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Things to do and not to do when witnessing to unbelievers written from the UK perspective
ideas on witnessing to unbelievers in the UK
Things to do and not to do when witnessing to unbelievers written from the UK perspective
I have been witnessing for more than 20 years in the secular world. I have had many secular jobs and are exposed every day to unbelievers from many walks of live.
I have witnessed in the army absolutely surrounded by immoral guys. The toughest environment so far is in the IT world where I now work as most developers and business owners are very self-centered, self reliant, immoral, proud and have no
consideration for God, and christians which they see as 'weak'.
Here is my thoughts and experience on the subject.
Effective witnessing comes from a deep relationship with God.
The deeper the christian in his/her growth, the more the witnesser has worked through things, the more the witnesser will be able to share out of experience, with real life examples and conviction.
God wants to use us daily to witness effectively to people, but can only use us when we are usable. Also the more sensitive the witnesser is to the voice of God the more 'successful' he/she will be.
Normally, I ask God to prepare me and when He is ready send the right people over my path which has been prepared by Him.
This is the best way to witness. It also take of all 'pressure' you might feel to do forced witnessing.
When I lived in South Africa, people was more churched and came from a some kind of religious background. I would say I had a 60/40 success rate in getting people converted. Here in the UK it is like 99% sowing, 1% reaping as the 'ground' are hard and people's hearts have not been prepared for God in anyway.
My view is: rather witness wrong, put people off, offend people than wait until you can do it 'right' or with skill and effectiveness. in actual fact, the fact is you can not get converted if God does not 'offend' you, He will 'offend' you flesh, you need to repent and submit, and respond positively.
Like the bible says: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.< 2 Timothy 4:2 >>
The scripture in a way is the key:
Firstly: Preach the WORD.
Always stick to the WORD, if you as a christian feel like you need something more than the WORD, you either don't have an insight into the WORD, or don't understand the WORD, or your mind has been filled with other junk.
The WORD is perfect, the WORD is Jesus not in the flesh.
For instance if you understand the gospel that God has died for the whole world, that God is not angry with the world, and that the sins of a person can not influence if God to think 'bad' about them or not.
God has set us free to love Him, we don't have to go to Him scared that He will reject us on the basis of our sins and imperfections.
This is wonderful news !!! to-good-to-be-true-news as Andrew Wommack says.
Secondly: we have to be 'Prepared'. The best way to prepare I believe is to be comfortable in God's presence, to know His voice. Often when I speak to someone God urge me to speak about a specific topic. He knows the 'keys' to unlock people's hearts much better than we could ever do !!
I going to skip commenting on 'season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage' for now. to - 'with great patience'
As witnesser - as a christian - you have to be patient, 'un-offendable'. Many times when I witness to unbelievers. The person will start with telling me he is an athiest and do not believe in a 'God', he will then test me and call God a few swear words.. to see what my response is.
Remember that Jesus has already forgiven all that person's sins on the cross, God is not 'offendable' neither should you be nor you should be offendable.
Often that atiest then get to a point where he admits that he is seeking and is realising that he is just not matter, but became spiritually aware.
A real life example that happen to me just yesterday.
I went to lunch with a new collegue. He said: I have done some research online and see that you are quite religious.
(This is a typical trap where most born again christians respond: 'I am not religious - I have a relationship with God' - which is a useless comment, it confuses most unblievers as they still classifies it as 'religion' and it has not meaning to them whatsoever. )
My response was: If you want to buy a car, and your perception of that car is bad, but it is a good car, you are not going to buy that car. Many people do not know God because they have a totally wrong perception of God.
The conversation kept going from there and an hour later, when we arrived back in the office he thanked me for the interesting and insightful conversation.
Another 'trap' NOT central to this topic: would be that non-believers throw all sorts of issues/excuses on you, like 'so you believe in creation?!' My response is well if you believe in it, how do you explain where everything comes form - their response - 'the big bang'. OK, where does the matter/energy come from that greated the 'big bang'? So when someone tries to talk evolution, don't start arguing about this fact and that fact; you are just getting yourself distracted from the real issue.
The true issue with creation/evolution is where does everything/all/anything comes from? The only 'logical' answer to this is, everything that exist and is visible most come from something that is not visible and is eternal.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.HEBR11:3
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