Recently I sat down with a friend at a stag party for someone we both knew. He wasn’t a Christian, and asked if I was still going to church. Very quickly this led to us chatting about God. Then our conversation was cut short by another attendee: “We can talk about anything, except politics and religion – now let’s have some fun!”.
There’s a sad perception that as soon as we speak about ‘religion’ it will lead to disagreement, leading to tension, leading to fighting – so just keep it light…‘how about that weather yesterday…!’ Many Christians have adopted this mindset too. Equally, many people who don’t share our faith assume that they can’t ask us about what we believe at the risk of offending us, that we’ll be awkward and defensive! The result – nobody talks about it.
But what if we could change that? What if we could signal to people that this is something that we actually want to talk about. And not just that, we also love hearing about what other people believe.
The more time I’ve spent in conversation listening to people, the more I’ve realised that many of them like talking about life, and how they make sense of things. This creates many opportunities to explain our faith. Have a glance at these interviews with someone who’s doing this in their workplace.
How about instead of letting the perception that we can’t talk about these things persist, we can make it known that we are open to chat about what we believe, and that we aren’t threatened or worried about disagreement.
How do we do this? Drop it into the conversation! After making it known that you are a Christian and are able to start deeper conversations, try to weave in to your conversation that you are really open to speaking about these things.
Perhaps something like: “Sometimes people feel like they can’t talk about religion, but I love asking big questions about these things. If you ever have any questions about what Christians believe I’d love to try answer them and hear what you think – I really won’t be offended”.
For other resources, check out https://talkingjesus.org/
Prayer: ‘Please Lord give me opportunities to show people that I am approachable and willing to talk, and to do it with gentleness and respect’.
Previously: Launch Pad #9 Praying Persistently for People
