Witnessing to Family and Friends

There is a great debate in the evangelism circles over whether witnessing should be primarily within the context of relationship to family and friends or to strangers. Jon Speed does an excellent job in his book, Evangelism in the New Testament, of discussing the Biblical view from the Gospels and Acts about so called friendship evangelism and confrontational evangelism with strangers. It is not my intention to rehash that here. Rather, the point is that no matter which group is the primary target of your evangelistic efforts, eventually the other group will cross your path. Recently, I was asked about witnessing to family members by several different people. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to address that here.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.” (Matthew 13:57)

Even Jesus recognized that witnessing to family and friends is hard. Outside of his own town and home the prophet is given honor. But, inside, he is not. This shows up as being hard to witness to these types of people.


A number of years ago, I was very new to the Way of the Master method of Biblical Evangelism. I was helping a friend train some college students on how to use the method. We reviewed the concepts with them in the parking lot and then went into the mall to eat dinner and practice. While walking to the food court, one of the young ladies in my group said, “wouldn’t it be better to witness to people we know?” Being new to this myself, I took the question to my friend. His response was two fold. First, we can know someone for a short time (30 seconds to a couple minutes) and then witness to them. Second, he looked at her and said, “is your grandmother saved?” “NO”, came the response. So he said, “let’s call her on the phone and you can witness to her.” At that, the young college student, with a look of fear in her eyes said, “that’s ok. witnessing to strangers will be ok!”


The point is, witnessing to mom, dad, sister, brother, grandmother and your best friend can be scary. And it can be difficult. Yet, there may come a time when it is necessary. Probably the best resource I can recommend on this subject is Program #22 of Way of the Master titled How to witness to a loved one. This can be purchased from Living Waters as part of Way of the Master Season 2 or the Intermediate Training Course.


What I’d like to do is present some ways that you might share the Gospel with your family. Some of these come from the Way of the Master episode referenced above.


Write a letter
One way to witness to family and friends is to write them a letter. I’ve done this on several occasions. Some of the letters are just a letter in their own right. Others were letters that were included with a gift. In either case, the letter can explain the Gospel to them.


Ask their opinion on a new tract
Here is an interesting idea. Take a new tract and ask them to read it and give their opinion. I know someone who does this all the time both with strangers and family members and friends. He will look at them and say, “a friend gave me this new tract, I am not so sure about it, can you read it and let me know what you think?” Often they will take it and read it and give their opinion. At a minimum they have read the Gospel.


Share a DVD or book with them
There are many wonderful resources to share with the lost. Books like God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life by Ray Comfort and One Heartbeat Away by Mark Cahill are a couple of my favorites. Some favorite DVD resources are Why Christianity, Joe Average and the Big Question. Pointers to many of these resources are available on the additional resources page of the Bezeugen Tract Club site. There are other books like Ray Comforts What Hollywood Believes which make nice gifts for family and friends. With each resource you can ask them to read it or watch it and then ask their opinion.


Tell them in third person about your evangelism activities
This is a great way to witness to family and friends. It even works well with co-workers. You can explain to them about your weekend fishing expedition going door to door or at the rock concert. At work, I’ll bring it up by going to lunch with people and then asking them “what did you do this weekend?” People love to talk about themselves. So asking this questions gets them started. Most of the time after they tell about their weekend the next thing they say is, “so what did you do this weekend?” Bingo. Now you have the perfect chance to share the Gospel with them by explaining about your outreach. You can say something like, “I went with a group of folks to the art festival. We handed out Gospel tracts and had a conversation that went kind of like this. We would ask the person if they were good enough to go to heaven. Most people would say yes. So we then asked some follow up questions. Most people measure goodness based on measuring against other people. The Bible says that the standard of goodness is perfection through the Ten Commandments. We would then ask if they had lied, stolen, or even lusted after somone. When they admitted to breaking these commandments we would ask if they would be innocent or guilty before God and if he would send them to heaven or hell. At this point people would realize that they were not as good as they thought they were. When they said they would go to Hell we asked if that concerned them. When they said it did, we could share the good news with them. We would tell them that God does not want them to go to Hell and that 2,000 years ago he sent his son to make a payment for their sin. We explained how Jesus was fully God and fully man and was able to live a perfect life. He fulfilled the law then died on the cross. His shed blood paid for their sin. But Jesus did not stay dead. On the third day he rose from the dead defeating sin and death. We explained that the Bible commands them to repent of their sin and trust Jesus alone for eternal life. It was an amazing time. We must have handed out 500 tracts and talked to 50 people.” You might get through some or all of this and hopefully it becomes a dialog. But you can easily see how you can tell them what you did, lead them through the Law in third person.


Tell them your testimony
You can say something like, “you know I used to think like that before I got saved. Then I realized that my lying, stealing and lust separated me from God.” At that point you can share how you were saved and how your life is changed because of Jesus.


Have your friend witness to them
You can have a friend talk to them. Friends may not have the same barriers that we have with our family. Recently a friend of mine went on a trip to Kenya. In Kenya he met up with a group and was doing some evangelism. One of the guys on the team had a mom who was not saved. When the guy introduced my friend to her they talked for a bit. Then the guy asked my friend, “do you have any questions for my mom?” Unbeknonst to my friend, this guy had introduced him to his mom so that he could witness to her. He did! 


I pray that these ideas will be helpful as you share the Gospel with your family and friends. Remember, it can be difficult to do. But, you love them enough to tell them the truth because you want them to be in Heaven with you for all eternity!