Stories of Grace
A Heart for the Lost | Chad Nuss
I came to know Jesus in the fall of 2000. When I gave my life to Jesus, He gave me an excitement for evangelism. I realized the gospel was the answer to the many questions I was wrestling with, but I also knew the gospel was the message of love, hope, and forgiveness that the people around me needed. I sensed that God wanted me to not only think seriously about evangelism but also practice it. I did not grow up in church and started following Jesus just after I finished college. I was surrounded by people who did not know the Lord. So I began sharing the gospel with my family, friends, and coworkers.
My early experiences of evangelism were awkward, confrontational, and lacked tact and grace. I approached complete strangers on the street, instigated confrontational conversations with atheist coworkers, and started arguments with resistant family members. I tried to get up the nerve to street preach but settled for passing out tracts and reading the Bible in public. I carried picture stills of a bloodied Jesus from the movie Passion of the Christ hoping to spark a conversation with people. I even secretly stuck a Bible in one of my family members' bed mattresses in a naive hope that God would use that to convert them!
In my attempts to faithfully share the message of Jesus, my problem was I had a lot of passion but lacked compassion. But the Lord is faithful to use blunt and clumsy instruments. He is faithful not only to use us despite our inadequacies, but also faithful to refine us through practice and experience. Over time, the Lord taught me how to meet people where they are by reminding me of who I was before meeting Christ. I needed space to wrestle with my questions about life and I needed someone who I knew really cared for me to help me answer those questions.
If you're interested in evangelism, I encourage you to remember two words: content and context. To share the gospel, we must know the content of our message. The gospel can be summarized in four points and one response:
1. God created everything - including you!
2. All of us have decided to live life on our own terms and therefore we have sinned against God
3. God loves us so much He sent His son Jesus Christ to live, die, and rise from death to forgive and restore us
4. God is bringing resurrection and restoration to the entire world and offers this to each one of us. Therefore, we are invited to respond by turning over our lives to Him by repenting of our sins and trusting Him by faith.
To practice evangelism, we also must remember our context. First, we need to pay attention to the context of our immediate situation. Every person and every conversation will be unique. Some conversations call for a listening ear, some an encouraging word, some a loving rebuke, and some a direct appeal. It takes wisdom to discern which approach is best but the only way to learn this is through experience. Do not be afraid to make mistakes, to accidentally offend, to miss an opportunity, or to completely drop the ball. The Lord is patient with us and is willing to use any exercise of faith no matter how clumsy or insufficient.
Second, we need to pay attention to the context of our lives as a whole. We all go through seasons in our lives. I have been through seasons where I have had chances to share the gospel multiple times a day for months on end. But I have also been through other seasons where I had absolutely no desire to share and no opportunities for weeks and months on end.
Currently, I am in a season in which I am home a lot helping with our special needs kids so I don't have as many opportunities for evangelism. However, I am an artist and the Lord is leading me to create artwork that inspires people to contemplate life and God. I self-published two graphic novels based on the Bible and philosophy and now working on a third. I am also working on a series of large drawings based on biblical themes that I will soon display in pop-up art shows around the city as a means of fostering new relationships and possible gospel opportunities. I am trying to leverage the gifts He has given me in my current context and season.
Some of us work in contexts surrounded by unbelievers, some of us are stay-at-home parents with little contact with anyone, some of us are around fellow Christians all of the time. The practice of evangelism will look differently for everyone at different times and seasons of their lives. The goal is to remain faithful in whatever season we are in and know that even in the most isolated situation the Lord can provide opportunities to share the gospel in ways we could never have imagined. Remain faithful and know that as we draw closer to the Lord, He will draw people closer to us to share His message with them. Blessings. - Chad Nuss
Chad is the husband of Elizabeth and dad to Georgia, Noah, Silas, and Eli. They have been at Sojourn for many years and have served in various roles, from making coffee on the Connect Team, to serving our youth at S2, to hosting a Community Group, and leading discussion in our Alpha ministry. We're grateful for their faithful presence and ministry at Sojourn J-Town.
