a heart procedure.  I was in for ten days.  Over the course of that time I had many conversations with medical personnel.   Medical personnel are people.  People have lives and backgrounds and beliefs.  We talked about some of those things.

I find it fascinating to hear different life histories.  I heard how they came to their current profession and to their current position in the hospital.  Sometimes the conversation would turn to religious matters.  They would relate an experience, good or bad, they had growing up with religion.  For some, spirituality played a big part in their lives at present.

As is natural to conversations, I would share something of my journey as well.  I told them of my upbringing and how I rejected religion when I got to college.  Actually, more than rejected; I vilified it and mocked those who held to it.  Then as a college senior I heard the story of gospel that I had never really heard my entire religious life.  I understood my sin in a radically different way and I came to view Jesus and the cross as never before.

My desire in these interactions with hospital staff was not just to swap stories.  I wanted them to know the Jesus I had come to know.  I wanted them to understand the good news of what God had done for sinners in His mercy and love.

So, if it seemed non-pushy, I offered many of them a booklet I had written that spelled out the details of that good news.  I would often take a copy of the booklet in hand and say, “This will give you a better idea of what I learned that changed my life.”  Not one person refused the booklet.  In fact, each person I offered the booklet to seemed to take it with interest.  I think that’s because it grew out of our conversation rather than just pushing it on them.  I was handing them a little bit of my story.

Those encounters gave me an idea.  As a pastor I visit people in my congregation when they go to the hospital.  It occurred to me that they are there at the providence of God as witnesses for Christ, just as I was.  So when I visit I take two copies of the booklet I wrote that shares the good news.  I encourage them to pass them along as part of their conversations for Christ.

I think it is important for churches to resource their members to share their faith.  That’s why I put this gospel booklet together.  I encourage them to have copies on hand in their homes. My church includes it in our visitor packets, makes it available on our literature table and uses it in a variety of venues to help people understand where the familiar religious events they know fit into the bigger picture of God’s plan of salvation.

I know other churches use my booklet as a resource.   But I was especially gratified by the news I heard this month of a veterinary clinic run by Christians who ordered copies to share with others.  Evidently, the vet often has the same sort of conversations with the owners of his patients that I had as a patient in the people hospital.  His and his wife’s desire is to be ready to share Christ.

I encourage you to resource yourself and your church for the joy of sharing the good news.  If you’d like to see the booklet I put together you can find it at http://8.20.78.96/index.php/eternal-life/. It’s called God’s Good News.  Here is the description on the back:

“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” So announced the angelic messenger to shepherds in the Judean countryside outside the town of Bethlehem. What sort of news could this be that speaks of such blessing? One New Testament writer describes the joy as “inexpressible and filled with glory.” God’s Good News unfolds this message of the Bible, making clear its wonder and how that joy can become ours.