{"id":1450,"date":"2014-01-13T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtvpastor.com\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2014-01-13T09:00:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T15:00:41","slug":"7-reasons-why-we-dont-share-our-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/newwineskins\/7-reasons-why-we-dont-share-our-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Reasons Why We Don't Share Our Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Let\u2019s be honest: most Christians don\u2019t share their faith. We say it\u2019s important, we feel it\u2019s important, but we don\u2019t do it. Here are seven reasons why:<\/p>\n

1. We feel unqualified.<\/b> Many of us feel like we don\u2019t know enough Bible to share our faith. What if they ask us a question that we don\u2019t know the answer to? We\u2019re still trying to figure Christianity out, so there\u2019s no way we can explain it to someone else. Maybe it\u2019s not our lack of knowledge that we feel disqualifies us; it\u2019s our lifestyle. We made so many mistakes in our life, we don\u2019t feel like we can ever be an example to someone. Sometimes we feel our past disqualifies us from sharing our faith.<\/p>\n

2. We wait for them to come to us.<\/b> Maybe you\u2019ve convinced yourself that you\u2019re more than happy to share your faith, as long as a sinner comes to you on hand and knee, knocking down your door and begging you to be saved. Then you\u2019d be more than happy to share with them. But actually going out and taking the initiative yourself? That\u2019s a lot of work.<\/p>\n

3. We forget what\u2019s at stake.<\/b> This gets a lot of us. We forget. We forget what\u2019s at stake. Maybe we delude ourselves into thinking that God will let everyone into heaven at the end, that if we don\u2019t share our faith that all people will be missing out on is some church activities and a couple of potlucks. Most of us fail to really grasp that according to the Scriptures that we follow, what\u2019s at stake is someone\u2019s eternal destiny. Forever. If that ever truly sunk in, there would be no stopping us.<\/p>\n

4. We don\u2019t really know any non-believers<\/b>.\u00a0This is a problem for a lot of Christians. This has happened to me before. Sometimes we can become so insulated in our church bubble that we fail to create any meaningful relationships with those that don\u2019t believe in Jesus. We\u2019re so afraid of being contaminated by the world that we cut ourselves off from it. So now, when some of us hear the challenge to share our faith, we look around and think, \u201cI don\u2019t really know any non-Christians.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. We don\u2019t care.<\/b> This is something we\u2019ll never admit, but this stops some of us from sharing our faith. We don\u2019t care. We got ours. We\u2019ve got our free ticket to heaven, and that\u2019s all we really care about. We\u2019re selfish. Our entire lives have been about us, and we\u2019ve never really cared about anyone else. If they can\u2019t find their way to God, that\u2019s their problem. For some of us, when a preacher talks about heaven and hell and lost and dying people, it does nothing for us. That in itself is a much bigger problem.<\/p>\n

6. We assume someone else will do it<\/b>.\u00a0This is where many of us trip up. Most of us know that sharing our faith is important. Jesus talks about it a lot. Preachers like me talk about it a lot. We get that it\u2019s important. We are also painfully aware that we ourselves haven\u2019t shared our faith in years. Faithful to church, yes, sharing our faith, no. And we know it\u2019s important, so we delude ourselves into thinking our disobedience is okay because surely everyone else around us is picking up the slack.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where we\u2019ve never been more wrong. A recent study<\/a> showed that 80% of Christians surveyed agreed that sharing your faith is important. But over 60% hadn\u2019t shared their faith with someone in the past six months. We think other people are picking up the slack. The majority of American Christians don\u2019t share their faith. And we wonder why (for instance) our denomination is on a slow but steady decline in attendance and baptisms? We think someone else is picking up the slack, and they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

7. We\u2019re scared.<\/b> And last, and this is perhaps the biggest reason. We\u2019re scared. That\u2019s natural. What if I forget what to say? What if they reject me? What if they ask me a question I can\u2019t answer? What if it messes up our relationship and it becomes weird?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

QUESTION: What are other reasons that we don\u2019t share our faith?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be honest: most Christians don\u2019t share their faith. We say it\u2019s important, we feel it\u2019s important, but we don\u2019t do it. Here are seven reasons why: 1. We feel unqualified. Many of us feel like we don\u2019t know enough Bible to share our faith. What if they ask us a question that we don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[262,465,505,529,760,1297,1556,1575],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church","tag-evangelism","tag-fear","tag-food-for-thought","tag-jesus","tag-sharing-faith","tag-what-im-living","tag-witnessing"],"yoast_head":"\n7 Reasons Why We Don't Share Our Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Let's be honest: most Christians don't share their faith. 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