Friendship Evangelism … or just tell them the good news?

Today at the mall, Todd, Byron and I were having a discussion about the difference between “friendship evangelism” and “contact evangelism”. Friendship evangelism supposes that someone needs to “earn the right” to share the Gospel with their friend by developing a long lasting relationship. Then in some cases, the “Christian” might invite the non-Christian to a sporting event or something in order to share the Gospel with their friend. On the other hand, “contact evangelism” is what many would consider a more confrontational approach. In this method, the Gospel is shared up front with strangers. I highly recommend Jon Speed’s book, “Evangelism in the New Testament” for a much more through explanation of these subjects. I’ll summarize, what Jon states in his book, that true Biblical friendship evangelism “begins, not ends” with the Gospel.

Consider for a moment, what is the most important thing in your life? Now consider when you meet a new friend. Do you tell your new friend about this “important thing” up front? Or do they have to wait two years and then you invite them out to lunch and you sit down and say, “Oh, Joe, I just wanted to let you know that the most important thing in my life is…” No. That is ridiculous. If it is important to you, then you would tell them up front. 


Consider for a minute, would you wait two years into the friendship to tell your friend that you are married? No, of course not. Would you wait two years into the friendship to tell your friend who your favorite college or professional sports team is? No, of course not. Would you wait two years into the friendship with your new friend to tell them where you work? No, of course not. So, then if Jesus is important to you, why wouldn’t you tell them right away. Right up front in the relationship!

So today at the mall we decided to test this theory. Todd and I were walking and saw a young man standing over looking the ice rink.

Carl: “hi”

Young man: “hi”

Carl: “got time for a quick question?”

YM: “sure”

Carl: “my friends and I were just discussion something”

YM: “oh”

Carl: “we were discussing whether when meeting someone new if we should tell them the most important thing in our lives up front, or wait a couple year, build a relationship and then tell them.”

YM: “I’d want to hear about it right away”

Carl: “well, the thing that is the most important to me is Jesus.”

YM: “oh”

Carl: “so who do you think Jesus is?”

Anyway, at that point Todd and I had a nice discussion about how the Law separates us all from God, that Jesus is the only way of salvation and that Jesus is excellent beyond what we can imagine or deserve. At the end of the conversation I said, “now you know the most important thing to me is Jesus. If you’d like to be friends, give me a call sometime and we can have lunch.” Then I handed him my business card. He thanked us for our time. Please pray for Mookie’s salvation.

So, I thought it was interesting that even asking a random person that they would rather know the important thing up front rather than waiting a couple years. A sample of one is certainly no statistical proof. More conversations are needed. Perhaps you can use this approach to witness to someone and then post your experience and their response to the initial question as a comment.