What are you looking for?

Author’s note: This week, in my first piece for Christianity Today, I’m exploring whether our evangelism methods are actually ethical–and changing fast enough to keep pace with culture.

Here, some additional thoughts on why Christians and non-Christians feel uncomfortable around evangelism, and what could change.

When the Hope You Have Becomes a Spiel

In blurry years past when my husband and I were covered in children under three feet tall, we were selling our little yellow house by owner.

For every house showing, we’d cram the booster chair and random Lincoln Logs and sippy cups into the washer, dryer, minivan, and dishwasher; lay down some vacuum tracks; and toddle off to the playground just in time.

During that season, I remember standing in my garden, tugging off gritty gloves when she rang: A Realtor eager to sell my house for me, rattling off her exuberant pitch. At first, I was honored she called—“Your house is so cute!”—and intrigued by her spiel.

But soon my shoulders fell. I gathered a subtle vibe she cared more for her agenda than she cared about my family’s needs.

I politely declined, sighed, slid my phone back in my pocket. Probably stopped one of my toddlers from eating dirt.

It’s that moment I think of when I consider talking about what I believe. About the hope that’s altered my life so profoundly.

At times, I’ve done so with methods formulaic and, let’s admit it, canned—standing on a beach with illustrated brochures in hand. To be clear: Time and time again, methods like these have wrought beautiful eternal ends.

Yet at times, I wonder if our evangelism hasn’t evolved as rapidly as our culture’s response to Christianity.

And in that, I’m curious whether our evangelism itself can fail to preach the gospel, not in what is said, but how.

The Soul-holes They Feel

During my family’s years in Africa—because why not take our chaos on the road?—weekly I sweated from the heat, teaching Bible to a crowded classroom of refugees, roughly half of which were Muslims.

As I studied in off-hours, brow furrowed, on how to carefully unfold the gospel for them, my aha-moment was J.D. Greear’s assertion in Breaking The Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim. “When Western Christians present the gospel, the ‘problem’ is usually guilt, and forgiveness…is the answer.”

This facet of gospel understanding largely comes from a perception of salvation birthed in the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. Yet “Muslims find the concept of ‘Christ paid our sin debt’ difficult to grasp for a variety of reasons,” Greear explains.

“What Muslims are confronted by, however, on a daily basis (through their prayer and worship rituals), is that they are separated from God and are defiled before him” (emphasis original).

His methods, based on specific “holes” sensed by the Muslim soul, altered my approach entirely.

Greear clarifies this “does not mean that there are two different gospels or that there is more than one way to be saved.”

He illustrates that Peter, preaching to the Jews, emphasized different elements of the gospel—like Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy–than Paul. Paul portrayed the gospel as a fulfillment of mankind’s longing for meaning. Or the way of knowing the God of Creation (see Acts 17:22-31; Romans 1:18-32).

So I adapted Greear’s advice, asking my students what the worst objects they could touch (like pork). I asked how they’d atone (a sevenfold washing). Yet as I pressed them, they believed idolatry was the worst sin of the heart…with nothing to cleanse it.

Enter Jesus, stage right.

The Soul-Holes America Feels

When I returned to America after half a decade, I marveled inwardly at techniques utilized by well-meaning Christians. Sometimes these seemed to have very little to do with the questions the hearts in front of them were asking.

Even though I’d witnessed non-Christians’ own spiritual quests and interest around their lives’ most felt pain points.

I saw strategies intended to empower. But they often communicating to the hearer—perhaps not unlike my would-be listing agent—You don’t even see me.

Most of my kids’ teenage friends, or even my own friends, don’t seem the least concerned about guilt. They are, however, fascinated by a world vastly more broken than any potential solutions.

And by shame: some speculate Gen Z and Gen Alpha are an honor/shame culture.

If I’d approach them with the equivalent of a wordless book or a tract, I’d communicate, Your problem is plug-and-play. I see a puzzle piece that fits; I press it in. I will choose something used for someone else’s problem and apply it to yours.

Read: You are a problem to be solved. I didn’t hear your heart and what you truly needed, but I would like to fix it.

What Gospel Do You Experience?

So it’s also valuable to examine how any of us personally experience the gospel—not just at conversion, but in the stuff of our lives.

Aside from the work of the Holy Spirit (if we can ever truly say that; salvation belongs to God alone [Revelation 7:10]), did an effective progression of verses from Romans truly help us see the light? Was it an illustration on how we fall short of the Ten Commandments? Is life with Jesus about wiping our brow as we dodge fire and brimstone in the nick of time?

Those realities might be influential! If those are the questions our hearts are asking, or if someone can effectively bring a highly personal understanding of need for those.

Again: If those aren’t my questions, those aren’t my answers.

Evangelism which Grants Dignity

Instead, we respect the other person’s voice by letting them ask the questions, while refraining from shoehorning all the answers into a single conversation.

Even our responses may take a backseat at first to our mere presence with their questions. We choose instead the word aptly spoken, the “apples of gold a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11), the word that fits the occasion that gives grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:29).

Evangelism methods rightly train us to articulate the gospel—the heart behind and reason for those methods. In my classroom, I was certainly utilizing a strategic method to communicate with my Muslim friends. But the rocket fuel behind my quest involved Zainab’s questions, Muhammed’s face, Fatima’s stories.

Communicating the Gospel when It’s Refused

Even if our friend rejects our faith, we can communicate our unconditional love toward them. John Marriott observes that this “demonstrates God’s unconditional love for them. Think of the woman at the well. Zacchaeus. The woman caught in adultery. All had rejected him with their lifestyles. But Jesus pursued them, loved them, and kept the conversation going.”

Marriott continues, “We don’t just stay in the conversation for our agenda, a search-and-rescue mission—but because we are also the rescued. We, too, have been loved unconditionally.”

In that love, Marriott asserts (within his article’s context of deconstruction), we aren’t trying to convert them with every future conversation.

Yet again, we love and value them above even this holy agenda.

On Playing Matchmaker

Honestly, if my husband had utilized a checklist of methods to help me fall in love with him, it might have felt in turns sweet, cringy, and suspect. I felt far more compelled by him bringing his whole self.

And perhaps I can take a page from his playbook in my extended invitations to a relationship with God. I’m helping people encounter the prospective love of their lives.

We are, of course, naturally and perpetually evangelistic about our own lives. Think of the positive pregnancy test, the cancer in remission, the child returning home, the engagement ring.

We’re like vegans who love to tell people they’re vegan.

Would we not be evangelistic about the realities we daily experience with Jesus? Has it not been, and is it not currently, “the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16) for every part of our own healing?

And if we’re not, why does our relationship with God fail to “compel us” (2 Corinthians 5:14) above every other form of our evangelism?

Falling in Love with Evangelism All Over Again

It’s not only sacrificing the dignity of those sitting across from us when we reduce to a formulaic, here’s-what-I-should-say gospel. When we sanitize it of our own past and present journey, intimacy, pain, and triumph with God.  I heard once that a girl can make K-mart clothes as if they were designer label—and designer label clothes look like they’re from K-mart. Might we also downgrade the true dignity of a priceless gospel if we present it cheaply?

So yes, I still strike up conversation with the woman next to me on the flight. I express on Insta something God has done. Maybe I’ll talk Jesus on the beach again.

Sensitivity to social situations and others’ needs doesn’t add fabric softener to my courage, urgency, or the frequency with which I diligently work to extend this gift, this freedom, this kind of all-in love.

In fact, my love for others demands it.

Yet we live in a culture where people can sniff out an agenda a mile away and find Christians suspicious and plastic. So any boldness and compulsion must proceed solely from deep regard for the person in front of me. And for the God who loved them this much.

I must experience the gospel in compelling ways, then display it, long before the words escape my lips.

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