Christian Conversation (6)

Welcome to the PMF Workshop for July 2023. I’m your host, T. M. Moore. Each month we provide teaching, encouragement, activities, and resources to help you in working your Personal Mission Field so that you can become more consistent and effective in realizing the presence, promise, and power of God’s Kingdom in your daily life.

This month’s Workshop is Part 6 in a series on conversation. Conversation is one of the key disciplines available to us for working our Personal Mission Fields. We want to make sure our conversations are filled with grace, interesting, and edifying so that we can use them effectively for sharing the grace of God and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. It stands to reason that the harder we work at our conversational skills, and the more we practice conversations that revolve around Jesus, the readier we will be, when opportunities arise, to talk with others about Him. We should make a point of having many Gospel conversations with our Christian friends, for this is where we can improve our skills and gain the confidence we need to talk with non-Christians about the Lord. This month’s workshop is appropriately entitled, “Talk Often with Christians”, and our text is Colossians 3.16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” 

A most helpful resource
Our Christian friends can be a very helpful resource for improving our conversational skills. As iron sharpens iron, we may expect that, by engaging often in conversations with other believers, over matters of the highest import, our conversational skills will improve steadily over time.

In conversation with our Christian friends we may practice and acquire the boldness, clarity, and skill we need to talk with anyone about a great many subjects. At the same time, we can encourage other believers to be more diligent and effective in practicing the art of Christian conversation with the people in their Personal Mission Fields.

Conversations with other Christians can be a kind of training ground for talking with others about the things of the Lord.

Again, get ready to work!
But we’ll have to work hard at this, too, because Christians are not automatically inclined to talk with one another about spiritual matters. So we’ll need to make the most of every opportunity, and create some new ones, if we’re going to engage our Christian friends in conversation in ways that can improve our conversational skills and theirs.

Here are some ideas: Insist that your Bible study groups provide opportunities for members to talk together about the lesson. And don’t allow one person to dominate. Be the conversational leader, and try to draw everyone into the conversation, so that everyone has an opportunity to improve their speaking skills.

Develop deeper personal relationships with a few believers, with whom you meet regularly for conversation and prayer. Choose a topic to discuss. Do some advance reading. Then come together to hash out your views and to integrate your thinking into your Christian worldview.

Host an evening of conversation in your home, over a film or a book. You might even prepare some questions in advance to guide the conversation, thus allowing folks time to think about what they might want to contribute. 

Strive always to improve
There are many, many ways that we can involve other believers in fruitful conversations about many things, but, once again, we’re going to have to take the initiative.

In your conversations work hard to help one another not only to understand and share, but to improve your understandings and your ability to talk about many things. Talk about what it means to be considerate, consistent, clear, and excellent in conversation, and help one another to improve in each of these areas. Let your Christian conversations be not only a fruitful time of mutual edification, but a training-ground to prepare you for talking with all kinds of people in the normal course of your everyday life.

You might even agree with one another to initiate conversations with the people in your Personal Mission Fields, then pray for one another about how to make the most of those opportunities for the Lord and His Kingdom.

And while you are with your Christian friends pay particular attention both to talking about the Lord Jesus and the blessings that come from knowing Him, and in discovering ways of bridging from the mundane to the eternal in the normal course of conversation.

Your Christian friends might be your greatest resource for mastering the art of Christian conversation. Take the lead in helping yourself—and them—improve in this great gift and high calling.

…

Here are some activities you can practice and some resources to help you in working your Personal Mission Field.

1. Again, make sure your Personal Mission Field is updated, and you have included in your Personal Mission Field worksheet any new people God has brought into your sphere. Keep your map with you, so you can take it out and pray for the people you see throughout the day.
2. Plan a conversation with a fellow believer for this week. What would you like to talk about? How will you prepare for this conversation?
3. Make a point to try to involve the members of your Bible study group in discussing the lesson. Ask questions to group members. Invite everyone to weigh in with their views.
4. Continue making a point to speak to every person in your Personal Mission Field as often as the opportunity arises. Greet them by name. Ask about their wellbeing. Pick up on a previous conversation. Ask for a prayer request.
5. Order a free copy of our book, Small Stuff. Here you’ll be encouraged to consider how every small thing in your life – gestures, helps, and conversations – can be used by God to bless others and glorify Himself. Order your free copy by clicking here.

That’s it for this month’s Personal Mission Field Workshop. Until next month, for the Fellowship of Ailbe, this has been T. M. Moore.

We ask the Lord to move and enable many more of our readers to provide for the needs of our ministry. Please seek Him in prayer concerning your part in supporting our work. You can contribute online by using the Contribute button at the website; or you can send a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 103 Reynolds Lane, West Grove, PA 19390.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.