A Faith Worth Sharing: Kickoff Session (Part 4)

So our problem isn't just that we have more resistance to attending the gospel. There are two versions of that dynamic at play.

Some friends have been in it for a long time. It's not a big thing when you're talking about it, but it exists. So if I use churches in Durham rather than naming specific churches in Raleigh, then I don't get in trouble, and Jeff doesn't get in trouble. It all works out.

In the early days, when I was at the Church of Good Shepherd—we're a traditional Presbyterian church that loved Jesus—there was Westminster Presbyterian Church, also in Hope Valley, also a very well-to-do community and church. The pastor of Westminster Pres would basically do this: when people came up and started talking about God, they found their home at Westminster Pres. But when they started talking about Jesus, he would point them to the Church of Good Shepherd.

It was really challenging when you grow up in a community, have friends at Westminster Pres, and they think of themselves as followers of Jesus, while you're at the Church of Good Shepherd or the Bible Church, and you're like, I don't know if they're actually knowing Jesus. It's a real tension. And almost like they're getting inoculated to the Gospel in a weird sort of way. Am I expressing the tension right?

There are multiple Westminster churches in this area, and that does create a real challenging dynamic. But let me go back to that diagram. The most important thing for you is enjoying Jesus. Because to the degree you're enjoying the gospel and the fruit of that gospel is pouring out of your life—that's the biggest mirror reflection back to them about whether they have that or not.

The moment it becomes a cognitive battle, or argumentative, or almost like an apologetic thing—we've lost. But in your brokenness, when they see the beauty of Jesus, if there's going to be anything that attracts them to the real gospel, it's going to be your personal transformation in the gospel in the midst of your brokenness.

Also, I think we keep doing the same thing. We make Jesus simple, and people can tell. They can tell the whole time. Sometimes I pray for God to shut down churches. I do regularly, because it's confusing. But we're in the dying phase of that virus. COVID sped all that up. There are churches that are here today that won't be here in five years. It's going to become a lot easier.

Your personal dynamics in those relationships is the most important thing. One of the things we watched was a presentation that Mike Graham gave on the great American unchurching. It sounds really depressing, but it actually improved some things. He said there was a period of time previously where people's expectations of what they would experience in a relationship with an evangelical Christian was working against us. They had this mindset that we're the backward group of people, all politically charged, with all these different things. It's the caricature that we all feel when we go out in public as Christians.

But he said that's now actually working toward us. Because as Christians are actually forming relationships with people who have that stereotype, they see it's so radically different than what they've been told that it opens their mind to all sorts of possibilities about what they could believe, given that they were so wrong about how we were going to be.

So to your point, a lot of the answers to the tough questions and navigating all of that isn't as important as the relationship long term, in many ways.

But also, I think this is really important, and also I think this is horrifying—unless you remember that the thoughts you have toward the friend that you love pale in comparison to the thoughts that Jesus has had and the planning he has put into the salvation of the friend that is called to him.

Jesus is already going to this. Those of you who've had the pleasure of leading someone to Christ, you're like, I didn't have anything to do with this. Right? Every time.

And I remember one of the last people I led to Christ—when you go back through his history, there's been like 50 people who shared the gospel. I'm just the last one on the line. Whatever.

We're gonna have a lot of time for Q and A. I want to do two slides and then I'm done with this.

Training and Transformation

What we just did was a training. I'm talking about formal and informal learning. What I've discovered when I say real transformation happens in people is they're part of a cohort—a learning community where they're sharing ideas, processing together. And then there's coaching. Real transformation happens with people not in the formal setting, but in the informal setting when you're debriefing and problem solving.

So where we eventually want to get as a church is doing enough of this on smaller levels where we're actually really processing it. And then as a group, we're problem solving together. Then the theory becomes reality. Then the idea becomes action. Does that make sense?

I'm so excited you all are here. At some point, this is going to have to happen on a community group level so that there's real coaching and debrief and problem solving, and that's when lives change and there's transformation. Does that make sense? We're exactly where we need to be right now, but I'm just trying to give you a picture of where this can go.

The Plan

This is the loose plan Jeff, James, and I came up with. Jeff is going to create culture with the elders and elders in training this spring going into the summer. Of course, he's going on sabbatical, so it's all going to fall apart now. No, seriously—he's going to personally help these guys apply this so there's integrity in all the tools with their lives. Does that make sense? Don't you want elders to have integrity with all these tools? Everyone's like, yeah. You get it.

As we transition into the summer and the fall, leaders—primarily group leaders, but other leaders in the church as well—will figure out a structure to get them to live integrity with it just like we did with the elders. And the elders will be part of that process to help leaders churchwide, particularly community group leaders, to also have integrity with the tools. Does that make sense? Which will then lead to 2026, when a very sophisticated plan and strategy will be implemented into our groups. Does that make sense?

Now, why is this going to take so long? Because it takes this long to build culture. It's the kind of process my friend and I used in our second church's plan. It took us about three months to develop integrity with our elders in the content—literally an earlier version of what you just experienced. We had a baseball diamond. It was really cutesy. I didn't like the baseball diamond, but they made me use it. But it was great. The elders had integrity in it, and then we spent six months getting our group leaders to have integrity with it. And it worked.

Then as we started implementing our groups, I ended up leaving the church, so I wasn't there for the tail end to see the fruit and culmination of my efforts. But that part took about less than a year. It's building layers of foundation.

For Those Not in Leadership

Now some of you are like, "Rue, I'm in this room. I'm not an elder or community group leader. What, do I have to wait till 2026 to apply this?" Great question. The answer is no.

For those of you who don't fit those categories, I would encourage you—especially if you're with a friend—hang out for coffee every other week and just process every module together and help each other apply. Do not wait for the elders and group leaders to get to you. Plus, play the train game. Who knows how watered down it's going to get by then? I was kidding.

But seriously, if you're here, regardless what category you fall in, pair off with somebody, figure it out, apply this, and make it a reality in your life. Does that work?

I'm going to pray. We're going to have a ten minute break so everyone can get their food, and then we'll use the last twenty minutes just doing Q and A. Does that work?

Let's pray. Father, thanks for this awesome food we're about to eat. Thankful for your Spirit's presence and what you're activating in our hearts together as a church. Lord Jesus, bless this meal and bless the remainder of our time together. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

Go grab some food.

We'd be walking from point A to point B, and they would know the homeless people by name. And it'd be funny to watch their banter—like, "Come on, Chris. You know that's a lie. You know your mom's not alive. Come on." And then banter with them and then keep moving.

I remember just being struck by the relationships they had with the homeless. Not that all of us are gonna have that same capacity or pain. But I think a lot of it's just still built around intentionality and relationships and calling.

Let me contrast that with another one. A lot of our groups had heterogeneity for socioeconomic reasons, and we noticed that those groups had a hard time collectively getting on mission. So as an experiment, I put people who are similar to each other in the same group, who all lived in the same area, and their missionality took off after that because they are just doing stuff for their neighborhood or their block or their street. But then we had other groups that stayed mixed, and they found ways for them to unify around mission.

So what's interesting about this is it's a mix of passion and calling and opportunity. If I can take a step back, in India we have the same problem. We have some church plants that call it "we are one in Christ." They want every ethnic group, every language, everything in the church. Those are beautiful expressions, but they usually top out at 150 because they're unique in themselves. But they keep reaching people at that 150. And then we have other churches that say, "No. I'm called to reach the poor. I'm called to reach professionals. I'm called to do this." But even those churches have a little bit of heterogeneity.

I don't think one's superior to the other. I just think it's based on how people are called and wired. I think the church as a whole has to holistically cover all the bases, but that doesn't mean every individual has to cover every base. So there is tension there. One way to solve that is to make sure that as groups grow, change, and develop at CTK, there are various options for how people are wired so that they can actually be on mission together. I hope that's a helpful answer.

The Nine Lost People

You talked about the hashtag with the night games. When we're supposed to talk to the nine people—is it that the stars indicate having more of a relationship? My concern is, how do you have time to focus on the nine?

So there's probably nine lost people you're praying for. Of those nine, two are probably friends, and the others are connections or acquaintances. Some of them might be family members. So then the question is, how am I growing those connections and friendships?

It's hard to speak too universally to it, but some of you had more than nine names, didn't you? So you have to force yourself to focus, and it requires discernment from the Holy Spirit how to channel your efforts. Some of you had a hard time putting nine names down. That's a different problem.

So based on your situation: if you have too many names, you probably have too many connections. You gotta force yourself to focus on some of those connections, which calls for prayer and discernment. If you don't have the problem of connections and you have nine friendships, that's a real problem, isn't it? It's hard to grow nine friendships. You're gonna have to prioritize, and there's just no way around that. You're gonna have to pray, process with another human being, and get a sense for where God wants you to channel your efforts.

If you don't have enough names, you're gonna need someone to help activate where you can connect where you live, work, play, and serve. Sometimes serving helps you generate new relationships, or where you play generates new relationships. It's harder now because people are less extroverted, less friendly, more isolated. So you have to be that much more intentional.

Discovering Objections

One thing you said was if these people are doing that, you probably know what their objectives are. What if you don't? Let's problem solve this. I feel like there's a skill in recognizing when they say something that reveals an objection, but you didn't write that down.

My friends that don't know Jesus or family members cover a huge political spectrum. I have some that love The Daily Show, love certain commentators. They're in that genre. So the stuff they celebrate or laugh at or want to share—if you just take a step back, you can kind of go, "Oh, this is what they believe. And I think I can conjecture what their challenges are gonna be."

Does that make sense? So you almost gotta start in your friendships probing—like, what people are listening to, what they enjoy, what makes them laugh.

I have a love-hate relationship with Colbert. I think he's hilarious, but then he says things at times that really disturb me. The fact that there are some things I can enjoy about Colbert allows me to connect with some of those family members. I don't actually watch Colbert anymore at night, but I'll occasionally just peruse YouTube to see what videos are on as a means to connect to one particular family member. See how that works?

I have other friends—not family, but a lot of other friends that are really far on this side of things. They have their issues and things they like to talk about, things that matter to them. And someone can be way over here and have no idea who Jesus is. So it's the same thing. It's finding ways to connect with them, and then kinda through that, discerning what really matters to them. Sometimes the easiest way to their objections is figuring out what their values and their passions are first. And then once you figure that out, you'll have a better idea of what their objections are going to be. Does that help?

I found that media nowadays is a way to get there faster.

Rebuilding Friendships Around Jesus

Someone asked: what do you do as a Christian in a friendship with another Christian if you realize that the things you've built your private language together really doesn't have anything to do with Jesus, and it's awkward to talk about Jesus things with even your Christian friends? How do you rebuild that?

It's a great question. Make them come to Sunday school tomorrow—it's gonna be a whole lesson on preaching the gospel to your heart and preaching the gospel to each other. It's like, hey, you wanna practice doing this together? You find out you have to find something neutral that you're like, hey, this is really cool. Do you wanna try this out? This isn't a normal part of a relationship, but I think this could be interesting. It doesn't have to be super intense like preaching the gospel to your heart module. There are softer things you can get people into than process with to each other. A neutral source that's valid to both people that you can kinda go, this would be interesting.

Going back to the concepts from this module, try to figure out how to be an incredible friend to them right now. Don't worry about trying to create conversations with them. Just try to figure out how you can be a phenomenal friend in their life. And then going back to repenting and believing—wherever their shared idolatry—just talk about, just repent out loud about those challenges in your life. The combination of them seeing Christ in you and you loving them really, really well will hopefully over time generate interest. But short of that, we manufacture the interest.

I am super encouraged by your intentionality, and I can see you've put a lot of pressure on yourself like it's up to you to get into the right conversation. I want to alleviate some of that for you. First of all, kudos for you for what God's doing in your life that you're trying. It's incredible. Secondly, don't worry about generating conversations. Leave that to the Holy Spirit. Try to love them really well and be a humble, vulnerable person in front of them, and see if that can generate questions.

I mentioned this in my testimony. When I was a junior in high school, there were three believers that had joy in the midst of their hardship and sin that I couldn't account for. Their relationship with Jesus is what drew me to Jesus. None of those three ever had a conversation with me. So if you're just enjoying Jesus and they see that trickle out in your life, and you're loving them really well—just like what Julie did for me—you may be a Julie for someone else where they're like, "There might be something in this Jesus thing." That help?

There's always miraculous situations where people come to Christ, but you don't need a module for that. God just kinda does it.

But my homework doing this around the world is the average person who doesn't know Jesus—it usually takes them two to three years of engaging a Christian before they become a follower of Christ. Two to three years. So my ambition with anyone I work with is how do you start the clock with a real friendship with a nonbeliever if it takes that long? So most of the content is built for the non-miraculous conversions on the miraculous side, but long-haul relationship—the two to three year process that it takes.

Now that's the bedrock. That's the foundation. On top of that, sometimes you actually do get on a flight, you end up getting to share the gospel with someone. That happened to me three plane rides ago. And I'm like, wow, this is really cool. I felt like super missionary guy, sharing the Gospel on an airplane. Sometimes that happens.

I'm not saying you're not supposed to sometimes take a risk at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Because trust me, I'm like diamond medallion status—usually get bumped up to business class when I'm flying. And no one in business class wants to hear you talking about the gospel sometimes. I felt subconscious. I felt a pit in my stomach. I don't wanna do this. And then I'm like, "Rue, what do you do for a living? Like, Jesus is gonna come to this plane and revoke your whatever status." So there's this—I'm just sharing, I get nervous doing that in public settings. But sometimes God calls us to do that, doesn't he?

So I'm not saying you won't find yourself in a situation where the Holy Spirit prompts you to say something. I'm just saying I wanna build something for what appears to be the harder thing—that's the more gradual thing where most people come to Christ from. So let's build that and then trust the spirit to help us with the weird things. That's where people generally come to Christ.

Discerning the Holy Spirit's Prompting

We're all different, so I don't want my emotional makeup to be the norm for everyone. But for me, when I feel this little pit in my stomach or I feel like God wants me to say something—I don't wanna say something—that's when I know I need to say something. That's how I'm hardwired, but I don't wanna impose that on you. I'm not sure that's even supposed to be a litmus test for everyone else. I just know for myself—I had this conviction. I don't wanna do it, but I just feel like my heart's gonna burst if I don't do it. That's when I know I need to get into a conversation with somebody.

That's just me. So I would figure out what your version of the Holy Spirit convicting you to have a conversation looks like and feels like, and then just be attuned and sensitive to that.

Conversations Where Others Initiate

I love those. Those are awesome. So we will cover this in the second session—groupings on how to have evangelistic conversations. I love it when people are asking questions because they wanna ask every question, understand everything. And there's ways to ask questions that make them think about what they really believe and don't believe. At some point, they're gonna be like, "What do you think?" And so I have a whole process for that where you engage deeply, and at some point, by virtue of the questions you ask, they're gonna ask you what you think. Then you're ready to give an answer. So if you find yourself in those situations, those are great.

When to Stop Pursuing a Conversation

There are times to give up. Sort of. Meeting in a passive way, you might not actively be pushing for conversations when you stop praying. Let me put a pin on that topic. I wanna get to that a little later. I don't think we ever give up praying for somebody, but there may be seasons where we're not super proactive in what you're doing with them based on the dynamics.

Christianity's Global Growth

I would say yes, especially in the global South. Jesus is doing incredible things right now. Incredible. Sub-Saharan Africa, India right now, China, Iran—it's amazing what God's doing.

I don't know, I won't go on like a stump speech right now, but God is at work. Period. And so I wouldn't worry about declining numbers of this or increasing numbers of that. Jesus is advancing his church.

The Pentecostals were crushing everybody. I'm just saying if someone believes in the Holy Spirit in the global South, they're leading way more people to Jesus than everyone else.

Upcoming Sunday School Series

How does what you went through today lead up to what we're doing in the next couple weeks? We're filming in the next couple of Sunday schools.

So let me go back to this. Alright, next two Sunday schools, I'm doing renewal modules. I'm doing gospel fluency, so I'm gonna teach you how to meditate on the gospel and preach it to your heart. The following Sunday, I have my repentance module, which was one of my favorite ones. I'm gonna teach you how to deal with the deeper motivations and sin in your heart. They're corporate tools. They're designed for you to invite others to help you with both repenting and believing.

By far, the two most—I'm giving you the two most popular tools. But that's what gets the engine going. And then we're gonna get to evangelistic identity after that. So that's three Sunday schools from now. That's gonna help you secure what your missional identity is.

What am I doing after that? Oh, then I'm doing evangelistic events. So this is how you throw fun parties evangelistically. So those are the four Sunday schools coming up.

Any other questions? One more minute, although it's okay if you leave early now.

Good news is, like, I worship here now. So if you're like me, you're gonna have one like tomorrow, and that's fine. And I look forward to seeing y'all tomorrow.

That's it. Thanks, y'all. Thanks for your help. We'll see you tomorrow.