Sharing your Faith: Remember the Creed

You don’t have to be a Christian for very long to realize that God calls upon us to “make disciples” for Him.  We are to share the good news of Jesus’ life-giving death on the cross, the forgiveness of sins and life eternal that comes by faith alone.  But how?  Many evangelism methods have been developed through the years to help Christians share their faith.  One popular method is to ask someone point blank, “If you were to die tonight, are you sure you are going to go to heaven?”  This one only works if the other person already believes there is a heaven, or that we somehow exist in some form after we die.  Another popular method is to serve people selflessly until they ask, “Why do you care so much about me?”  Then you share about Jesus.  I like the service part, but what if they don’t ask?  Are we serving them just so that we can “get them saved?”  And once they’re saved do we just leave them to go “serve and save” another?

I don’t pretend to have all the answers in the area of evangelism, but I have found a certain process that seems to universally apply as we share the good news with the people around us: THE CREED

Yes, when it comes to sharing your faith with others, it doesn’t get more shrewd and innocent than the creed, Nicene or Apostles’, you can take your pick.  Now, what is it about the creed that assists us in evangelism?  Well, I’m not going to tell you to get up on your soap box on the street corner and try to convince everyone to confess the creed together.  That’s kinda creepy.  What I will tell you is that the Trinitarian pattern of the creed seems to be the universal pattern of sharing our faith.  Let me explain.

Article 1: God the Father, Creator
We are all creatures.  We are all created by God.  We have this in common with everybody regardless of gender, race, culture or religion.  Since we have this creaturely perspective in common, we naturally begin our conversations by relating to people on the basis of life as creatures in this world.  Chances are, it won’t take long before your conversations begin to recount the problems in our world.  You may even hear someone say, “It shouldn’t be this way!”  You can respond by simply saying something like, “No, it shouldn’t. God didn’t make our world to be this way.  It’s sin that caused our world to be full of evil.”  Over time you will want to identify sin as the universal problem in the world and even the universal problem in each of our lives.  Use personal examples of sin in your life and how that sin has plagued you.  Once the other person begins to acknowledge their own sin and feels the effects of God’s law in their life, it’s time for Article 2.

Article 2: Jesus the Son of God, Redeemer
This is the place most Christians want to start.  Most Christians want to just toss Jesus out there and somehow unbelievers will simply eat it all up.  I don’t put it past God to work through that, but having the Article 1 conversations first can really set the stage.  Sharing Jesus is all about presenting the solution to the sin problem that we realized in the Article 1 conversations.  Jesus came to make right what sin had broken.  Our once-perfect relationship with God was broken by sin.  Jesus came to mend that relationship by taking the sin on himself when he died on the cross and rose again three days later.  By faith in him we have that forgiveness and the promise of eternal life with him.  The message is simple and beautiful. Don’t make it too complicated or try to impress them with what you know.  If they ask a hard question that you don’t have an answer to, admit that you’re still growing in your faith and that you’ll check it out and get back to them.  Then return to talking about Jesus.  After all, He’s the one who saves.  You are simply the humble messenger trying to communicate the message of Jesus as clearly as possible.

Article 3: The Holy Spirit, Sanctifier
This is perhaps the hardest part of the entire process.  Luther says it best in his Small Catechism.  “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”  So, let’s say your conversations went really well.  You had the best talks about life and sin and Jesus.  You still can’t make that person believe and be saved.  In fact, they can’t even make themselves believe and be saved!  That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, and that’s what makes this the hardest part of the whole process.  We like to be active and think we’re in control.  In our Article 1 and 2 discussions, we’re very active and we keep up those conversations waiting patiently to see the Holy Spirit do his work by bringing the person to faith in Jesus.  Once we see that faith, the Holy Spirit will be drawing that person to be baptized and hang out with other Christians.  What an awesome privilege to walk with someone in those first few steps of faith as the Holy Spirit works in their life.  It’s awesome.

We may have the tendency to let this person loose now that they believe and go out there fishing for another.  Don’t.  This new Christian needs to grow in their discipleship and knowledge of God through the Bible.  They need to develop a system of support through the church and find their place as a part of the body of Christ there.  Who better to walk with them in that process than you!  Perhaps what they need the most is to sit down with you and talk about how this faith thing all happened.  They need to see how you related to them on the basis of being a creature, focused on Jesus and his sacrifice and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.  If you do, don’t be surprised when that new believer comes to you later all excited because they are having similar conversations with others, sharing their faith by remembering the creed.