Learn how to start natural spiritual conversations with anyone, anywhere, all the time using a memorable "process" that is easy to remember and simple to do. Rich with real-life stories and road-tested practical application, this episode will have you looking forward to striking up conversations and steering into spiritual matters of the heart.
Learn how to start natural spiritual conversations with anyone, anywhere, all the time using a memorable "process" that is easy to remember and simple to do. Rich with real-life stories and road-tested practical application, this episode will have you looking forward to striking up conversations and steering into spiritual matters of the heart.
About iHOPE Ministries
iHOPE Ministries is a 501c3 non-profit ministry that is changing the way Christians think about sharing their faith with people of other faiths. Since 2011, iHOPE has empowered tens of thousands of Christians to cross religious boundaries and extend God’s transformative love. For more free, donor-supported resources that will help you share the love of Christ with people of other faiths who live near you, visit iHOPEministries.org or follow iHOPE Ministries on Instagram.
The book referenced in this episode: The Way to Paradise, by Renod Bejjani, is a bible study tailored for Muslim seekers. It's available wherever books are sold online. For more details, visit iHOPEministries.org/books/
Karen (00:00):
Hello friends! Karen's here.
Renod (00:00):
(and Renod)
Karen (00:20):
Today's episode is part two of a two-part series about how to start spiritual conversations. Now, if you're like most believers, I know you doubt your ability to start conversations and then steer them into spiritual things with someone of another faith or culture. That's okay. How would you know, it's normal? I felt the same way. Most people don't know how to do that, but by the end of this podcast, you'll know exactly what to do. And so with that said, Renod why don't you start us off by sharing a story about why we should even put ourselves out there to start a spiritual conversation?
Renod (01:01):
Yes. It's because we can impact a life for eternity. So, I want to start with the story of Paula, an average everyday Christian, and she had a coworker who happened to be a Muslim and her name is Sarah. Now Paula did one thing with Sarah that changed Sarah's life for eternity and ended up impacting hundreds of other lives for eternity. So, this is how it started. Paula and Sarah were coworkers for years, but Paula never approached Sarah to even say hello, because she was afraid of her. She saw this Muslim woman fully covered with her hijab, younger lady, and she was afraid. First of all, to offend her. She bought into Satan's lie, “Well, I don't know anything about Islam or the culture or the Quran And I just don't want to offend this lady or what if she's a terrorist or whatever.”
So she had all of these things going through her mind, but then one day she came to work and she saw Sarah crying moved by the love of Christ, moved by compassion. Paula decided I need to approach her, see what's going on because no one else was talking with her. So, she prayed. And then she walked up to Sarah, introduced herself, said, “Hi, I'm Paula. I know we've worked close to each other for years. We've never said hello, but I noticed you're crying. What's wrong?” Sarah looked at her and just kept crying. So internally policy, what do I do Lord? So, she just instinctively started to hug Sarah. Sarah hugged her right back and held on tightly and kept crying on her shoulders. Then after it seemed like the sobbing stopped and the crying stopped again, Paula asked her what's wrong. Sarah? Sarah shared with her that a beloved family member just died unexpectedly. Sarah was just grieving. So again, Paula said, Lord, what do I do? So she's praying internally so she decided to invite Sarah to Church. So, she said, “When I'm feeling really bad and sad about things, when I go to Church, I feel better. The music is great. The message out of the Holy Bible is great. Would you like to go to Church with me this weekend on Sunday? And then we can have lunch afterwards.”
Sarah looked at her and said, “Yes.” That simple gesture, that invitation started Sarah on a journey a year and a half later, she accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And then she became so on fire for the Lord - so filled with his love and her life was so transformed - that she became in full time ministry, sharing the love of Christ and sharing Jesus with all of her Muslim friends and relatives and everyone she could meet. She has since led hundreds of Muslims to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. But that story began with a simple invitation and a simple gesture by hero called Paula. And that's why we want to start spiritual conversations.
Karen (04:52):
Well, I love it. So, that's a really great explanation for why it's so important that we even start these conversations. Now in our time together today, we're going to start by laying the groundwork with some biblical verses a biblical foundation. It's almost mindset for how you start these conversations so you can think with the end in mind, and then we'll share with you a very simple, easy to remember process for how to start those conversations as well.
Renod (05:26):
Yes! So let's start with a verse from Colossians 4:6 and it says, “Let your conversations always be full of grace seasoned with salt.” So that's what we want to do. We want to live this out practically. How do we season our conversation in order to make people like Sarah thirsty, thirsty for the only living water that can satisfy for eternity? So seasoned with salt, we want the love of Christ, the light of the Holy Spirit to shine so brightly with us, that people around us in the darkness are attracted to that light and they want to come into that light. And so with that in mind, when we season our conversation like Colossians 4:6 says, season it with salt. Then we use that as what I call the bait. It's just like fishing. Jesus said, I'm going to make you fishers of people, fishers of men. We want to see our conversation be that spiritual hook, the spiritual bait, to see if someone will bite. And to continue with that, It's because Jesus tells us in John, Chapter 6 that the only people that can be drawn to him or come to him are the ones who God, the Father enables or woos toward Jesus. And the Bible also teaches us that no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. So our job, when we are seasoning our conversation with salt, sort of like Paula did, then we'll see if someone bites on that bait on that hook. And that becomes a way to identify whether this person is actually someone that God, the Father is wooing or enabling to come to Jesus. We want our conversations seasoned with salt in order to identify a person that God might be wooing to Jesus.
Karen (07:42):
I love this because it really takes all of the pressure off from having to have these perfect words as if it all relied upon us, and our words, in these spiritual conversations. And it does not, it really is us looking for that person of peace. So that's the first big principle you want to have salty speech and look for a person of peace. Now, how does that look really practically?
Renod (08:07):
Yes! so what you want to do is ask good, curious open-ended questions. And that's so important, but it's also a practical in many other ways, because you see a lot of us are introverts and it might be hard for us to know to realize that me Renod, I'm an introvert. So I love to ask good questions because usually that means I'm not going to have to talk too much in the conversation, so it puts me at ease, at the same time, in this case, we want to ask good questions in order to see if this person is being drawn to Jesus as Lord and Savior. And part of that process is not only to ask good questions, but you don't want people to feel interrogated with your questions. So, part of what we do with that is we offer information first. So I want you to keep that in mind because if we don't offer information, first people are a little bit reluctant. I know I'm reluctant. If someone just asked me a question, I don't know exactly where they're going with it. I will be reluctant to respond. That's human nature. So, offer information first.
Karen (09:24):
How does that look in real life? Give us an example.
Renod (09:27):
So, for example, I want to get to know somebody and know their name. I'll just say, Hi, I'm Renod, what is your name? That's an example of offering information. Now, here's how I season it with salt. Here's an example. We just recently moved from California to the state where we are living. I'll offer up by sharing with people – “We moved here from California because God impressed it on our hearts.” Do you see the hook there? The spiritual hook?
Karen (10:19):
Because God impressed it on our hearts
Renod (10:23):
And do you see the information that I offered first? What was it?
Karen (10:26):
You said we moved here from California.
Renod (10:28):
So let me start in a complete sentence again. We moved here from California because God impressed it on our hearts. How about you? Where are you originally from? See that open-ended question followed by that.
Karen (10:43):
Yep! so let's just break it down. You ask a curious question, but you start by offering information first and with the information that you offer, you try to make sure that there's some kind of salty speech in there that would give a nod to spiritual things.
Renod (11:01):
Yes! now I want to share a story that accompanies that. I use this all the time now we've moved here. It's been about six months and I'm always using this spiritual line and it has ended up in many spiritual conversations. I'll give you one example, one person, when I said, because God impressed it on our hearts, he stopped, and he said, “How did God do that?” That so caught his attention, because you see, he was thinking about this. Like, how does God impress things? on our hearts, how does He communicate with us? Because he was struggling with an issue. It ended up in a two-hour conversation with this gentleman that centered around spiritual conversations of how God speaks to us. And I started sharing stories of how God impressed that on our heart, but it started with me offering that information first.
Karen (12:05):
Now let's take this deeper. I'm going to share with you an acronym, an easy to remember acronym that will help you be able to talk with anyone anywhere all the time to start these spiritual conversations. Are you ready? Okay. Here's what it is. Form F O R M. F as in Frank, O R M. So, we're going to unpack this for you and just give you lots of ideas and I think your minds are going to be spinning. So let's start with the F - F stands for family or friends. So that just means you ask these curious open-ended questions about family and friends, offering information first and putting in there some salty speech. So Renod, give us an example. What would that look like?
Renod (12:51):
So, for us, for example, between Karen and me, we have five sons. So I always offer up, we have five sons. I'm grateful that three of them are walking closely with God. How about you? Any kids? So, okay, let's break that down. So first I offered information, which looked like what?
Karen (13:18):
We have five sons.
Renod (13:18):
Okay, then how did I steer into spiritual conversation?
Karen (13:24):
Well you said three of them are walking closely with God
Renod (13:27):
There was the hook. Let's see, will they bite on that? And then I gave him the opportunity. How about you? Any kid? So let me share a story with you for example, what that looks like in real life and the impact it had. I shared that with a gentleman who was doing service for us work at our home and I just offered that information. Well, he stopped. And he said, I'm curious about that. I'm curious about the two sons that aren't walking closely with the Lord. So he was asking me questions and he surprised me with the question that he asked, well, what it turned out to be is that he has a son who is currently on drugs and he doesn't know what to do with that son, absolutely lost son. That conversation led to me pointing this gentleman to Jesus Christ, to the Holy Spirit as the only one that can give you guidance to the Bible, to give you as examples of how you can, deal with your son. And I ended up praying with him. It ended up, I think, over an hour conversation talking about a wayward son and how they ended up coming back to the Lord
Karen (15:30):
Salt and light, salt and light Renod. Let's talk about the O in FORM. O stands for occupation. And that just means you're asking questions related to tease out details about someone's occupation or school. So how might that look Renod?
Renod (15:46):
I'll start with the occupation example, I will share a story about Brian, one of our close friends. So with Brian, he always offers up, well, I'm a high school teacher, but my favorite thing to do is teaching English with refugees because they love to hear about Jesus and I teach by sharing verses right out of the Bible. How about you? What kind of work do you do? Again, did you see that? Brian offered information first, then within that context, he offered the spiritual hook by mentioning what his favorite thing to do as a teacher is
Karen (16:35):
Now give us an example related to school.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yes, I would love to tell you about Natasha. She is so good! Natasha is a student and she's studying psychology. This is what she says, “I'm studying psychology, but my goal is to help oppressed women globally succeed in life, which is achieved through a relationship with Jesus. How about you? What are you studying?” Do you see it? Can you break it down for us again, Karen?
Karen (17:09):
Oh, absolutely. So, the first thing she offered up was that she's studying psychology and what her goal with that is. She made that salty by saying it's achieved through a relationship with Jesus. And then she asked a question back, a curious question back.
Renod (17:25):
So, with that in mind, Natasha has ended up sharing the gospel and leading other students to faith in Jesus Christ, from Muslim Hindu and Buddhist background and Atheist and so on. Just with that simple conversation starter because she quickly steers it into spiritual matters.
Karen (17:46):
Great! Now let's talk about the R in FORM. We've talked about the F friends and family, the O - occupation. R - stands for recreation or fun. This just means what do you like to do for fun? Renod so what does that look like?
Renod (18:00):
Yes! here's one of the things with Jason, he says typically besides hiking, so there he's offering information, he says my favorite thing to do on the weekend is going to church because it gives me joy and peace. How about you? What do you enjoy on your weekends?
Karen (18:27):
The salty speech is you probably already guessed I'm going to Church because it gives me joy and peace. So Renod, let's just shift gears for a second. We've unpacked this acronym FORM. F O R M friends and family occupation recreation, What's the M?
Renod (18:47):
The M is me. But as you can see by offering information first, that's the me. So I'm talking about me and then the F O R is really, I'm trying to make it more about them, family occupation, recreation fun
Karen (19:04):
Now let's talk about those situations. Let's say you've lived next to a neighbor for years. You see each other, you wave at the mailbox every day and one politely says to another, how are you doing? And you respond back.
Renod (19:18):
Usually we say, oh, I'm fine, you say, how are you doing? they say, I'm fine, but don't do that. Add a little salty speech to that. How are you doing? This is what I say, Oh, God has so blessed me. How about you? So you see, I'm blessed. I'm blessed by God. Now I want to share with you a real-life example right here during the pandemic. So one of my favorite things to do is when people say, how are you doing? I say, “Oh God has so blessed me in the middle of all this pandemic, He has given me this overwhelming peace and joy. Just no stress. How about you? How have you dealt with all of this?”
Karen (20:06): If I was not walking with the Lord, I would be struggling a little bit and thinking, what is he talking about?
Renod (20:15):
Yes, people typically ask me, well, where do you get that peace from? so that opens up the door so I can point them to the fruit of the spirit, which is peace, joy, gentleness. I've used simple things like how are you doing to open up spiritual conversations,
Karen (20:35):
Alight? So we talked about an acronym and a way that you can start some conversations with people that you've seen routinely, where you haven't had some salty speech in the past, what are a couple other outward actions that you can be doing?
Renod (20:50):
That's the other thing is outward action. In this case, it is our custom to always pray when we're outside at a restaurant, eating or even eating with people we've never met before and so on, we will bow our head and we will pray. At restaurants we make sure that people see us, and it's not about us pointing them to us. The reason why we do that is to acknowledge the Lord and see if someone will respond to that. What has typically happened in that is every now and then we'll get a Christian that will see us doing that, and then walk up to us while we're eating or as they were leaving the place. And they'll say, “Thank you for encouraging me. It was really encouraging to me to see you praying like that and acknowledging the Lord.”
But I want to tell you a story about a Muslim who saw us doing that. So, we were at an ethnic food restaurant owned by a Muslim couple, and as we sat down and ordered, as the food came, we put our hands together, held hands, bowed our head and just very gently prayed and asked God for his blessing on the food as lifted up our heads and I open our eyes we see a person, a Muslim person sitting at the other table, just staring at us in a warm and friendly way, but staring at us. So, after a while, as we were eating, I decided that it was time to say hello to this person. I went over and asked him, “What is that you're eating? it looks good!”
Now, I knew what he was eating, but it was just a way to start it. Well, this gentleman, it turned out that he was looking at us because he was curious about our prayers, that led to him asking about our belief, because he knew, especially because Karen isn't dressed with a hijab, anything that we are Christian. So he said, “I didn't know Christians pray before they eat. Why do you do that?” Well, that opened the door to spiritual conversations. We ended up praying with this person, doing Bible study with this person. Now pray for this person. He hasn't accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior yet, but he is still seeking and we're still in connection with him.
Karen (23:41):
So I just want to interject for a second at a time when it feels we're facing some obstacles as Christians out in the marketplace, it feels a little awkward at the beginning to think about praying out in public during our meals, and yet remember why do we do that? Because we are looking to see the people that God might be stirring and wooing to himself. So, it's not about us when we do pray in public, it's a little bit like an advertisement that says we're Jesus followers. And if there are persons of peace in that restaurant who see us, that identifies us
Renod (24:23):
Another simple thing is to find openings to invite people to whatever church activity is going on. So, I'll give you an example. Julie, she had some Muslim friends that she wanted to somehow invite to Church, but again, she was afraid, she wasn't sure, how to approach it and so on. But one day as she prayed, she got that boldness and she realized that these people came here as refugees and they were going to school. So, there was a financial seminar going on at Church. So she just said, Hey, by the way, we've got a financial seminar at church and they're going to talk a lot about money and how to use it wisely and what God says in the Holy Bible about money. Would you like to come? She invited a Muslim to come to Church because of the topic. So do that, whatever the topic might be, look for those openings, by the way that Muslim ended up inviting other friends because of the topic in this case. And they so loved that they kept going back to Church. Seven of them eventually accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So invite people to Church.
Karen (25:50):
When you think about it, some of the activities that are at your Church are some of the best kept secrets to invite non-believers, to like marriage seminars and financial seminars, lots of opportunities at Church. Now Renod, we've talked about this acronym form, and we've talked about some outward actions that we can do that can also identify yourself as a Jesus follower that will bring persons of peace. Talk to us now about this concept of divine appointments.
Renod (26:21):
Yes - this story I'm going to share with you also combines with outward action. I'm going to tell you about Heidi. With Heidi, she decided in her outward action to actually just put at work at her desk, a Bible on the side. And she prayed that that would lead to divine appointments, but that was her outward actions. She wasn't sharing her faith with people. She wasn't breaking any protocol at work or anything like that she just displayed the Bible. Well, she thought that a Buddhist coworker might actually bite on that and come and ask her about it to Heidi's surprise it was a Muslim coworker that came and said, “Is that a Bible?” and Heidi said, “Yes.” He said, “I think I'm supposed to read the Bible. How do I get one?” She offered it to him as a gift.
Then that led her to take another step. So not only did she put another Bible out on her desk, but this time she brought The Way To Paradise Bible study book that I wrote, that's tailored to Muslim seekers so she decided to put it there. Well, now the Muslim coworker said, “Oh, what is that? I noticed that it has some Arabic script on it.” And she said, “Well, it's a Bible study book written to Muslims, so they'll discover the way to paradise.”
He said, “Well, can I have it?” So he took the book and then at that point, Heidi decided, well, I better read what's really in that book in case he asks me questions about it. She was about 10% done with the book, The Way to Paradise, when this gentleman came back to her and said, I'm basically done with the book, “I'm ready to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I just have a few questions.” That's how it started. So, expect divine appointments with little outward actions like that.
I want to tell another story. This is a story again, of somebody that came in to do some work on our roof. So, they came in and it was about painting, but they had to climb up high. So, as they were going up on the, on the high ladder, I said, “I'm praying that God will keep you safe as you do this work. God bless you.” So again, you see how it was spiritual hook? Well, the gentleman, his name is Jim, he stopped. He said, “I really appreciate that.” And it led to me praying with him. And over the course of time, as he did more work around the house, we ended up having many spiritual conversations. And I gave him a Bible and I ended up pointing him to Jesus Christ. So, expect divine appointments
Karen (29:33):
Now sometimes It doesn't always happen like that. In fact, the other night Renod and I needed to go look at refrigerators because our refrigerator died. So as we were in the hardware store and we were talking with the sales guy, he asked us what it is that we did. Renod, what did you say to him?
Renod (29:57):
Well I said we are co-founders of a ministry called iHOPE Ministries. And we share the love of Jesus with those who don't know Jesus.
Karen (30:07):
He didn't say anything. It was a mic drop moment down.
Renod (30:12):
But later on in the conversation, he said, well, you're a nonprofit. Do you want to, as you purchase this refrigerator to use your nonprofit status, to save money off of the sales tax? And we said, “No Billy, we will not do that because this is a purchase for our home.” And again, he stopped. He said, “Oh, wow, I get so many people that are making purchases for home and they'll use a nonprofit status for that. You are really honest.” But again, yes, you wanted to share a non-success story in this case of sort of someone who didn't buy it. Because after that, he wasn't really interested in a whole lot of spiritual conversations.
Karen (31:09):
Well, if they don't work, it's normal because it's not your responsibility to make them work. Right. We're just looking for persons of peace. And last night, Billy at the hardware store was not yet a person of peace,
Renod (31:21):
But we planted those seeds. All right. So I want to give you another example of expecting divine appointments, but this also combines some other things. With Penny, when she runs errands, she tries to run them at different places. Praying, maybe she'll meet a person that God might be drawing to Jesus. So, she decided to go to a new, dry cleaner. She walked in and at this dry cleaner, she noticed that they had an accent, they looked like they came from another country. So, she's announced that she's a new customer so they asked her about herself and what she did, she said, she's an ambassador for the most-watched movie ever in the history of the world. So, they're very curious, sounded like a important title. So, they said, you're an ambassador. And what is the movie? She said, “Yes, I am an ambassador for the Jesus film. It has been watched by over 500 million people. And then she offered, would you like to get a free Jesus film?” They said, “Well, sure, but we are Muslim.” She said, “It's all right. You can still get it. Now I noticed you're originally not from here. I can get it to you for free right now, you can download it right now in just about any language you want. What language would you like it in?”
They said, “We've been here for so long that would prefer to get it in English, even though we're originally from Pakistan.” That not only led to her sharing the Jesus film with them, but from there they downloaded one of the things we call it's called Bible.IS so you can offer them that or other things. It's an app that has the Bible in thousands of languages. I wanted to share with you the Penny story to share how offering things like your occupation in a creative way, which by the way, that wasn't a full-time job for her, anything like that, she was just an ambassador for the Jesus film. In other words, she's someone who's enthusiastically sharing it with people. So, it was just an opportunity for her to share Christ.
Karen (33:59):
I love it! Well, we've covered a lot of territory together, so let's go ahead and do a quick review. So first you learned how to ask curious open-ended salty questions and you go first. Then we talked about an acronym F O R M as a way to help you start those spiritual conversations and get into matters of the heart. Then Renod shared some stories about doing some outward actions, like praying in establishments or inviting people to Church and expecting divine appointments.
So now what's next. So I want to encourage you to write out the acronym form F O R M, and write out for yourself a few statements, because when you take the time to write these out, that will get them in your memory so that when you run into your neighbor or a new friend at a dry cleaner, you already have the words in your back pocket for what you're going to say, then you don't have to kind of say, oh, I know I should in this moment to using one of those FORM questions, but it just isn't coming out. And then later you kick yourself because you know, you should've said something and you didn't this time when you write out just a few sentences for yourself, you've got them a little bit in your muscle memory and they'll come out more natural when you're out and about so that you can start those conversations with anyone, anywhere, all the time.
So that's a real, simple, practical, next step for you. Now, as we wind up our time with each other today, I just want to leave you with one thing to go and do and talk about with your faith-filled friends this week. And that is, think about how to put yourself out where people are, people who you don't normally see and practice the skill of starting a spiritual conversation. Tell one of your faith, filled friends about this concept this week and go practice it together. That's it for this week. Talk to you later. Bye.