Disciple Making Course Facilitation Guide

How to share Jesus when people around you just aren't interested
How to share Jesus when people around you just aren't interested

Jesus tells us to make disciples of all nations, but let’s be honest. It can be pretty hard to share His love with others if we keep experiencing rejection after rejection. And you are not alone in this fear. Most believers

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fear of rejection as the number one reason they don’t share their faith. So, is the answer simply to grit your teeth and “be bold?” Or could it be that there’s a better way?

We’re here to tell you that sharing the love of Jesus can be a natural, stress-free part of your life that results in less rejection and more dynamic encounters with God. Here’s how...

1. Remember it’s not your job!

“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. John 6:43-45

The above quote is one of the clearest examples in scripture of Jesus teaching us how people come to faith in God. So, let us ask you this:

Where is the evangelist in this passage?

That’s right; there isn’t one! God never intended for it to be our job to draw people into a relationship with Him. Even in the Great Commission, Jesus tells His followers...

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and makes disciples of all nations...” Matt 28:18b-19a (emphasis mine)

Making disciples is Jesus’ job, and He graciously invites us to participate with Him in doing this job. So, how do we do that?

2. Become a spiritually obvious person.

The easiest way to participate in what Jesus is already doing is to become spiritually obvious. This means to become the type of person that a seeker will think to talk to first if they ever decide to explore faith in God for themselves. This could look many different ways.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. Deut 6:6-9

In the book of Deuteronomy, God calls his people to live spiritually obvious lives. They should talk about the things God is doing in their lives and mention those things regularly. They should teach their kids about Him. They should talk about God’s love as they go about their daily lives and as they relax at home. It should be so obvious that it’s as if there is a sign on their forehead or their front door!

For most believers, living this way is as simple as de-secularizing our lives. So many of us have one way of talking that is secluded to Sunday morning. We greet people as brothers or sisters, invoke God’s blessing on one another, and share testimonies from the week. Yet, when we go to work on Monday morning, we don’t speak that way to our co-workers. We hide who we are as disciples of Jesus.

But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be hard. Becoming a spiritually obvious person is as simple as just being yourself.

3. Pray like crazy.

God does nothing except in response to believing prayer. -John Wesley

Perhaps the most important thing to do is to pray like crazy! To help you achieve this, you might consider making a prayer calendar.

A prayer calendar is a simple list of 30 names of believers who you assign to a different day of the month. Each day, you can call or send a message to the next person on the list. Ask them if there’s any way you can pray for them that day, and let them know what you are praying for about for the seekers in your life. Invite them to pray along with you. That’s two people praying for your friends every day!

But it gets better.

After a few months of doing this, people may start to take notice of the regular messages. Often times a few of them will ask about it, giving you an opportunity to explain the concept of a prayer calendar to them. If even a few of those people decide to do a prayer calendar themselves, you’ve immediately multiplied prayer for the lost in your community! Imagine 30 people praying every month, and then at least 2 of them start their calendar. That makes 90 people praying. And if 2 people from those calendars pray as well? That’s 210 people all praying for the lost in your community! From that point, it’s easy to see how things get exponentially more exciting!

4. Keep track of your conversations.

As you pray, pay close attention to what God does in peoples’ hearts. You can do this by taking note of the three different kinds of conversations people have with you:

Casual Conversations. The typical small talk that anyone is willing to make. It could be about the weather, a favorite movie or sport, or anything that doesn’t require any vulnerability to share.

Meaningful Conversations. These conversations usually include someone sharing something a little more personal. It could be something they are struggling with, worried about, or ashamed of. These are vulnerable topics that people will only share with you when they feel you are loving enough not to respond in a judgmental or hurtful way.

Spiritual Conversations. These conversations may be focused on God, but they don’t have to be. Spiritual conversations are all about meaning and worldview. Spiritual topics could be about God, the human spirit, a religious idea, or just the universe in general. People have these conversations with you when they have identified you as both a loving, trustworthy person and a spiritual person.

As you build relationships with your friends who do not know Jesus, recognize what kind of conversation you are having and make a comment attempting to move it to the next level. Volunteer vulnerable information yourself in a casual conversation. Ask a question about their personal beliefs when they share something meaningful. See how they respond. If they continue to make that conversation deeper, go with it. If not, don’t worry. Just go home and pray some more!

5. Lower the bar.

Finally, if you find it too hard to share God’s love with those around you, you might consider making it easier on yourself and letting God do more of the work!

Many people think of evangelism as a bold call to repentance. They might tell people that they are in a state of sin and try to convince them to pray a prayer of repentance, become a disciple of Jesus, and begin attending a church. That’s quite a lot for one person to take in, so it’s no surprise that it is not very efficient. In order to see people become followers of Jesus this way, you usually have to share with a lot of people, in hopes that only one or two will turn their lives around. This can also be a demoralizing approach for the believer since they have to face so many rejections! Some people are gifted in this form of sharing, but what about the rest of us?

Instead of thinking of a bold call to repentance, why not consider a loving invitation to a journey of discovery?

Most people don’t want to be confronted by a preacher, but they do want a faithful friend. So instead of convincing them to repent, why not just convince them to grab a coffee or a meal with you and see what the Bible has to say about the problems they are experiencing in life? From there, you can begin to meet regularly to introduce them to God’s love through scripture and help them meet with Him little by little until they are ready to give their hearts to Him.

It might turn out that lowering the bar for us is lowering the barrier to entry for them!

Conclusion

Finally, if you feel that you’ve tried everything to compel those who don’t know the love of God to begin a relationship with Him, know that you’re not alone! Many other people have felt this way. Sadly, so many of them give up and begin to live quiet lives, attending church without ever impacting their friends and family outside the church. But some don’t give up. Instead, they have reminded themselves of God’s role in the process. They’ve started to love Jesus openly and without pretense, they pray like crazy, really listen to their friends, and invite them on a journey of discovering God for themselves.

If you or someone you know thinks this disciple-making lifestyle could help you, we’ve developed the Waha Disciple Making Course. You’ll learn tools like the prayer calendar, different conversations, and most importantly,

the Discovery Bible Study⁠

. It’s never too late to get started, and it’s completely free! Just gather a few others who want to learn to make disciples in a peaceful, stress-free way, and head on over to