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What is a witness?
Well, that's pretty easy. A witness is anything that bears record or testifies about something. It can be a true witness or a false witness. The word "witness" is translated, in the New Testament, from the Greek word, "martus". We get our English word, martyr, from "martus". A martyr is one who witnesses by death. Many things are witnesses. The Holy Spirit is a witness for He testifies of Christ (John 15:26). The scriptures are a witness for they testify of Christ (John 5:39). Jesus' works were a witness for they testified that Jesus was the Messiah (John 5:36). In Acts 14:17, rain, food, and fruitful seasons are a witness of God's goodness. Signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts are a witness (Heb. 2:4). Jesus is called the faithful and true witness in Rev. 3:14. God is a witness in Romans 1:9. So, many things bear witness.
A Christian witness has two main responsibilities.
One, a witness is to identify the attractiveness of the Christian faith. This is pretty easy to do. Your testimony is a simple and good way to identify what it is about Christianity that makes it attractive to you. Peace, contentment, purpose, fulfillment are themes one can use to make the faith more attractive to the hearer. Eternal life and Heaven are pretty attractive aspects of becoming a Christian. The second responsibility of a witness is to remove a person's obstacles to the Christian faith. This is much harder and requires effort. Apologetics comes into play with both of these responsibilities.
Become familiar with obstacles.
The world's obstacles to the Christian faith are many and diverse. People have many reasons for shunning Christianity. However, most of those reasons (or objections, or problems) to the faith can be placed into one of four categories; (1) reasons of the intellect, (2) reasons of the heart, (3) reasons of the climate, and (4) reasons of the memory. By breaking objections down into four categories, one can more easily deal with them.
Don't judge witnessing by results.
Results should never be the key factor in judging the success of witnessing. You can never know how effective you are as a witness for you don't see all that God is doing through your witness. The person may appear to not be listening, at all, but may well be tuned into every word you are saying. Many get discouraged when they don't see results. Many expect immediate results or consider their witnessing a failure. The person to whom they are witnessing doesn't fall down and accept Jesus so the witness thinks witnessing has been a waste of time. It is a little arrogant and condescending to expect a person to embrace what you are saying without giving it some thought. So, let them consider your words. Give them time. Respect their intelligence enough to know that they can think things through and reach conclusions. Let God do His work. You've given God something to work with, now let him use it. Even He needs time and He wants their decision to be rational and sound. Trust the Holy Spirit to do His job. One sows, another reaps. But, who gives the increase? God. Don't judge the results of witnessing because you can't know the results. I'll tell you this, your witness has much more impact than you'll ever know. Witnessing is not as much about soul-winning as it is about glorifying God. So, glorify God and don't fret about how many souls you are seeing come to Christ.
Passive Witnessing.
Some have said to me, "I don't need to go out witnessing. My life is a witness." Well, brother, you can let your life be a witness and, still, go out witnessing. Both can happen concurrently, you know. When one let's his life be his only form of witnessing, I call this passive witnessing. It is only effective if someone is closely watching your life, which they, sometimes, are. What we need is both passive and aggressive witnessing. You can passively reach a few people, but you can aggressively reach thousands. So, be passive and aggressive. Those times when you aren't doing aggressive witnessing, you are automatically doing passive witnessing. Do both.
Repent of good intentions.
We hear many pastors, church leaders, and congregants speak a lot about the need for witnessing. You'll find many books on the bookshelves on the subject of witnessing. Many times, we fall into the false notion that, since we intend to do better at witnessing, our intention to do better is as good as doing it. We need, right now, to repent of our good intentions. Intending to do something and not doing it is the same as…..not doing it. Stop intending to witness and, as Nike would say, just do it.
Exposing lies and truth.
One of our goals when we witness is to expose the lies that Satan has sold to the lost. Whatever their reason for being lost, it is a lie that they believe and it is a lie from the pit of Hell to keep them from moving to Christ. So, in the world out there, people are believing lies about God that are preventing them from coming to faith. We need to uncover the lie for what it is and tell them the truth about God. If you know the true God of Christianity, you'll love Him. If you don't love Him, you don't truly know Him.
Witnessing is better caught than taught.
As Dr. James Kennedy (Evangelism Explosion) discovered, you can talk, teach, preach, and push people all you want to witness but they will, still, not do it. We need to take them out and give them on the job training. That is why we actually teach an 8-week course on witnessing accompanied by 8 hours of door-to-door training with a person experienced at witnessing. If you tell them to get out there, they won't do it. It's too strange and frightening. If you take them out, personally, they will be more at ease and will soon learn that witnessing isn't nearly as difficult as they had supposed. They'll also see how receptive people are to witnessing.
Promote God, not church.
People are not searching for church. They are searching for God. They may not know what they're searching for, but it's God, whether they know it or not. God is their answer, not church. Not that church is bad. God is just better. If you didn't know that there was a difference between God and church, there is. Don't witness by telling them how great your church is. Tell them how great your God is. They can nitpick your church to death and point out the hypocrites that they know go to your church. You know, the one that swindled them or hurt them or ignored them. God has never done any of that. The church has some bad people in it. The Bible calls them tares. The lost are used to Christians bragging on their church, even the bad ones. I know people that brag on their church while their pastor is having an affair with a member of the congregation. The lost aren't so accustomed to Christians bragging about their God. When you brag on God, you'll get their attention for that, to them, is rare. Hold Him up. God is much more attractive than church. Jesus said that if we'd lift Him up, he'd draw all men to Him (John 12:32). Lift Him up.
Don't wait to feel qualified to witness.
You'll probably never, ever feel qualified. You'll probably never feel good enough or worthy to witness. You'll probably never think that you know enough scripture. Don't wait until you have a ton of scripture memorized. If you do, you'll never witness. Work on that stuff as you go along. You'll get better at it and you'll remember things a lot easier if you are putting them to use while witnessing. My attitude is this, There are probably Christians that are better at witnessing than am I. They may know a lot more scripture. They may be more eloquent. They may have been a Christian longer than me. They may be more persuasive. But, you know what? I'm the one standing before you. I'm the one putting forth the effort. I'm the one that cares enough to do something like this. Right now, I'm all you've got.
So, live a little on the edge by witnessing.
Feel alive, again.
When was the last time you did something for the first time?
Do's and Don'ts of Witnessing!
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