Most people are open to a friendly conversation with someone new, but how do we start a conversation about faith or transition to proclaiming the Gospel? As we’ve already said, we need to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit and use active listening skills. By these means, we can see and take advantage of opportunities to move the conversation forward and share the Gospel. With the help of the Lord, we need to find an opening in the conversation, an opening into which we can speak the word of God.
How might this happen in the give and take of a conversation? Well, if you’ve used active listening skills and treated the person with respect, then he or she will usually be open to whatever you have to say next. If someone trusts you, they will likely listen to you and be vulnerable with you. That in itself can create the opportunity you’re looking for. However, it’s worth noting that we usually find openings to preach the Gospel only after the conversation has already moved into the realm of religion.
Once the person you’re talking to is sharing with you their own journey of faith or their own views of religion, or their own relationship with God, then prime opportunities to share the Gospel won’t be long in coming. With this in mind, a great way to help make the transition to preaching the Gospel is to ask the person about their faith story. ‘Do you have a religious background?’, ‘Do you go to church?’. These questions can help us get to the heart of the matter very quickly.
However we opened up the conversation, or broke the ice, however we continued the conversation, we want to find out where the person is in their own walk with God. That way we can preach the Gospel in a manner that speaks to their personal situation. Ask a non-threatening question about the person’s faith, and you will quickly learn important information about them. ‘Do you go to church?, I used to, but not anymore.’ ‘Do you go to church?’. ‘Once in a while, I go to First United Methodist over on Spencer Street’. ‘Do you go to church?’ ‘I’m more of a spiritual person than a religious person.’ ‘Do you go to church?’. ‘Yes, I’m Catholic.’
From this point, you should continue to engage in active listening, ask follow-up questions, and look for the right time to share the Good News. If they talk about their faith when they were younger, a good follow-up question might be, ‘How has your relationship with God been lately?’, or ‘So, how would you describe your relationship with God?’. If they talk about their Protestant faith, you might ask them more about it, and eventually ask if they’ve ever considered the Catholic Church. If they’re Catholic, you might ask if they go to Mass regularly and practice their faith. If they’re of some other religion or no religion at all, you might talk with them about that, and ask them if they’ve ever heard the Christian Gospel.
By asking a person about their own religion, faith, or relationship with God, we set up opportunities to proclaim the Gospel to them and to help them step deeper into the Christian faith and practice. Questions about a person’s faith get to the heart of the matter, take away the guess work, and help you speak the word of God into a person’s actual spiritual situation.
Here are a number of approaches that you can use to help you make the transition from a conversation about faith, to the proclamation of the Gospel. Offer a sacramental. You can say, ‘I have a gift for you. This is a miraculous medal. A sacramental is a tangible reminder of God’s love, and a connection to the church and to faith.’ A miraculous medal is a great choice, but you can give them other sacramentals like a crucifix, a rosary, a brown scapular. Such gifts are good tools of evangelization because Catholics and non-Catholics are often interested in these tangible signs of faith. As you explain the sacramental and how it is used, you have a clear opportunity to share the Gospel.
Second, you can ask the person about the faith openly. ‘What do you think about the Catholic Church?’, ‘Have you ever thought about becoming Catholic?’. Get right to the heart of it. Ask a non-confrontational question that leads people to a deeper conversation. People are often quite open to sharing their opinions on the Catholic faith. Once they’re shared their thoughts, you might transition to sharing your love of the Catholic faith, or your personal testimony in a way that builds upon their response.
Another approach is to go directly for the proclamation of the Gospel, asking something like, ‘Do you know the Gospel? Can I share it with you?’ Questions like these are often associated with pushy door-to-door evangelists who corner people into uncomfortable situations. But when you’ve established a good rapport with someone, when you’ve built trust and you’re already talking about religion, such questions are appropriate, even welcome.
Another approach is to throw down a challenge. ‘Hey, can I give you one good reason why I choose to be Catholic?’. ‘Can I give you one good reason why I take my faith seriously?’. This ‘one good reason’ approach is a great way to challenge someone without looking like you’re criticizing them. People don’t want to hear a sales pitch, but they do enjoy a good story. Use the ’one good reason’ method to make a helpful point or transition into telling a personal testimony and preaching the Gospel. We often use this method in the context of St Paul Street Evangelization.
Another approach, and perhaps my personal favorite, is to pray with a person. Asking, on the street, ‘Do you need prayer for anything?’, ‘Would it be okay if I said a prayer for you right now?’. From the conversation you’ve had, you might already know what they want prayer for. People usually loved to be prayed for, even when they don’t share your beliefs. Pray out loud in a way that they feel comfortable. It’s a great way to transition into sharing the Gospel or finding out more about the faith of the person. You can even insert elements of the Gospel into your prayer. Don’t pray for too long, but be concise.
Finally, try to find ways to connect the faith to the culture or the locale of the people you talk to. You can come up with strategies geared toward specific kinds of people. For example, let’s say you discover in conversation with a person that you find out they’re an engineer. You might use analogies of faith that would appeal to an engineer. If you find out that a person is an atheist, you might ask them, after you’ve established some rapport, ‘Can you tell me about the God that you don’t believe in?’. If you’re in the city of Detroit or New York, you might ask the person if they’ve ever heard of Father Solanus Casey, who ministered in those places.
In the end, there’s a great many ways to bring the Gospel into a conversation. In all cases, rely upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit through prayer. And just a final note on the use of apologetics – as you engage in conversation about faith, you might find yourself from time to time, feeling moved to give arguments in defense of the Catholic faith. That means doing apologetics, and that’s okay. But remember, our goal is not to win arguments, but to build up another person toward receiving the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Try to engage in apologetics only when it will effectively overcome obstacles to faith. Sometimes people are not open to arguments but they need a breakthrough of the heart instead. Conversion to Jesus Christ is more often a matter of the heart than of the head. But, of course, as Catholics, we believe in a both/and approach. We want to use both reverently and effectively.