Friendship versus Contact Evangelism
“Friendship Evangelism” is the idea that before we share the gospel with an unbeliever, we need to develop a close relationship with them and become friends. I don’t believe in Friendship Evangelism.
Firstly, and most importantly, it’s not biblical. In the bible, you don’t see Jesus or his apostles doing this kind of thing - sidling up to workmates, getting to know them over six months, connecting over hobbies and shared values, “earning the right to speak into their lives” etc. only to get to the gospel eventually. No, wherever they went, Jesus and his apostles brought up the gospel quickly and spoke with boldness.
Moreover, Friendship Evangelism contradicts key biblical doctrines. For instance, the idea above that you need to earn the right to evangelise, directly denies the gospel itself – which is about the universal Lordship of Jesus. Jesus is actually the primary evangelist, preaching his gospel through us. He is announcing to the world that he is their rightful Lord (Acts 10:36). Whether we/they feel he has the right to say such a thing or not is irrelevant – God has set his King on his throne and commands all people everywhere to repent before the amnesty period is over (Acts 17:30-31).
Likewise, Friendship Evangelism undermines the doctrine of election. It is God’s choice, who he saves. Not our choice. As hard as this may be to hear, it’s not that you can just pick your friend or family member and say, “I choose so and so to be saved, and I’m just going to make sure that they are saved by deepening my friendship with them and then tactfully evangelising them over the next thirty years”. No, that’s not your prerogative. In fact, it’s arrogant. God gets to choose who he saves, and our job is to preach the gospel far and wide to everyone, so that the gospel draws out the people he has chosen. Someone once described evangelism as mining for gold in a hill. We know that God has chosen people out there who he intends to save. Our job is to go out and find those people by preaching the gospel. If I can develop that illustration a little bit further, the gospel is like a big metal detector. As you preach it, sooner or later the elect will be ‘exposed’ as they respond in faith. Our job is not just to select one patch of ground, hold the metal detector over it relentlessly until somehow the dirt turns to gold. No that’s not how it works. Our job is to keep waving the metal detector everywhere – i.e. preaching the gospel to everybody.
The second reason why I don’t believe in Friendship Evangelism is that it’s insincere. You can’t get to know someone for six months or whatever, claim to be their friend, while keeping the gospel and your Christian faith under wraps or even in the background. If Jesus is the most important person in the world to you, then how can someone really know you unless they know what dominates your life and thought. Likewise, when you finally tell them that the gospel is the most wonderful news, and you want everyone to hear it, and it’s super urgent that people do hear it, because Jesus could be coming back any minute to judge us all… how do you think they’re going to respond? Surely, they’ll say to you, “If you really believed that… you would have told me ages ago! And if you were really my friend, you wouldn’t have been playing fast and loose with my salvation.” Thus, the method, completely undermines the message.
Thirdly and finally, it’s impractical. Number 1 - because you can only have so many close relationships, can’t you? Once you’ve got 3 or 4 close friends, you start to run out of space for more. And Number 2 – because it actually becomes harder and harder to share the gospel with people the closer you get to them. So don’t get me wrong, if you have a non-Christian friend – then please share the gospel with them. But my guess is that once you do that a few times, it’s just going to become harder and harder to do it again. If they’re not interested, at some point you can’t keep shoving the gospel down their throat, can you? It’s the same with family members, and maybe your neighbours – all these long-term relationships. Once you’ve shared the gospel with someone, and they’re not interested, it’s increasingly difficult to do so.
Now, just as an aside, when it comes to your long-term relationships, my suggestion is that once you have shared the gospel with them, and they’re not interested… stop trying. Of course, I don’t necessarily mean straight away – you can try a few times if you like. And I think ‘dropping bait’ in conversation is a good idea – like, every now and again offering them opportunities to talk about Jesus or forgiveness or life and death if they want to. But not being too worried if they don’t bite. And if they ask you about your weekend or for some opinion – don’t filter out your Christianity – presumably, as your friend, they will want to hear about what’s important to you. But if you’ve got to the stage in your relationship where they’ve come to church, you’ve explained the gospel quite fully to them, and they’re still not interested, or they’ve asked you not to keep bringing it up, my advice is… don’t. Instead, tell them you’d always love to talk to them about God if they ever change their mind. If they ever want to read the bible with someone, you’d love to do that with them. Something to the effect of, “The door’s always open!” Then hope and pray, that as life goes on, maybe a crisis or something else will happen in their life, and they’ll realise they want to talk to someone about God. And at that point, you’re hoping they’ll think of you as their ‘God-Person’. You know, when they lose their job, or get seriously sick, maybe all of a sudden they’ll want to talk about the afterlife. At that point, you want to make sure that they think of you, and that they know the door’s still wide open. But remember this is a strategy for a few particular people in your life. It is not the bible’s strategy for spreading the gospel far and wide across the whole world!
Instead, the bible encourages us to do what I would call Contact Evangelism – that is, constant gospelling of many different contacts who come in and out of our lives. As we’ve been seeing in the book of Acts, the key word for evangelism is boldness. It means to be upfront, public, open, honest. Your job is to be friendly and warm and loving and kind and gentle and gracious with everyone you meet. Wave and smile at everyone. And be enthusiastic about the gospel! Try to make sure that everyone you know, knows that you’re a Christian, and that you’d love to tell them about the Lord Jesus. Ask people, “Do you know about the Lord Jesus? Have you heard about Jesus’ resurrection?” “Oh! You really should come to my church some time!” “Yeah, let’s chat about it after work… I’ll shout you a coffee.”
George Whitefield (1714-1770), by far the most effective Evangelist of the English-speaking world, made it a rule never to have a conversation for more than 15 minutes without bringing up the gospel. The gospel is the kind of thing you can bring up with strangers - share it on the bus, on a train or a plane, share it at work, on a sports team or wherever. As a rough guide to get started, here are a few tips:
1. Pray daily for opportunities to meet new people and boldness to share the gospel with them.
2. Find a place where you meet lots of people – a revolving door kind of situation. Your workplace might work like this, but alternatively you could join a sports team or another club.
3. Try to strike up friendly conversations where you naturally, openly, and enthusiastically talk about Jesus and how much he means to you. Ask people if they know much about Jesus.
4. Be resource ready. Always carry TWTLs in your bag, and a few copies of the Essential Jesus.
5. Steel yourself for rejection. My sister likes to ask people to read the bible with her. She once told me that generally 1 out of every 6 or 7 women will say yes to her invitation. So she just needs to brace herself for the 5 or 6 rejections and hold out hope for that one.
6. Practice makes progress. Even if someone does reject you, or a conversation doesn’t go great – each new stranger gives you a fresh start and (maybe) a chance to learn from your mistakes.