Recently, some of our MyFriends trainers were talking about how we can help people become more effective at connecting their friends to Jesus.

One idea we came back to was that spiritual conversations usually do not happen all at once.

Most relationships move gradually through different kinds of conversation:

Casual → Meaningful → Spiritual → Jesus

Think about someone you see regularly.

Perhaps your conversations are usually casual — the weather, sport, children, work, what happened on the weekend.

There is nothing wrong with that. Casual conversation helps build relationships.

But perhaps the next step is to ask something a little more meaningful:

“How are you really going?”

Or:

“You mentioned that situation with your family last week. How is that going?”

At another time, a meaningful conversation may naturally become spiritual.

A friend might tell you they are worried about something, and you could simply ask:

“Would you mind if I prayed for you?”

And sometimes a spiritual conversation opens the door to talk specifically about Jesus.

The important thing is that we do not have to force every conversation through all four stages at once.

Sometimes moving from casual to meaningful is a wonderful step forward.

Sometimes the opportunity is to move from meaningful to spiritual.

And sometimes God opens a natural opportunity to talk about Jesus.

So instead of asking, “How can I get this conversation all the way to Jesus?”, perhaps ask:

“What might be the next natural step with this person?”

Think of one person God has placed in your life.

Where is your conversation now?

And what might one small next step look like?

Walking together,

Bob