Discipleship Done Differently
ARISE!
Sharing Faith
Simply Why should we share our faith? by Giles Holloway In the previous edition of Arise! magazine, I wrote about who we share our faith with, but this month I want us to think about why we should share our faith: what is our motivation? Over the twenty years that I worked as a science teacher, I would always have to try quite hard to identify other Christians in my workplace. When I put out an email or announcement in the staffroom that I was starting a workplace time of prayer, a few believers would emerge but otherwise I don’t think I would have known who the Christians were. Why is that? I think that from a very early age we learn that our culture doesn’t really endorse being excited about faith, and it’s ingrained in the British psyche not to shout too loudly about religion or politics. The causes of that run deep in
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our country’s history, but it seems to me that the reason we don’t wear our faith on our sleeve is that we don’t want to stand out from the crowd. We see this all the time in our culture, where we gloss over obvious issues like racism or sexism until a few brave individuals share their story, and suddenly all those who had similar views but remained in the shadows feel empowered to speak their mind. What if the same could happen with sharing our faith? When we are willing to make our faith known and truly represent Christ, we also empower others to speak for Him. I’m sure we can all think of a time when someone has been holding court with a group spouting off their deeply held view as if no one could ever think otherwise and then a brave soul pipes
up and says, “er actually, I disagree… I think …” and suddenly we find the majority actually have another view. So, why share our faith with others? Let’s start with perhaps the most famous verse of them all – John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This verse demonstrates that at the heart of our faith is a God who is motivated by His love for humanity. Secondly, it shows that He is a sending God: He sent the best He had – His Son - and not only that: His Son sends us since He is back with the Father now. Thirdly, He desires that all are to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4): He is a saving God and He is not content with the status quo, He sends all of us out so that every person of every
