When evangelizing always remember that you are working with and on behalf of the Holy Spirit. Take it slow. Don’t push yourself to respond immediately or in a rapid-fire manner. If an opportunity passes because you took time to be thoughtful, it is in God’s hands and now was not the time for your response. Work with God’s timetable - not yours. The most effective evangelization tactic is using questions. Jesus almost never gave a straight answer to a straight question. In the New Testament, Jesus asked 183 questions, gave 3 answers, and answered 307 questions with a question in return. Questions can be used to start a conversation, gain information, or bring clarifying focus to weaknesses in an argument. Questions invite genial interaction on something the other person cares a lot about: their own ideas. Each question should be an invitation to thoughtful dialogue, an encouragement to participate in conversation in a reflective way. Use questions to make the point for you. Questions can protect you from jumping to conclusions and unwittingly distorting the other’s meaning. Assume a friendly curiosity and questions allow you to take the offensive in an inoffensive way and productively advance the conversation. Think of an argument like a simple house, a roof supported by walls. The roof is the conclusion, and the walls are the supporting ideas. Questions test the walls to see if they are strong enough to keep the roof from tumbling down.
The most powerful question - next time. In Christ...
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