In 1 Peter 3.15 we’re told:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have

If we took this verse seriously then a lot of our evangelistic strategies would change. We can put so much effort into putting on big evangelistic events. We then reduce evangelism to:

Always be prepared to give an invitation to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have

What if we flipped that around? What if we saw Monday to Saturday as the mission field and the Christians as the potential gospel speakers? Sunday would then become really important to think through the questions that arise Monday to Saturday.

If that is going to happen then ministers need to be better at understanding the real questions people are asked and the way in which they can answer. Those questions, and how to answer them, will vary from office to building site to school gate.

One city worker told me he had two kinds of opportunities to answer question.

One was the 30 second response in the workplace. He’s be put on the spot and have to say something. So for instance - What do you think about gay marriage? He couldn’t tell them everything he thought, he wanted to connect to Jesus and the Bible, he wanted to keep the conversation going.

The quick answer then would give rise to the second opportunity - the much longer answer over a beer at Friday drinks. Both depend on trust, integrity and prayer.

I’m not sure what we’ll do next to help train people. I’m thinking about having 30 second answers to tough questions during the Sunday meeting. 

Maybe we could set up a question box to record the real questions parishioners get asked? It’ll be essential for me to be out there answering questions too. That might just mean less time at church and more in the mission field.