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 kept coming back to was that spiritual conversations usually develop gradually rather than happening all at once.

Most of our relationships move through different kinds of conversation:

Casual → Meaningful → Spiritual → Jesus

Think about someone you see regularly. Perhaps most of your conversations are casual — the weather, sport, children, work or what happened on the weekend. There is nothing wrong with that. Those conversations are part of building a friendship and getting to know one another.

But sometimes there is an opportunity to take the conversation a little deeper. Instead of simply asking, “How are you going?”, you might ask, “How are you really going?” Or you might remember something they told you earlier and say, “You mentioned that situation with your family last week. How is that going?”

As the friendship grows, meaningful conversations can sometimes become spiritual conversations. If a friend tells you they are worried about something, it may be quite natural to say, “Would it be OK if I prayed for you?” And at other times, a spiritual conversation may open the door to talk specifically about Jesus.

What I find helpful is remembering that I do not have to move every conversation through all four stages at once. Sometimes moving from casual to meaningful is a very significant step. At another time, the opportunity may be to move from meaningful to spiritual. And sometimes the Lord opens a natural opportunity to talk about Jesus.

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

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

Think about one person the Lord has placed in your life. Where are your conversations now, and what might one small next step look like?

Walking together,

Bob