Are you comfortable steering conversation into spiritual things with non-Believers? Andrea was not. She believed doing that would be intrusive and offensive. So, she didn’t discuss spiritual things. Then God intervened. Now introverted Andrea is boldly striking up wholehearted, natural conversations that lead to Jesus around her everyday life - even with non-Believing strangers. How did she do it? Find out on this uplifting, empowering episode. If she can walk across the street and reach the nations for Christ, maybe you can too. #WomensBibleStudy #ChristianWomen #BlueCord #iHOPE #Evangelism #GospelofJesus #EvangelismTraining #CrossCulturalOutreach #ChristianWitness #JesusFollower #WomenWhoLoveJesus #MomsWhoLoveJesus #BibleStudy #UPG #Missions #ShareJesus
Are you comfortable steering conversation into spiritual things with non-Believers? Andrea was not. She believed doing that would be intrusive and offensive. So, she didn’t discuss spiritual things. Then God intervened. Now introverted Andrea is boldly striking up wholehearted, natural conversations that lead to Jesus around her everyday life - even with non-Believing strangers. How did she do it? Find out on this uplifting, empowering episode. If she can walk across the street and reach the nations for Christ, maybe you can too.
#WomensBibleStudy #ChristianWomen #BlueCord #iHOPE #Evangelism #GospelofJesus #EvangelismTraining #CrossCulturalOutreach #ChristianWitness #JesusFollower #WomenWhoLoveJesus #MomsWhoLoveJesus
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Karen: if you're like most women, I know you want to trust the Lord and fearlessly share Jesus. Yet something holds you back. Maybe you're struggling to navigate our culture.
Maybe you wrestle with fear or lack skills. Maybe it's easier to stick in your comfort zone and keep your mouth shut rather than to talk about your faith, especially across cultures. That's what The Blue Cord Podcast is all about. I'm your host, Karen Bejjani, and if sharing your faith has been hard for you and you long to be brave, strong, and courageous, this is for you.
Welcome back. I've gotta share a moment that happened this weekend that so resonated with me. My husband, Renod, and I were speaking at this event and one woman, in a moment of transparency, bravely shared. That she was terrified to practice the five essentials. Now, if you're new to this podcast, the five essentials are just simple ways you can live as an authentic Christian witness around your daily life.
But I wish you could have been there with me because she verbalized out loud.
Everyone else was thinking, but too afraid to say so when she said it, I'm terrified about these five essentials. Everyone laughed and it really broke the ice because we all struggle when we start sharing our faith with intention, especially early on.
The good news is that when you practice the five essentials, especially with like-minded friends who are cheering you on, The less terrifying they become. And at some point when you keep on practicing, you look up and realize suddenly that sharing your faith has become one of the most exciting, most meaningful things that you get to do.
I promise you now if you've not experienced this kind of joy yet, no worries. I've got you covered. That's why this podcast exists to take you by the hand and coach you up and out of that comfort zone of being afraid to talk about your faith so that we can get you operating in the joy zone where you're slinging back darkness and shining the light of Christ to a lost and dying world.
So let's get into it. One of the questions that I'm often asked is, how do I start up conversations that even get to spiritual things? That's what we're gonna tackle today. How to fire up natural, authentic spiritual conversations, and to help me do that, I'm here together with Andrea, today's guest, because she's learned a thing or two about how to start up conversations that naturally lead to Jesus.
She inspires me, so I can't wait for you to hear from her and how she stepped into sharing the gospel with boldness, and moral courage. Because I think it's gonna give you more courage, too. So let's get started. Andrea, welcome.
Andrea: Thank you. It's great to be here, Karen.
Karen: Absolutely. So I'm delighted that you're here because today we're gonna unpack how to start conversations that could lead to Jesus.
Now, I know you didn't always feel as confident, striking up conversations that might lead to spiritual things. So I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your story.
Andrea: Yeah. I actually didn't feel comfortable striking up conversations at all with strangers. I have this I would say natural, but I don't think it's a natural disposition of feeling, "I don't wanna be obtrusive." "I don't wanna be invasive", especially with strangers. I even like that with my personal friends. I don't wanna ask direct personal questions.
So the idea of going to talk to strangers about anything, especially anything important or life-changing, I was just cut off at the head. I wasn't going there.
Karen: I felt the same way, by the way.
Andrea: Yeah. And I still have to remind myself of a fresh perspective that is realizing now, wait a minute, it's not inconvenient. What I wanna share with them actually could change their whole life.
It is the best news in the entire universe. If I get to share with you about Jesus and should you choose to accept it, it will change your whole life
Karen: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea: And if you don't wanna accept it, it might just be mildly irritating for a few minutes and then you move on.
Karen: Hmm So how did you get to that point?
Where you woke up one day and you thought there's this like Like this chasm to cross in the road and you step into this place of belief that this is a fact. Yeah. You are offering life-changing news. So what brought you to that point?
Andrea: I don't remember.
Karen: that actually, It was more of an evolution, not a revolution.
Andrea: Yeah. It's so simple. It's just a different perspective, right? Once you think about it like, This is the best news ever and people don't have it, the majority of people out there.
It's worth sharing.
Karen: I know for me, the more time that I spend in the word every day it's almost like I see the world through an entirely different lens even than I did just 10 years ago.
And so with that now gospel-centered lens I can see so vividly the hope that Jesus brings and have so much more conviction deepening my heart than I used to.
Andrea: Yeah, and when I was a young girl I grew up in a Christian family in a little rural town and I just thought that everyone knew about Jesus. And I was in second grade when I first realized there are tons of people in the world who never heard his name, much less anything about who he is, and I was shocked.
That astounded me.
I thought what else would I wanna spend my life doing than telling people the best news they could ever hear, so it's just being restored back to that truth. This is the best news ever, and I wanna be sharing it in my everyday life. So how can I do that?
Karen: Absolutely. How do we do this? So you were at this place where suddenly you had this realization. Oh my gosh, people are perishing all around me.
They don't know about Jesus. They don't know about salvation in him. So what shifted once you made that realization, suddenly you had the motivation to share. What was your next step?
Andrea: Recently this past year, I ran into some believers in my own hometown who were sharing their faith every week all the time, just knocking on doors, meeting people, and sharing their faith. And I was like, You can do that. You can actually just share Yeah.
It's like wondering for some kinda weird method and it's like you could just start sharing.
Karen: Yeah. And so for an introvert that's like way out there. So you went from this place of, I don't know, did you step right out and do that right away?
Andrea: I got them to train me, how are y'all sharing this story? Cause it had been this like a big burden on my shoulders. I have this great message that the world needs to hear, but how do I get it out in little tiny bits and pieces and breadcrumbs? I thought I had to throw the whole loaf of bread at the duck instead of giving them breadcrumbs.
You know
Karen: what a great analogy.
Andrea: And it's how do you give bread crumbs? Okay, I'll try it your way. And so this whole year has just been experimenting with new ways that I could start giving breadcrumbs.
Karen: Yeah. So you didn't have to get it all together and be perfect before you walked across the street and threw some bread crumbs out there.
Andrea: Yeah. Yeah.
Karen: Awesome. So now you've been throwing those breadcrumbs out for a while and you look back, how have things changed for you?
Andrea: So now I have a little bit more hope of how successful a breadcrumb can be. And when people are hungry, it doesn't really matter the size or the shape of that bread.
,
If people are hungry, if God's been working in their hearts and they've been feeling sensitive and hungry for him, then that one little tiny breadcrumb of truth, it's all it takes. And you see the light go on. And once you see that once or twice, forget it.
Karen: That's suddenly, it's so fun to be looking to see who's nibbling on those bread crumbs.
Andrea: Yes.
Karen: I hear you. This just makes me think about this past weekend I met a woman. She was from a country where she would never have heard the gospel in her entire life. She just happened to be in the US for a conference, and she overheard me mention to someone else that I was a follower of Jesus.
And next thing she's tapping me on the shoulder and saying, I heard you say you're a follower of Jesus. And by the way, how do you, Christians when you feel shame and that you've done something wrong, how can you be happy? And Bam just opened up this whole conversation that led to me sharing the gospel.
And she was hungry. She downloaded the Bible right there, and we talked about where she could start reading. She was
Andrea: Wow Yeah.
That's awesome.
Karen: was, and then when I hugged her I said, I think God's wooing you to himself. And she said I think he is. Great! But that was such a joyful moment.
I want that to happen again.
Andrea: Yes.
Karen: I know you have stories just like that, like left and right. So let's transition here for a second and friends, I'm gonna put in the note where you can link and learn more about the Blue Cord study, but I'd love for you to share what that journey has been like for you to be a part of that and how you've seen it impact some women's lives and how they think and feel about living as an authentic Christian witness around their daily lives.
Andrea: Yeah. I loved doing the Blue Cord as a group because you could see it every week. It was just some really practical, full, straightforward truths out of the Bible that confronted different strongholds that we had about sharing our faith or about living our faith in real life. And it was like every week, Oh man, I need a repent of this. This is a crazy thought that I've been living under. That's not true. I'm gonna change how I'm living, I'm gonna try this. And so every week it was just like, Different testimonies around the group of really being confronted by the truth of the word of God and making it real in our lives.
And then we got to do it together,
Karen: that's the best part.
Andrea: Yeah.
Karen: Because we give each other courage.
Andrea: Yeah. And you can inspire each other by, I stepped out in boldness this week and I tried this, or I have this opportunity, you guys pray for me. It's really helpful to learn and grow and practice.
Karen: When I hear your stories, Andrea, I hold them on my shoulder and when I'm out and about in my daily life, I think Andrea did this, I could do that.
And the next thing you know, I'm stepping out more courageously, more boldly because of stories that I hear from my sisters in Christ.
Yeah, Let's dive into starting conversations that could lead to spiritual things because first I think it starts with our mindset. I don't know about you, Andrea, and our listeners today, but for me, My mind had this hard time imagining myself starting a conversation, especially with people from other faith or cultures.
In fact, I don't think I even thought about that. And so I didn't see myself intentionally steering conversations into spiritual things. To me, it sounded like rocket science, and in retrospect, I think it wasn't so much that I didn't have the skills to do it. I just didn't really think I could do it. So how about you?
Andrea: Yeah. Sometimes I'm so nervous about just starting a conversation that I've actually found if I go ahead and just make it about faith right out of the box, if I just start out, bam. Some people are more conversational than I am in small talk and they can do it that way and that's But for me, I've found that if I just go straight for it, Hey, is there something that gives you hope in the world today? This is something that gives me hope. And say something about Jesus or ask him straight I just met you. We're at the gas pump or the park bench. I just like to pray for people when I come to the park.
Is there something I could pray for you about? And then I learned this line from the Blue Cord study,
Along with that question, just throw out a verse. So even if they say no, they have a truth to chew on Mm-hmm and they can hear a little bit more about where you're coming from and maybe they can discern whether or not they want to have you pray for them or not,
One day a girl at the park bench, she's sitting there resting with her.
And I said, Is there something I could pray for you? And before she had a chance to answer my question, I said, I'm a follower of Jesus.
And I believe what the Bible says in Romans 8, that he's standing at the right hand of the Father interceding for us all the time. Jesus loves us so much, He's constantly praying for us. So maybe I can just agree with his prayers for you today.
Karen: Oh, beautiful.
Andrea: And then, it turned out she, Some level of a believer, maybe marginal believer. She had never heard the truth about Jesus,
Karen: Oh, wow.
Andrea: and she got left with. Wow. God actually is thinking about me all the time.
So I love that kind of seed planting because they get to keep the seed, even if they say no initially, to talk more. They're unprepared, but that seed stays with them and it can prepare them,
Karen: You know You said something really interesting about how, for you being more of an introvert, Sometimes it's just more comfortable for you to just dive off the high board into the deep water right away and rip that bandage off.
And for others, it's more about chit-chat, small talk to get into it. Yeah. And so I love what you said. It's wherever you are, just practice what's right for you at the moment.
Andrea: Yeah.
Karen: You might not be ready to jump off the high dive yet, but that's okay. Start small with some little breadcrumbs.
Andrea: Totally.
And I've invited different friends who are also wanting to grow in this and will say, Hey, let's go for a walk and be intentional
And, look for people we can pray for at the park.
And some of them are a lot better at small chat, so I'm like, you start the small. I'll throw in the Jesus curve ball, like you, you teach me about small talk. I'll teach you little Jesus seeds you can plant
Karen: Oh. So look for each other's strengths and weaknesses and leverage those together and give each other courage together as you walk.
Andrea: Yes.
Karen: That's what discipleship is all about. Yeah. Walking together and learning together.
So good. Okay, I don't know about you, but I've found that the amount of time I'm spending in the word has a direct impact on how often I share my faith. So when I'm in the word, I'm sharing more naturally. And so I'd love to know and just unpack what's been your own experience here.
Andrea: Totally my time in the word, whatever I'm chewing on or meditating on whatever the Lord's speaking to me about during that week That automatically is gonna come up in my conversation cuz it's on my heart and it's on my mind. . And so it's an easy natural way cuz I'm already excited about it.
I felt the life in that word,
So I wanna share, hey, this could give you life too, so not only the direct content of what I might be sharing comes straight out of what God's feeding me that week. But if I'm not spending time in the word and just personal prayer time with the Lord letting him minister to me, then I don't feel inspired or full to go out and share and spend energy, giving what I haven't got for myself,
Karen: So true. There's that saying you've gotta fill your own cup first before you can fill others' cups. It's that same principle at work. And so if we know we should be out there sharing our faith, but it feels like a chore and a burden or a ginormous hurdle, that first clue might be it's time to press in hard in our study of the word and our time with the Lord so that our cups can be full overflowing and it overflows naturally.
Andrea: Yes. There was a time just a few weeks ago I was taking communion by myself with the Lord, with one of those little small
Karen: yeah things,
Andrea: The weird foam bread ones, and I,
Karen: weird. Foam bread.
Andrea: and I took the bread and I realized there were two pieces of bread
Karen: Aw.
Andrea: and I just felt the Lord say, Yeah, the first one's for you, and the next one's for
Karen: one's for.
Andrea: to minister, eat me yourself. , take me yourself. And the next one is to minister and he'll multiply it. He'll make sure there's a next one to give away.
Karen: That is so good. What a beautiful picture. You're giving us all kinds of these visual word pictures today. First, it's ducks, then it's styrofoam bread. It's funny.
Okay. Here's another thing.
Once we want to share our faith, we have that want to, and it's bubbling up from within us in our study of the word. I think the biggest part of the battle is actually seeing ourselves in the story or just imagining ourselves doing it. Especially if we don't have any friends around us who are out there sharing their faith.
It's like sometimes we can feel like we're the oddball in our Christian circles because none of our friends are sharing our faith. So once I realized that I really wanted to, I had the desire to step out to share my faith, I needed some help just for community number one, but to just know practically how to do it.
So for me, a friend in corporate America shared with me a simple formula about how to start conversations with anyone, anywhere all the time. Because I was a raging introvert in corporate America. Then I realized, This principle or this acronym works the exact same way when I'm engaging and starting up conversations that could lead to faith things too.
So, my friend, you can learn more about that in the Blue Cord Book in chapter eight. Or you can listen to season two podcast episodes 20 and 21. I'll put that in the show notes. So Andrea, let's make this real now. I'd love for you to share a few recent examples of starting up a conversation with someone that led to spiritual things and then what you've been learning along the way as you've been practicing this.
Andrea: Now, this might not be as natural of the story as you're hoping for, but it's just a good one.
Karen: Tell us a good story.
Andrea: Yeah, so there's a little picnic bench at the park, by my house,
One day I was on my way home from a walk. Two teenagers were sitting there, and I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to talk to them.
And I ignored it and I walked to my house and I got a drink of water and it was like, Are you just gonna be disobedient to me right now? go back out there and talk to those girls. What's the worst that could happen? And I went back out and introduced myself. I live right around the corner.
How are you guys doing? Anything I can pray for you guys about? They were so open. Teenagers are so open to having spiritual conversations because it's so taboo in the culture, yeah. They don't get to have that conversation. It's off-limits, but they're all curious and they wanna have the conversation.
So we probably spent 20 minutes together praying and talking about Jesus and what they had to say, what they thought, what were their ideas, and it was beautiful. And I was for.
it
was just so fun to share with people who were openhearted to hear and just think about it,
And after that I, I said, Lord, I'm not gonna be disobedient.
Anymore, at least not at that park bench. So I preemptively prepared myself for obedience at that park bench. I'm adopting it. If I see anyone there at that park bench, I'm gonna go talk to them
And I'm gonna say something about Jesus.
Karen: So you made a decision with intention. Yeah. Sometimes that's so critical because then you don't have to make a split decision anymore.
You just follow through.
Andrea: Yeah. I've already predetermined, I've already pre-prayed about this situation. , so there's a little extra courage there. And ownership. Not like a, maybe this might be a God encounter. No. I expect that if I see somebody there, God set them there on purpose.
Karen: Okay, so now I'm so curious. Did you see someone else at the park bench?
Andrea: Yeah.
Yeah. And now I have the courage to go up to people at that bench that I wouldn't go up to otherwise. So there was a kid, he looked like he was sleeping this teenage kid with a skateboard. Okay. I never would've approached a sleeping kid with a skateboard.
Karen: Yeah.
Andrea: Otherwise. But he was at my apartment. He invited himself to my house. This is the space you came to.
Karen: I agree. It was his, he was there.
Andrea: Like welcome to my home at the park And it was so awesome because, He had just had a wreck about a mile away from there, a big crash on his skateboard and he was all bloody.
And I went and got some ice pack and some water for him and stuff like that. And got to pray for him and shared the whole gospel with him. And it was like a good Samaritan moment because he had fallen and felt. Nobody cared about me. Nobody even asked if I was hurt. He thought he might have broken his wrist.
He had a really bad crash and felt like no one saw but he went ahead and went another mile down the road to sit on my park bench
Karen: Because he had a divine appointment with you.
Andrea: Yes he did. He's I just came here because it's peaceful. I said, I know it's peaceful, isn't it? , I pray over this spark bench. But yeah God was meeting that kid that day. I'm the God who sees you and I'm the God who cares for you when other people don't. And that minister to me because that's the first way Jesus introduced himself to me by his mercy.
So
yeah
Karen: It's beautiful, and I'm speechless right now because I can just see the scene in my mind's eye. And what a special, holy moment.
Just think about what if you had not adopted that park bench if you had not made a preemptive decision to go over there if you had not been bold enough or found that courage to press pass awkward and feeling inadequate to go share.
So I'm just curious what your advice would be, maybe there's a listener who, that's a little outside of her comfort zone to adopt a park bench right now. So we wanna think about those breadcrumbs. Let's just say maybe she is either a homeschool mom engaging with other homeschool moms, or she sees in the playground moms of other faith and cultures around her.
Maybe she's even in the workplace. And she senses I don't wanna be that pushy woman who talks about her faith. What kind of advice would you give?
Andrea: One of my favorite tools with those kind of people you're around in your everyday life settings, is anytime people are complaining about something, which is pretty much every day,
Karen: every day. Yeah.
Andrea: You can grab a hold of one of those things.
They feel hopeless, they feel discouraged, Somebody's coming against them, whatever the thing
Karen: is.
Andrea: And
There's a tool called the 15-second testimony which you can check out on YouTube, with little teachings about it. You can choose one thing that they're sharing about, say they feel hopeless or discouraged.
And I can say, there was a time in my life when I felt really hopeless and discouraged. I looked around at everything in the world, that had to offer hope, and I felt like it was all so fake and empty. But when I learned about. The ridiculous forgiveness and love of Jesus. I gave my life to him. I started following him, and now I have real hope and real joy that will never let me down,
And so that's just like a little seed of, just find something you can identify with. In their brokenness that you can truly identify with. You've been there in a similar type of situation, at least at some point. And then what did Jesus do in your life? And that's how people shared the gospel and the New Testament.
The Samari woman at the well, or the blind guy or the demonized guy, Hey, I was crazy outta my mind, but now I'm in my right mind and I'm close talking to you cuz I met Jesus,
Karen: You shared a really important principle here. Let's unpack it for a second. So I heard you say, first, this is how I felt. I can identify with you. I felt. Then, here's something that happened. , Jesus. Then here's what I found since then.
Yeah, really simple is what I felt. Then Jesus, here's what I found since then, It would be worth it to write that little script out for yourself so that you have your words at the ready in your pocket so that when you see someone in those kinds of situations where you could share just that little 15-second nugget.
You won't have to figure it out in that moment. You have it ready to go and can adapt it more easily. And I think the more you practice, the easier it's gonna get.
All right. We've been unpacking all around starting up spiritual conversations that are very natural and
natural
conversations that could lead to Jesus.
Anything else that comes to mind about this topic or any other stories that you'd like to share?
Andrea: I'll just share one other story because I'm surprised by people's responses sometimes, right? I was on in another intentional time, I got together with another believer. Let's go find someone we can bless and try to share Jesus, right? So we're like hunting people, with the gospel. And we stopped. This young couple just asked if they wanted prayer for anything, what gives them hope in the world?
And we went straight into sharing about Jesus. And Draw out a little picture about the gospel and this is what changed our lives. Have you ever heard of this before? And the guy said, Wow, thank you for stopping us. He said, I've seen stuff like this on YouTube and I've been wishing this would happen to me.
That someone would stop him in the middle of everyday life and share about Jesus directly. Like he had been waiting for that. And he traded his phone number with us and the next week he took us out to dinner
And asked us like 40 questions. about faith. Yeah, That guy was ready. He was waiting.
like literally, there are people just waiting. Some know they're waiting and some don't even know. They're waiting
For the best news ever.
Karen: And here's the thing, God could just tell him directly and wake them up with a dream or a vision. And yet he invites us into that process to be instruments in his hands, I think so that we can have the joy of seeing people come to salvation in Jesus. Yeah. How amazing that we get to be a part of it.
Andrea: part of. Yeah.
Karen: That's so good. Andrea, you have given us so much to think about. I know that my head is just spinning right now.
I'm never gonna look at ducks eating bread the same way again. And the next time I take communion, I'm gonna be thinking about that styrofoam wafer and about two of 'em. One to share forward.
And I'm gonna be thinking about that young couple who was waiting for someone to share Jesus with them and explain what salvation in him meant.
So beautiful. My listening friend, if you have enjoyed this episode, I know I sure have. I wanna just make sure that you rate it wherever you listen to Apple iTunes or wherever you're listening to podcasts so that it will become more searchable for others who are looking for content just like this.
And in fact, I noticed just the other day that this podcast is going on in almost into every state across North America. I would love for you to share this episode with some of your friends who live in other states, so we can just canvas the whole North American states and provinces so that believers across those states can see themselves in this story.
So now let's take a moment to process and just really ponder what Andrea shared, whether you're taking a walk or driving, or even cleaning. Just think through these questions right now. So number one, what do you think the Holy Spirit is prompting you to think about or maybe do differently or practice this week based on what you heard today from Andrea?
And next, I want you to think of two friends who need to hear this episode. Where do they live? Do they live in Europe? Do they live in the South?
Do they live in Toronto? Wherever they are, tell them about an aha moment that you had while listening today, and then invite them to do a Blue Cord study with you.
If you'd like more inspiration and practical tips, just like these, sign up to get our weekly e-newsletter at TheBlueCord.org, or take your learning deeper on this topic by reading the book The Blue Cord, or Lead a Blue Cord Discipleship Study with your friends. I'll put those links in the show notes for you.
Thanks for joining me today. Talk to you again next week.
Thanks for listening to this podcast, a donor-supported series from I hope ministries. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen.
To get more involved in the blue cord. Start small. Read my book, the blue cord, and sign up now to get my e-newsletter at thebluecord.org.