What's stopping you from sharing your faith? Too tired? Scared? Is that what's stopping you right now? Not confident? Not enough time? Is that it? Or is the thing stopping you, YOU!

There are people you know, that if they died today would be lost forever. Get out of your seat and go share your faith. Share Jesus! Be the light in their darkness.

This is BE BRAVE! And now your host... Titus Blair.

Welcome to another episode of the BE BRAVE! Podcast. Let's get you equipped to share your faith, bravely. We have a great evangelism story from our guest today, let's hear it!

Several years ago, I was in a gym working, borrowing their internet, working on my computer, and I began developing a relationship with a Hispanic man and turned out to be a relationship with him and his family. They were custodial staff there at the gym and he understood what I did.

I helped train preachers and teachers in Spanish, on my computer all over the world. And after about six months, of visiting with him, I finally asked him one day, Hey, if we had a Spanish Bible study at our church, would you come to that? And he said, "man, yes, that would be so awesome". He was more excited about it than I was.

And I had no idea he would even be interested in studying the Bible. And so then after about six months of studying with him I basically had him teach the information back to me about the gospel and how to become a Christian, and then we made it very simple and he told me everything he needed to do to become a Christian.

And I was like, great, are you ready? And he was like, no. I was like, really? And so then we went through another year of studying about whatever he wanted to study about. And, and I asked him, you know, what, what am I missing? You know, why, why are we not, you know, making ground where's the commitment issue.

And at that point it became him, his wife and his two kids. And they said, we, we just don't have community here. Like, we love you. We love the fact that you speak Spanish, but, but this is not our family because it just us four and you and your family sometimes. And so at that point, we decided to go ahead and start a full-blown Spanish speaking church and reaching out to the community and putting up flyers and feeding people and showing Jesus to people.

And it was all because in that gym, I asked him, Hey, would you be interested in having a Spanish Bible study up until you know, two and a half years into that still, no desire to really be committed to serving God and becoming a Christian. And so it's kind of like an evangelism fail almost. At that point, you know, you gotta be patient when you're dealing with the gospel sometimes.

It was just the gym, right? Just the gym. So tell us about who you are. You're a name, location, job, and something interesting for the audience.

My name is Chase Turner and I'm 37 years old, live in Monroe, Louisiana. My family and I work in a ministry called Spanish missions, it's an online training program that teaches preachers and teachers all over world in Spanish.

And I train regularly for American ninja warrior and the St. Jude marathons. I try to stay in good shape and through that process, just teach people about Jesus, wherever we go.

Nice. American ninja warrior. I love it. Chase, what do you think a couple points of practical things we can do. Obviously we can pull from that, that you are listening at the gym or wherever you are. You didn't just run up to the guy and just say, Hey! So tell us a little bit about some, two to three practical evangelism tips that people can use right now, like today or tomorrow.

I think the most important thing I've learned in the process of getting to the point of evangelism with others is seeking to understand other people not being understood. I think so many times I could look at it it's like he needs to understand about Jesus, but he may not be in a position to understand about Jesus.

I need to understand what he needs or what he thinks he needs before I go start preaching. It's kinda like Jesus I think he's the greatest role model for reaching out to people even before he ever preached or taught people, he was feeding them. He was healing, the sick, he was meeting a physical need.

And so to me, looking into a community full of people that are very needy in some capacity, how can I meet that need? They're going to want to know why some random stranger and, and connected to that and I, maybe number three is don't, don't make it random acts of kindness. I mean, buying somebody lunch and walking away that that's not.

That's like luck. That's not a blessing.

That's random. That's random Chase! All of a sudden this random guy just came by and did something.

Yeah. If people aren't wondering where God is in that situation, they're just, you know, cause you're not going to show them God.

Right.

You're showing them a dollar bill. And so I think again, I used to do that a lot. I, I tried to just randomly help you, like, oh thank you. And then you're walking away like, and you never said anything about Jesus. It's like...

that's it

Have somebody into your home and feed them. Or sit down with them and buy their meal and say, Hey, you know, my name is Chase, what's your name? You know you know, getting to know people that way.

That's good because there's a difference between saying let me get you a coffee and let me get you a coffee cause Jesus loves you. This is why I'm doing this because Jesus showed me an example of love because I've seen different peoples maybe homeless. I've seen them change differently. So first they want some money. So you come up to them and they go, can I get some money or, and I say, sure, let's get you something to eat. And they go, oh yeah. I ask you something. I say, because I'm doing this because Jesus loves you. And you'll see, like there, all of a sudden Jesus comes into the situation like before it was just a regular guy, just helping somebody out now it's like, it's like spiritual.

It goes greater than the moment of the feeding of that food. Do a random, do it, not a random, what's the opposite of random

Intentional.

Yeah. Intentional act of kindness using Jesus' name, though. Everything we do, it says in my name, you know, if you give them, he says that they give you a cup of cold water in my name, bring Jesus into it.

That that's point number one, I love it. Chase. So number one, if you're doing some good something nice or kind to people, tell them why. It's not because you're a nicer kind person. It's because God loves you and Jesus and Jesus showed you how to love. That's why. So how about another thing?

Anything else? Another point,

You know, I've, I've learned you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. If you can't do that, you're never going to reach out to people. You know the goal is to start that conversation, but I think one of the greatest conversation starters when we're reaching out to people is we'd like to learn about what other people do. Right? But if I ask you, what do you do? And you say I'm a missionary then automatically my assumption is I know everything that missionaries do, so I don't need to extend this conversation. I'll ask you, what do you love about what you do? To me, when we get to know people, we don't need to know what they do.

We need to know what they love to do, because that opens up a conversation about love. That's our goal is getting people to understand the love of Jesus. What do they love to do and how can we tie that into the conversation?

I love it, man. That's awesome. And that's simple.

I'm gonna use that myself, Chase. That's great. What do you love about what you do? And they could be like, I don't love anything. And then you're like, okay, well this is another opening, isn't it?

Yep!

To say well, let me tell you about something. Or they might say, what do you love about what you do, Chase? And then you can clearly talk about it. So that's awesome.

Ask questions that you want to be asked.

Right, there you go.

I mean, it's the same concept there, you know, what do you love to do opens up, but no matter what they respond with, and even if they don't ask you the questions, you can always invite Jesus into a conversation about love.

Ahh totally man! So number one, we tell people we are doing, if we're helping someone or doing something that we tell them, we do it in the name of Jesus. Why we're doing it. Number two, ask questions to people that you want to be asked, right? Like, and bring Jesus into it. Bring love into it. I love it. Chase, how about a third one? If we got it, you got a little bit more time here.

I think we have to involve prayer in it, regardless of where somebody's coming from. I know that it feels good to know that people are praying for you and something my wife has taught me and she is so awesome to do this is anytime somebody says, Hey, you could be praying for, and then whatever they say, stop right there and pray with them.

Oh, good!

It's not just, oh, I'll be praying for you. It's we're praying for you right now. And I've learned things about people that stop you in your tracks. You don't know what people are really dealing with, but you ask them, Hey, is there something I can pray for you about? And they may ask why, or they may open up something that they, that maybe you can even help them with.

Oh, wow, yeah.

Those are things that you, you feel a little bit vulnerable, they feel a little bit vulnerable, but man, I had a guy, I mean less than a month ago, he said, Hey, be praying my daughter, she lives out in California, and and she was raped last week.

That's terrible.

Oh, I know, and it was like, this is a guy that sprays bugs and sprays for bugs, And it's like, wow, I'm definitely going to be praying about that. I mean, he completely opened up and I had a relationship with the guy. It's still one of those things, what, what are you dealing with in life that I can pray for you about?

That's good. So don't give them an IOU. You know, they say, I need prayers. You say let's do it now. No IOU let's do it because that shows the power of prayer doesn't it. Like it it's you feel like you could make a difference at that moment? It's not like I'll wait way down the road, you know, if Chase if you said you want to go out to lunch I'd say, yeah, let's do it someday.

And every day is next week.

Yeah, yeah, every day is next week. That's good.

In addition to that, as you're doing that, I think it's real important to get contact information. And if somebody is wanting to say, Hey, if you got an email, I like to follow up with you on, on the situation you're dealing with you have an email address, I'd love to email you here in a week or so, and see how that's going for you.

You know, being able to do follow-up work. That's about the most important thing you can do with evangelism.

Oh, totally I've missed it many times man where I've met somebody, I know their name, I never got their email and I just I'm praying that they'll get back to me. I gave them my email, but I never got their email.

You're just praying. You're like this, this person needs, they wanted to talk, you know, and they're just not there. So sometimes they reach out one guy called me the other day out of the blue. I only had one conversation with, and he called me back like months later. So you just never know keep praying for him.

All right. So let's, let's go through the let's go. If you have another story, we'll do another evangelism story, and then we can get into a call to action.

So we're going to pick back up at the gym. We started this church, and after we got it started his at the time 16 year old son decided he wanted to obey the gospel. They were very heavily involved in Catholicism and another church here in town that had their community, the Catholic church had a lot bigger group. And so his son studied back and forth, he became part of the youth group where we're at in English and, and so he was baptized. And then one night out of the blue, I get a call from his wife and she says, "Hey, I'm ready", it wasn't a we're ready. It was I'm ready.

And so I said, all right, let's do this! I'll meet you up the building right now, she goes, no, let's just wait until tomorrow I got to work tomorrow, tomorrow night, I was like, no, don't, don't call me tomorrow. Don't leave me hanging on the edge of my seat. And so, so I had to wait for the next 24 hours.

We get up to the building and we're just going over stuff. I knew they, they knew the process. They knew what they were doing. I mean, there were, there were no questions. And I, and I asked all the Alejandro her husband. I said, are you ready? And he said, "no, no, I'm not, uh a later, later, another time", another time I was what he always had was kind of backed out.

And I was like, okay. And so she was going to get ready. And I asked Alejandro, I said, man, if you were driving home tonight and you got in a car wreck and he goes, "no, no, no, no, no. Don't talk like that. Don't talk like that". He knew. He, he knew what would happen, but he still wasn't ready to make that commitment.

So I'm, I'm in this room changing, and, and his wife's on the other side of the building changing and I got nothing on, I get a knock on the door, and there's no locks on these doors. I'm covering up, and and it was Alejandra he's like, like I'm ready. And I was like, wow. You know, three years of teaching and investing, and it really taught me not to give up on people.

There were so many times, I mean, I talked to so many people about what can I say? What can I, and sometimes it's, it's not about you.

Right.

You know, as much as we want to be the one to do the thing, it's not about us. And the thing we're doing, it's constantly loving on people, understanding people where they're coming from, and when he said I'm ready. I mean, that's, life-giving. When you play even the smallest role in helping somebody become a Christian, the life that that gives you, gives life to other people too. I mean, it really lights your fire.

I love it. That's it.

We've had 80 people come through our doors. We've had 11 baptisms in, I think, two years. All because of that, hey, if we had a Spanish Bible study, would you be interested? I mean, they're, they're such a core family. Again, it takes us something as simple as a question and who knows what doors will open as a result.

It's like domino's you only saw the first domino go down, but you didn't see the millions or thousands or whatever, all those throughout time as the future goes, all, each one touching the other the, the light touches darkness in ways that it can never be comprehended. So that's awesome.

I love that story and I think it, it speaks to this. If you talk to somebody every single day and you're open and you're ready, you'll talk to thousands, if not tens of thousands of people in your life. Shouldn't every encounter matter, literally, why are we here Chase, like did God, did we become a Christian, then we get saved just so we can sit here and go to church and you know, like kind of live our life like everybody else, or did he give us a mission and a purpose and say, look, as you just said, you said it when you bring people Jesus, it brings you life. You like me? Like when I'm out there, I feel alive. It's not easy. Right? It's not easy. You feel alive man!

When you bridge that gap, think back to the practical suggestions, one of the things I tell people is man, whenever rainy season comes, don't quit, buy an umbrella.

There you go.

You're going to, you're going to hit roadblocks, and, and you're gonna run into things, you may wait three years. But in that process of three years, as you watch them grow and, and really what's neat is, is two people of the people that have been baptized have baptized their sisters.

Cool.

I mean, didn't you see that generational domino effect all because you asked a question, like you said, I mean, every encounter is important with lost people.

We bring life Chase! It would be like having the cure to all diseases and just talking to somebody who's sick, you can clearly see they're sick, like, you know, they're sick you could cure it, that you have the cure, or we have the cure and we just sit there and say, oh, I'm a little bit too shy to tell them just a little bit about, you can even just ask them, Hey, have you ever thought there might be a cure for what's bothering you even that simple thing?

We, we have, I know at the end of my life that I will say, I wish I would have done more. I wish I would have talked to more people. I wish I would have been less ashamed of Jesus. I wish I would've been more bold for him. I guarantee that.

As you're listening to this episode, if you're a Christian, if you're not a Christian get ahold of me or Chase, we'd be happy to study with you.

But if you are a Christian and you've kind of lost the mission, Jesus gave us a mission in Matthew 28, he said, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing, them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And he says what? Teach them all I commanded. That's right, yeah. And he says, but what did he give us? Gave us a promise, at the beginning, I have authority over all things, I have power over all things. And at the end he said, I'm with you always. So he's all powerful. And he's always with us. And I think you should remember that.

Like, if you're listening to this and you're like, Hey, I, my first Bible study was only a few years ago. Maybe I've been a Christian for a long time.

So if you've never had a Bible study with somebody, if you've never mentioned Jesus, at Starbucks, think about it. What if you did what would happen, right?

Yeah.

Chase, God bless you, man. I'm really happy that you're on the show today.

Anybody has any questions for me or things we've done with evangelism or, or any of that. Please reach out, I'd be happy to visit with anybody phone, WhatsApp, email, whatever.

Thank you Chase this week, we'll challenge you, say Jesus's name in a positive way in relation to your relationship with him.

Don't just say Jesus randomly, although that might get attention, maybe they will talk to someone to talk to you, but just use His name and something you did. Don't give an IOU for prayer, right? Do those things!

You've been listening to BE BRAVE! The world right now is a crazy place and sharing the love of God is the most important thing we can do right now. We hope you've enjoyed the show, make sure to like rate and review and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, hit up, GoBeBrave.org. Remember the love of God is the most powerful force in the universe.

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