Let’s play two truths and a lie.  Here we go: 

  1. I was told by my first-grade teacher that I would never be a good reader.  
  2. I was told by a superior that I had a lazy tongue and should reconsider my career.  
  3. I was told by one of my high-school teachers that I was the worst speller he had ever seen.  

So, which one is the lie? Okay, I lied. All three are true (one I proved mistaken, but the other two were significantly on target—but you will have to guess which is which). Okay, new game. After learning about what these people said to me, which one comment do you and I have in common? Does it concern poor reading, poor speaking, or poor spelling? Okay, I lied. It was a trick question. We don’t have any of these specific criticisms in common. What we do have in common is that someone is routinely saying negative things about us, especially about what we can’t do. We also have something else in common: The person who is saying most of those horrible things about us is us! Unless you are one of the rare ones, congratulations! You are your worst enemy. And that is deflating at the best of times, but when it comes to spiritual lives, it is devastating. 

After listening to ourselves for years, we have concluded that there is nothing we can do that will help our spiritual lives in any significant way. We will be what we are until the day we die. Worse, we have convinced ourselves that we will never be good at certain things; and therefore, we shouldn’t bother trying to be good at them. And while we struggle with grace and loving others, most of us believe we have some ability in those areas. But when we come to our third core value, sharing Christ with others, most of us believe that we have nothing to offer. We believe our own lies. Say them with me: I can’t share my faith. I don’t have the gift of evangelism. I am terrible, awful, and miserable in conversations about faith issues. In fact, I am so bad at evangelism that if I try to share my faith with someone in a crowd, five people walking by will become atheists. I get it. I’ve said these same things myself. But don’t you believe anything you say to yourself because you are a terrible liar. And the fact is, we all can share our faith without our heads falling off. But we need a plan, and we need some faith. See, just as we are called to live by grace and to love others, so are we called to share Christ with others. And we know this is true, because discipleship is nothing more than following Jesus; and Jesus was committed to sharing the good news with everyone he met. In other words, if we want to grow in our faith, we need to invest in the grace of sharing Christ with others. But what does that entail?  

Our core value reads: We are compelled to share Christ with others. Here are the six ways we as a church define this value:

  1. I am building relationships with people who are not yet churched, especially those who are already in my sphere of influence.
  2. My personality, behavior, lifestyle and words create a hunger for Christ in the people around me.
  3. I am always looking for opportunities to share my life and my faith with the people God puts in my path.
  4. I pray for the people around me who do not have a relationship with Jesus in a regular and specific way.
  5. I am involved in ministries of mercy, compassion and justice.
  6. I know what I would say if I was engaged in sharing my faith with someone.

For the past three weeks, we have established the plan, so now all we have to do is to apply it to this category.  

Step one: Survey and Pray

Prayerfully, read all six aspects of our definition and assess how you are doing in each category compared to last year.  Have you (1) lost ground, (2) stagnated, (3) growing slowly (4), growing or (5) discovering new breakthroughs? Be as honest as possible, but try to give yourself something more than a “1” somewhere in this process. And do this prayerfully so that God can lead you through this process, reinforcing your strengths and illuminating your growth areas. Also, remember that no one is going to criticize your answers (or even see your answers—this is just between you and God). Your job here is to be honest—to rejoice in your strengths and to recognize your shortcomings. 

Step two: Select and Detect

Look over the six items again. Choose two that you feel are most critical for your spiritual life in this present moment and the two you want to work on. You can choose the two you scored your lowest on or you can choose any two items. It is up to you. Once you have chosen your two, write them down in a prominent place that is easily accessible.  You will need to refer to these two often throughout the week, so please write them somewhere memorable.

After writing down your choices, ask God to give you opportunities to put these two items into practice. And once you have prayed for God to direct you, your job is to move through life looking for those good works that God has prepared in advance for you to do. God wants to help you grow in your ability to share your faith. He is even now, placing opportunities in your future for you to put these things into practice. Keep your eyes open for these opportunities and be ready. They come at us fast.

Step three: Embody and Embrace

Once you detect one of those opportunities, everything depends on you taking a step of faith and putting your two items into practice. Now, that does not mean we have to enact this item perfectly. You get full points if you just try. Even if you try and then make a royal mess of it, that’s okay. Your job is not to make converts. It never has been. Your job is to be faithful to God’s call; and when God gives you an opportunity, he is calling you to respond in faith. For the next week, whenever you see an opportunity to share your faith, take it.  

But again, our goal is not just to do this for a week; we want to embrace a godly lifestyle. Our first week, we discussed living by grace by embodying two principles from our definition. We then moved on to discuss loving others by embodying two principles from that definition plus one of the two principles from the previous week. Now, we want take one principle from “grace,” and one principle from “love,” and the two principles from today (that’s four items for this week). In this way, we will be moving toward spiritual growth (again, this is not a formula, but puts us in a place where perhaps we will encounter God).

Two truths and a lie:

  1. I am great at evangelism.
  2. Leading into a spiritual conversation is a breeze for me.
  3. I am always hoping for opportunities to share my faith with others.

I lied. They are all lies. I struggle with this category, too. But by God’s grace maybe we can all grow and find joy in sharing Christ with others. Here’s to a great week, a week by God’s grace to grow.