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Podcast: How Can I Overcome My Fear of Evangelism? (Mack Stiles)

June 10, 2024 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Getting Started in Evangelism

In this episode Mack Stiles helps to define what evangelism actually is and offers advice for us as Christians as we seek to share the good news about Jesus with those around us. Stiles shares examples about what it looks like to share the gospel well and offers tips for actually doing that in a practical way.

How Do I Get Started in Evangelism?

How Do I Get Started in Evangelism?

J. Mack Stiles

This concise, convenient guide defines proper evangelism and gives readers the tools to teach the gospel clearly, biblically, and persuasively.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:12 - What Is Evangelism?

Matt Tully
Mack, thanks for joining me on The Crossway Podcast today.

Mack Stiles
Matt, it’s a delight to be here.

Matt Tully
When we think about evangelism, I would imagine that there are lots of different things that might come into the mind of a Christian. Maybe we think about sharing our testimony with a neighbor in our backyard. Maybe we think about street preachers yelling at people as they’re walking by in some big city, or maybe we think about handing out tracts to strangers in a park. I think that all of that speaks to just the broad concept of evangelism in modern evangelicalism, where we have lots of different ideas associated with that term. So I thought to start off, could you simply define what you mean when you say the word evangelism?

Mack Stiles
This is largely from J. I. Packer. Evangelism is preaching or teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade or convert. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, “we persuade men.” Evangelism can happen in those largely negative things you mentioned, and people come to faith that way. God hits straight with a crooked stick, right? But at its core, you must understand that it’s explaining, preaching, teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that people can understand to persuade them. So it’s not just a data dump. We’re not just giving information out. We actually have this thought in our minds that we want to see this person persuaded by the truth claims of Christ.

Matt Tully
I wonder if people might sometimes feel a little bit conflicted in that. I’m thinking of that second half of the definition, with the aim of persuading. I think as Christians, and certainly as Reformed Christians, we can sometimes really want to emphasize the Lord’s sovereign work in bringing someone to faith, that we’re not in control of that. We can’t engender that within them ourselves. And so sometimes the posture could be our job is just to tell them the truth. Tell them the truth of the gospel, and we really don’t need to worry about anything beyond that. So why is it important in your mind to add that persuasion element. and what does that actually look like in practice?

Mack Stiles
Right. Well, again, it gets at this idea of a data dump. We want to actually be persuasive, and I think people are mixed up in their heads about the negative kinds of persuasion that can happen. And Paul disavows manipulation in 2 Corinthians 4, the chapter right before the one I just quoted about “we persuade men” in 2 Corinthians 5:11. So it’s not coercion, it’s not manipulation. Persuasion helps us see that how we speak is almost as important as what we say, so that we’re trying to gain an audience, a hearing. Heated arguments rarely convince someone about anything, really. Paul says, “Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4). I think that’s the kind of persuasion we’re talking about.

Matt Tully
So even if we affirm God’s sovereignty in salvation, that doesn’t excuse us from thinking carefully and working hard and to share the gospel in ways that are helpful.

Mack Stiles
Yeah, our responsibility. It’s our responsibility do that.

Matt Tully
I think some of the examples that I listed a minute ago, and even this conversation, can speak to the many different definitions that can operate, and even the misconceptions that I’m sure you would say are often prevalent. So I wonder if you could complete this sentence in a few different ways. Evangelism isn’t . . . what?

Mack Stiles
Evangelism is not necessarily sharing a testimony. Evangelism is not necessarily inviting someone to church. Evangelism is not necessarily living a good life. I’d say especially not that, because evangelism requires that we speak. It’s a message of the gospel. The gospel’s a message. Now, you can make sure the gospel’s included in your testimony. You can make sure that you ask permission or say to someone after you invite them to church, I’d love to talk to you more about what you heard. Hopefully, every time you invite someone to church your preacher makes the gospel clear. But if not, it’s an opportunity to say, Let me tell you what I think about spiritual life. But I think we need to get it out of our heads that it’s not just an event, particularly. The gospel may be there. So that’s why I think we need to be sharp on this, Matt. We've really got to be sharp to understand the gospel must be there and explained for it to be evangelism.

Matt Tully
That’s so helpful. I think that does touch on the broad swath of things that maybe there’s a definition creep here with evangelism sometimes, where there are other other good activities that Christians do.

Mack Stiles
Good things. Good things. All of them are good things. We want these things to happen.

06:24 - Balancing Mercy Ministry and Preaching the Gospel

Matt Tully
Let’s talk more about that. When you talk about evangelism and when you teach about this, how do you balance the emphasis that you want to make on teaching the message of the gospel—the true history of the gospel in a way that persuades—how do you balance that with things like mercy ministries and practical help and service? There can be a danger, obviously, that those other good things can, at worst, overwhelm the actual teaching of the gospel and that kind of disappears. But I would imagine some people might be from a tradition or have experiences where they feel like the gospel was proclaimed but at the expense of addressing people’s very real, very physical, obvious, practical needs that they might have right in front of them, but all we did was tell them about Jesus. How do you balance that in your mind?

Mack Stiles
Well, I find that to be actually pretty rare, where someone is so oblivious to needs that they only tell them the gospel. But it’s hypothetical. I think the Bible is clear that the most important thing that needs to happen in a person’s life is salvation. Even with great needs, we need to recognize that the gospel brings the kind of change that we want to see happen in people’s lives that are merciful in their situation. So it usually happens in a broader sense. Mark Dever talks about how, as a historian, wherever the gospel has gone, it’s brought literacy. Let me back up. Somebody might say, Look, I’m utterly supportive of mercy ministries. I’ve done so many things, Matt, you wouldn’t believe. We led programs in Guatemala where we worked in an orphanage, we took part in a medical clinic there. We dug fish farms to introduce protein into the diet. We inoculated chickens. We did all these crazy things out of concern for slash and burn farmers who are desperately poor and often face malnourishment. And we understood that we don’t really have a hearing unless we’re thoughtful and caring for people, gracious and kind, because we want to walk in line with the gospel, as Paul says in Galatians. But I find that the greater experience is that people take part in mercy ministries without sharing the gospel. So my experience has been we can do mercy ministries much more easily than we can share the gospel. And we’ve got to make sure that we’re sharing the true gospel with people when we do mercy ministries. Now, do we get it right all the time? No. Are we perfect at that? No. I’m sure there’s lots of examples of mistakes. But it’s that attempt that we have to always be proclaiming Christ. We must recognize the statement that “We always preach the gospel, when necessary use words” is a foolish statement, because the gospel is a message. It requires words. It’s like saying, Feed the hungry, when necessary use food. So we want to make sure that there is a balance on our minds, and that balance comes from the understanding that the gospel is something that we walk. So Paul’s very, very clear about that. When he rebukes Peter in Galatians, the statement that he makes in his rebuke of Peter—remember, Paul was the new kid on the block—but then he says when he notices Peter’s actions (this is in Galatians 2:14), “I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel.” He rebukes him. Now, that tells us the gospel is a message and a first priority, and the first thing that needs to happen for people’s lives and the most important thing is salvation in Christ. But also that we understand there’s ways that we live out the gospel that are commended by the Scriptures. And so we need to be aware of that. So I guess I don’t need to look at other people’s understanding of that. Brother, I think I’ve gone both ways. I’ve done some really good mercy ministries where I look back and I said, “I could have been a little sharper in proclaiming Christ in those situations. I had open doors in a prison or that clinic.” That’s probably a longer answer than you wanted, but that’s how I’d go at it.

10:47 - Facing Our Fear

Matt Tully
Yeah, that’s so helpful. I think what I hear you saying is that these two things go hand in hand. There’s not a conflict between the two of them. They actually come into their fullness when they’re done together. And I think that can apply to cross-cultural, big missions with people who are really in poverty, but even to a neighbor who’s struggling to get groceries. Being willing to kind of step into the day to day life and help in a practical way can win us an audience for actually sharing the gospel, doing actual evangelism. But I think that topic hits on another concern sometimes that we can feel internally of not wanting our relationships with unbelievers to become something like a project where we’re sort of always trying to steer conversations to spiritual things and we’re always taking opportunities that we have to get them saved. We’re worried that could come across as insincere, perhaps, to a friend who just kind of views us as a friend who’s trying to help them because they care about them. So how do you navigate that? How do you encourage people who are wrestling with those concerns?

Mack Stiles
I would remind them the great deed in Christians today is to be bold and clear with the gospel, honestly. And so I tend to want to talk to people that don’t know Christ about the Lord at every moment, but I’m waiting for them to tell me not to rather than the other way around. I’m not letting my fears stop me from a conversation because I’m worried about what they might think. And I ask questions. What do you think? Am I bothering you? Is this offensive? I don’t mean to be. I want to know. This is important to me, and I think it’s important to you. Those are the kinds of things I say, whether it’s someone I just met on a flight or my next door neighbor. With our next door neighbor, he’s a great guy. He’s a doctor. He calls me over every now and then to fix something and help him with his yard or something, and he knows where I am. He knows I’m religious. In fact, I’ll even say things like, We’re pretty religious. I’ll laugh about it. “You better watch out for me. I’m pretty religious.” So eventually, he asked me a question about it, and there it was. There’s the opportunity. It’s helpful now, and not everybody can do this, but I have a book that’s evangelistic called The Truth about Lies, and I start the book out by saying, “I’m trying to persuade you about something, about the relevancy of Jesus in your life.” I gave him my book. I said, “Let’s talk about this.” It’s almost case by case, Matt. There’s a bit of a feel about this, about where people are. So less worry about ourselves and more concern about opportunities and taking them.

Matt Tully
I’m struck, too, in some of the examples you shared that you’re being pretty upfront from the beginning even, pretty early on in a relationship. And I think it could be a lot harder for us if we’ve been neighbors with this person for five years, and then all of a sudden we try to introduce this new thing that maybe we’ve never mentioned before. That’s where we might run into it feeling pretty awkward or hard. But if we just lead with that from the beginning, then it’s just part of who we are. I’m a Christian.

Mack Stiles
Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I got a high school reunion coming up—50th high school reunion—in my hometown in Western Kentucky. And they just sent the list of people who’ve died.

Matt Tully
Oh, wow.

Mack Stiles
And it’s long, and a lot of people I knew as, like, your high school people, but you can’t keep up with all of them. There’s probably seventy people on this list of people that have died. And I was like, “Man, I’ve got to tell these people. What am I going to do?” Which is easy with high school because I was so wild and out of control in high school, and so when people ask, “What have you been doing?” I say, “I’ve become a Christian.” It's the first thing out of my mouth. They knew my life back then. I was pretty flamboyant about that. So there’s opportunities that arise that are bigger than others and better than others. So take them. Relatives. Most of us have non-Christian relatives. Most of us have a majority of non-Christian relatives. And so there are incredible opportunities to write to your relatives and say, “Can I talk to you about this?” Or keeping in contact with people. They’re all around us.

Matt Tully
You’ve already alluded to this, but one of probably the primary reasons, if not the primary reason, that we as Christians sometimes struggle to actually do evangelism and to actually share the gospel, whether it’s with that neighbor or with a relative, is because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of being perceived as awkward or weird or afraid of being just straight up rejected. So two questions for you, Mack, as the evangelism expert that we all know you to be.

Mack Stiles
Through great mistakes, right?

Matt Tully
Do you ever struggle with feeling afraid to share the gospel with somebody? And then how do you combat that in yourself, or how should we combat that as we struggle with this?

Mack Stiles
Oh, I utterly feel afraid every time. I think evangelism is always pushing the ball uphill. And I’m a great people pleaser. It’s a sin to be a people pleaser. I want people to like me, and so I fear rejection. I used to fear not knowing what to say or saying something dumb. I don’t think that much anymore.

Matt Tully
That probably comes from experience. You’ve just done this more.

Mack Stiles
Yeah. There’s a limited number of questions, really. So I fear rejection mostly. And how I combat it is to remember Paul of Tarsus, the apostle, prayed for boldness. Can you imagine? Paul’s in jail saying, “Pray for me, that I will be bold and speak the gospel clearly.” So Paul wants prayer for boldness and clarity. How much more do we need boldness and clarity? And I combat it by praying. And when I’m in situations I pray. I pray, “Lord, give me words . . . open a door . . . help me say the right thing . . . help me see this person as someone who has the potential of knowing you.” So I think if the Lord’s on your heart, that’s one big part of it. And to be so in love with Jesus—this is the big deal for me. It’s kind of a soapbox. It’s why methods are bankrupt in the end. If you don’t love Jesus, if you aren’t deeply enmeshed and entwined in the great salvation that has come our way through Christ and his work on the cross, if we don’t see what he’s done in his great love for us, you’ll have these struggles in evangelism and eventually give up. But to be so in love with Jesus that you want the world to know, you want people to know what you’ve discovered in him. And the reality of Christ, if it’s with you day to day, is something that makes you want to tell other people about it that you meet. And so the way forward, the best way to combat our fears in evangelism, is to push those fears out with the love of Christ. Does that make sense? Those two things—prayer and the love of God.

Matt Tully
Yeah. And you mentioned, too, that sometimes our fear can be related to saying the wrong thing. And maybe are even less afraid of how I’m going to be perceived, I’m more afraid of maybe representing the gospel poorly or Christians poorly and encouraging a misunderstanding perhaps. So how do you know how to keep pushing in a conversation or keep going versus when to back off and give someone space. That’s one of those areas that if we haven’t done this a lot, we might wonder.

Mack Stiles
I ask questions. I say, Look, I don’t want to offend you. Does this offend you? Hey, am I being too pushy? Is this bothering you? And if they say, Yeah, I don’t know if I want to talk about this, I’ll go, Why? How come? And that actually might even be a better conversation. I think if you tell people you don’t want to offend them, most people have spiritual interests and spiritual thoughts. I think it’s good to ask people what they think or what their experiences are. I love the question, What’s your spiritual background? What’s your faith background? Those kind of questions are really helpful.

19:00 - How to Start a Spiritual Conversation

Matt Tully
Maybe that’s a good question. Say you’re talking to a neighbor; that’s probably a fairly common, almost universal kind of experience where there’s somebody in our neighborhood that we have some interactions with who isn’t a believer. How would you suggest that someone start a spiritual conversation with that person?

Mack Stiles
I like the question, What’s your faith background? I’m a Muslim. Then ask, Which mosque do you attend here? My neighbor across the street is a Muslim guy from Pakistan, and I’m trying to build bridges with them. They’re very wary of us because they knew we were missionaries in Dubai and Iraq. But during Ramadan I took him over some Ramadan candies, just bridging.

Matt Tully
I think sometimes we can view religion as one of those third rail topics, where people are going to get super offended really easily and it’s just fraught with all kinds of pitfalls. Have you found that to be the case, or do you think most people are pretty open and interested in talking about these things if it’s done well?

Mack Stiles
I think people are open if they’re comfortable with you, if that makes sense. But yeah, I think it’s a third rail thing in America. In the Middle East, where we lived for twenty years in the Middle East, they live, eat, and breathe religious conversation. So in some ways, I lost a lot of my skills by living there for so long because I knew I could have a spiritual conversation with anybody. And I think conversion, actually coming to the point of bringing people to faith, is a little more difficult. There’s a lot more at stake, so it, of course, depends, but a lot of times it has to do with people’s personal experiences, and that’s a good thing to talk about. With my neighbors, I see it as harder evangelism than living in a Muslim neighborhood in the Middle East—far harder—in terms of explaining the gospel and being able to talk about what the gospel is. There’s apathy and affluence. Not everybody in America is affluent, but by world standards, we’re crazy affluent. And it’s that combination of apathy and everybody does what they want to do. That’s a toxic cocktail for spirituality. So we have to be thoughtful. And again, Matt, I’d say case by case. I’m thinking through each of my neighbors. I know all my neighbors. I’ve met them. They all know we’re real religious. They must think, Wow. They’re really taking it serious. I always wonder how non-Christians see us. I’ve often thought we must be really strange to them.

21:38 - Don’t Give Up

Matt Tully
Mack, I think there are probably few areas of the Christian life that prompt more shame or regret or discomfort than the issue of evangelism or our lack of evangelism. And so I wonder if that rings true to you in your own personal experience and talking with other Christians, helping them on this front. Does that ring true?

Mack Stiles
Well, I lead off in the new book with a story of utter abject failure. I just really blew it with Lance Armstrong.

Matt Tully
You have to tell us that story here really quickly, even though it is in the book.

Mack Stiles
Sure. I was on my way to speak at a church in Bozeman, Montana—Grace Church there in Bozeman—and my wife, Leanne, and I were traveling together. We went to SmashBurger there in Denver. Great, great restaurant. I’m eating my hamburger, and then I look down a couple of tables beyond and I go, “I think that’s Lance Armstrong!” And Leanne’s like, “Honey, can we just eat our burger?” I said, “No, I want to meet Lance Armstrong!” So I go down a couple of tables, he looks up, he’s chewing on this burger, and I go, “Are you Lance Armstrong?” I was not prepared. He goes, “I am.” It was sort of like, Don’t hurt me. And I suddenly had this realization that he thought I was a fanboy.

Matt Tully
He thought you were going to maul him for an autograph.

Mack Stiles
I said, “Well, I was on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and I saw you cross the finish line in the yellow jersey back in 1999. I was with my boys.” He said, “I guess your boys are older now.” And I said, “Yeah, they’re grown men.” And he looked just so sad. And it was at that point I realized he thinks I’m an ex-fanboy who dragged his kids over to Paris. Now, I didn’t even know the Tour de France was going on. The reason I was there was I was on the cheap, red-eye, bad, awful flight back from Dubai. We had a fifteen hour layover in Paris. We dragged the kids to the Louvre. We stepped out of the Louvre, which is right there at the end of the Tour de France, and I just happened to be there. It was a complete accident. But I didn’t want to explain all that to Lance. I just said, “Well, the kids are fine, Lance.” And he put his head down on the table there at SmashBurger. He said, “Oh man, I messed up so bad. I messed up so bad.” I was so touched with his humility and his angst, but I just muttered something like, “I’m a missionary in Iraq, and I follow Jesus. He loves to give second chances.” I muttered something like that. He said, “Thanks.” And then we talked about Iraq a little bit, and I went back and finished my burger. I just realized when I got on the plane and caught our flight, Why did I not share the gospel with this broken-hearted guy? There was an open door, and I just blew it. I blew it. But I’m grateful that I follow a God of second chances, right? And I trust the sovereignty of God with Lance’s life and my life. But yeah, I realize these kinds of things help us for our next encounter, to be more ready.

Matt Tully
You write in your book, “I’ve come to see that most of my evangelistic efforts are failures.” And I think for a cross-cultural missionary who’s written multiple books about evangelism and had so many conversations and you’re probably so much further along than most of us feel like we are, it could be a little surprising to hear you say that. So I wonder if you could just unpack that a little more for us. Why do you say that? And again, how do you stay motivated? I think that can be one of the dangers here is we have a bad experience or we fail in this in some way, and ironically, that just kind of leads us to feel less motivated the next time.

Mack Stiles
Well, maybe I’m just weird this way, but it motivates me to do better. Randy Newman, in his book on evangelism, talks about pre-evangelism. I think what he means by that is helping us get to the point where we can share and we’ve earned an audience in some way or another. I’m the best post-evangelism expert I know. After a failed evangelistic conversation I’m always saying, “I should have said that” or “I could have done that.” Most of my failures are sins of omission, and I just don’t take the step. So I don’t know, brother. I’m just working on it all the time, and again, I come back to the fact that I love Jesus, and I want the world to know about him. And so I don’t give up. I press ahead and await the coming glory, because I know the Lord is gracious and kind. And on occasion, we find that one lost sheep, and it makes everything else just worthwhile, right? When we see someone come to faith and their life is genuinely transformed by the power of God and the gospel, it’s glorious. I don’t know anything better than seeing people transformed by the power of the gospel.

Matt Tully
Amen. That’s beautiful. Mack, thank you so much for taking the time today to help answer some of these questions that we can have, these struggles that we have in evangelism, and giving all of us encouragement, some advice for pursuing this more wholeheartedly as believers.

Mack Stiles
You bet, Matt. Good to be with you.

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