FAQ: What Do I Do When People Aren’t Interested in Hearing About Jesus?

“What do I do when people aren’t interested in hearing about Jesus?” It’s a great question! Sometimes the answer can lie within ourselves taking a stocktake of our actions and motives. This isn’t a one-time event. It’s something we need to keep doing — it’s about being aware of you, and how you love well. A good start is to ask yourself these questions…

• What’s the experience of the person I want to see come to know Jesus?
• Do I listen to understand or listen to respond? Have I listened enough to their story to get to a point of understanding and have I asked thoughtful questions that would help provoke them to think through deeper issues?
• Am I showing them what it means to live an authentic life following Jesus, and am I living what I speak?
• Does my friend need to say something to God for themselves to start the conversation with Him?

Let me give you a practical example through a story of recent experience and subsequent conversation that I had…

It’s not unusual for me to take time out of my week to connect with new people. The day of this connection was a little different than most, in that it was ANZAC Day in Australia (similar to Memorial Day in the USA). A day to commemorate what the soldiers have done, laying down their lives for their country.

I had been to visit Bob* the week prior and had been asked to come back on ANZAC Day, the 25th of April. Wow, I realised how special that was. He served in WWII, and I had the chance to hear the heart of a man sharing about the very thing you are commemorating.

“Did you enjoy the memorial service?” I was asked by his wife, shortly after I sat down. “Enjoy isn’t a word I would use, I felt like I was at a funeral with a weird twist”, I answered. I could tell Bob appreciated my sentiments and identification.

This was an opportunity to open a very tender subject. This was not the time to brush this question aside but to dive in and discover our very vast, yet strangely very close differences.

I had been impacted firstly by the crowds of people swarming to come, standing on the sand of a local beach, the morning was eery and somber and the sound of the waves coming in was louder by far than any chatter. I imagined the shores lined with soldiers, thousands more had died than the people currently standing there. The shores were not lined with weaponry but with people, families, friends, women, men and children. The waters were not crammed with warships and artillery and the skies were quiet. This beach was not a place wrought with distress, but one of peace and great hope for the future.

I had thought of Bob many times throughout the service. My meeting with him the previous week, had revealed a man who lacked peace through the recurrence of the mass of memories of war that had been surfacing more and more as his age wore on. Hope had been lost.

I did my best to articulate how I felt that morning. I then turned to Bob, and thanked him. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes as I thanked him for his service in the war; that through pain, destruction, grief and many tears he had been a catalyst to bringing hope for our nation. I handed him a box of tissues that I had come armed with. On one side of the box I had written a few words identifying the pain and grief, on another side, ‘You Brought Freedom’, and on another ‘Thank You’. On either end of the box, one end said his name, the other said ‘love Morag’.

Bob is holding a lot inside; for one reason or another he has ‘clamped’ his story down. On the days he lets a little seep out, he says no-one wants to hear what he has to say. My response to him was “I do and I will remember this day for the rest of my life, thank you”. Bob went on to let more of his story seep out with me. There is hurt, pain, misunderstanding and all sorts whirling around in there.

Bob prayed the other day for the first time in a long time. I say that because I don’t remember if he had said he had never prayed, but he did tell me he hadn’t let God in. He certainly wasn’t in a place to talk to God when I arrived but as conversation progressed and as I allowed him to talk he said he was willing to try.

He simply said “Jesus help me” followed by “God if you are real, and it matters to me that I know you, can you please show me and open my eyes and my heart to you”. I know God answers prayer, and I will continue to pray for that seed to be watered.

Bob has opened the door, I’ve heard the words from his mouth, I am a witness and although his words following may not reflect a soft heart, God is at work.

Bob smiled when I left, he had been annoyed at times throughout the conversation, I had listened, talked, agreed in part, laughed with him and got to know him some more. The anger he feels, he expresses as frustration, “why has so much happened?”, “where has God been in all of this?”, “why don’t Christian’s act on what they say they believe?” the list goes on. He just needs time to tell his story, see God at work in his life and the lives of others around him, and hope will continue to creep in.

Could you put this story of Bob into an example with one of your own friends or the people you want to share Jesus with?

*name changed for privacy