Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, has social media, talk shows, and the 24/7 news cycle convinced you that winning an argument is the most important thing, even when it comes to talking to your children or grandchildren or a close friend about Jesus? Well, today we’re going to learn how to have spiritual conversations that actually attract instead of repel the people that we love the most. Stay with me.

Dave Druey: I’m Dave Druey, and this is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Last time, guest teacher Aaron Pierce began opening our eyes to how much spiritual meaning hides inside ordinary everyday conversations. Aaron heads up a global mission called Steiger International, which spends its days building friendships with young people who’ve never set foot inside a church in cities all over the world.

Today, he continues walking us through this important study, helping us discover what it takes to soften even the most guarded heart, one honest conversation at a time. Now, here’s Aaron Pierce with today’s message titled, "Softening Hearts with Spiritual Conversations."

Aaron Pierce: So, how do we start these spiritual conversations? I’m going to go through some key principles in doing that. The first thing we have to understand is that we’re not actually doing intellectual or apologetic work. This is actually, first and foremost, a spiritual issue and that we require the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit for it to be effective.

The next key principle is to recognize that pretty much everything has spiritual implications and that as skilled missionaries to our culture, we need to be in tune and skilled at drawing those conversations out in a natural way.

These are just a handful of very general topics that have spiritual implications and that are part of daily life. When people discuss morality or purpose—the purpose of their job, for instance—or their identity, which is a big one today, or love and family, work, beauty, hope, dreams, sickness, loss—all of these things, which are universal in terms of connecting with people, have spiritual implications.

The goal here is that we need to become good missionaries by knowing how to tease out, to ask good questions that bring out spiritual conversations in everyday life. It’s really cool because when you do this, you can have an amazing conversation. One really cool example recently: we have a team in Houston that was out doing a prayer walk in a secular part of the city.

They end up connecting, and it was really cool because they end up through a series of conversations being led to what essentially was a secret rave club. They were there, and this guy, Roger—this middle-aged suburban dad guy—was there, and he’s feeling very out of place. He’s like, "What am I doing here?"

So, they decided to split up into groups and go talk to people. They were talking, and all of a sudden, this one girl—who’s kind of a charismatic, outgoing girl—walks up to their group and says, "Hey, what are you guys doing here? You guys are kind of interesting." She starts to talk to them, and then she said, "I want to know you guys. What are you guys really good at?" which is a very interesting question for her to ask.

They’re all asking these questions, and then Roger is thinking, "What am I going to say to this girl?" It gets to him, and he says, "Well, I guess I’m good at being a dad. I love being with my kids, my boys." The girl just was floored. Tears in her eyes, after a moment of pause, all of a sudden, she just gives Roger a huge hug, and she says, "We don’t have a lot of those around here."

Then Alison, one of the girls there, ended up taking her aside and just having a deep, powerful conversation, praying with her. But it was a father’s love. That has spiritual implications. So many people long for that kind of love.

The reality is that spiritual things are all around us. How can we be in tune? He didn’t say anything about Jesus and the cross, but he spoke a truth that connected in her heart and opened her to the ultimate truth. Again, that’s the idea of the spiritual implications.

What you’re doing when you’re having these conversations is that you’re looking for four things. You’re discerning and you’re identifying four things. You’re looking for idols. Idols has a weird connotation in a biblical sense, but it’s just things that they are putting their hope in, things that they are putting their identity in.

Things that if they put their hope and identity in, they’re going to be crushed by that because it will let them down. It can be lots of things. It can be career and work. It can be their body if they’re into health. It can be lots of things that you are putting your hope and your identity in.

You’re not calling it out; you’re just saying, "Okay, I see where they’re putting their hope." Because then, in a loving way, eventually you’re going to be able to challenge that. Or what are the felt needs that they have? People will tell you pretty honestly when they’re dealing with anxiety or depression or broken relationships. A lot of us, all of us, struggle with broken relationships.

So, identifying the felt needs that they are experiencing. Then, look for lies that they believe. By that, I mean, what are things that they are believing that is out of alignment with biblical truth, that is standing in the way from them hearing the gospel message?

Oftentimes, it’s going to be lies about sexuality, what they believe about the purpose of sex and how they’re living that out, or it’s lies they believe about truth and morality or the church. Whatever the lies are that they are believing, begin to identify those things.

Fourth, begin to identify truth that they believe or are living out without realizing that they’re already living in alignment with biblical truth. The reason you want to do that is because you can begin to affirm. If you can identify things that they believe or ways that they are living in their character and in their behavior that is already in alignment with biblical truth, that gives you an opportunity to affirm and connect with them.

If they’re passionate about caring for the oppressed and those that are marginalized, you can say, "I really respect and appreciate that," because you’re living in alignment with biblical truth without even knowing it. I don’t say it like that, but my point is I can connect.

If they’re a very gracious and kind and generous person, I can call that out. I can affirm that truth in them, and I can begin to build that platform. But then that also gives me the platform to meet their felt needs, to say that your pain actually matters.

The pain you’re going through matters, and there is hope for healing. There is hope for relational restoration if that’s the problem. You can bring hope and healing, and you can pray for people. It’s amazing how open people are to being prayed for for their felt needs.

Then, as you’ve built that affirmation of truth and you’ve met their felt needs, you can also begin to challenge the lies and the idols that they have in their life. You can say that these things are actually causing you harm, that these things are actually not in the way God designed it. God’s not here to control you; he’s here for your good. His ways are for your good.

So, you’re looking for ways to connect both in the terms of affirmation and challenge your conversation to at least one truth of the gospel. That truth can be about human value and dignity because we were created in the image of God. I can say, "I see that you value human life. I want to affirm that, and I’m with you, and here’s why."

Or we can challenge the fact that in secular culture, for example, one of the lies of secular culture is that we can fix ourselves. That with enough education and the right political system and laws, we can fix ourselves. As Christians, we can challenge that.

We can say, "No, I don’t see that truth. That’s not true because it doesn’t seem to matter what system, what education we do, we can’t get rid of evil and pain and corruption." Now we’re challenging something that they believe. But it’s all based on that relational trust that we’ve built up as we seek to identify idols, felt needs, lies, and truth in our spiritual conversations.

Now, here’s a couple of things that I want to talk about about the way, the how we do this. This is the what, but how do we do this in a good way? The first is that we want to approach this—we are not convincing people that you are right. You are encouraging them to pursue the truth. Those are two very different things.

It’s actually quite liberating to just encourage people to pursue the truth because I don’t have to know everything. I can just be honest and transparent. It also evens the playing field. It’s not me coming at them from a place of superiority—"I know and you don’t."

Instead, it’s like, "We’re in this together, and let’s pursue truth." Here’s the beauty: Jesus is the truth. So, we need to trust that an honest pursuit of truth always leads to Jesus. That’s why you’re encouraging them. Because when it’s, "I’m right and you’re wrong," then it creates defensiveness.

It creates an adversarial approach. But when it’s like, "Hey, let’s pursue the truth together," and you exhibit some humility along the way, it opens them up to pursue the truth along with you. Then, there’s going to be questions and things that come up that you don’t know the answer to.

That’s okay. When you’ve approached it from this way, you can be like, "Well, let’s figure that out. Let’s look into that. Let’s try to understand that." Now you’re pursuing the truth together, and that’s where you want to get.

The second thing is that you want to create an open environment. We live in the time of cancel culture. As Christians, we think we’re like the only victims of that. So, we’re like, "Oh, everyone’s out to get us." Maybe, maybe not.

But the point is everyone deals with this cancel culture environment. Everyone’s afraid to say something wrong that’s going to get them canceled. What that creates is it creates a sense where we’re not willing to say things or process things in an open and honest way because we’re afraid.

What you want to do is you want to counter that cancel culture by creating an environment where it’s okay to doubt or it’s okay to ask hard questions, where it’s okay to say something, even to say something stupid or offensive. I’m not here to catch you, not going to tweet this later; this is a great open environment in which to process in real time.

Dave Druey: You’re listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we’ll continue this lesson from guest teacher Aaron Pierce in a moment. But before we continue, did you know there’s a free app that puts years of Bible teaching right in your pocket? Searchable by topic, so you can find scriptural wisdom the moment you actually need it. It’s all available for you on the Chip Ingram app. Look up "Chip Ingram" in your app store and download it today. Now, let’s continue today’s lesson.

Aaron Pierce: Here’s the cool thing: when you do this and you show that this is real, this is like a great space for people because they feel this is not something the world has. Everyone is out to get you. If you say the wrong thing, I’m going to slam you.

This is such a freeing thing to be around people who may or may not agree and to respect and love each other and allow for that environment. Again, I’m not saying this because I don’t believe there’s an ultimate truth; there is. But you want to create an environment where the truth can be pursued.

Then, when you’ve done all that, then you just do the basic work of apologetics. You listen and ask a ton of questions. Be patient, respectful, and gracious, like it says in 1 Peter.

The whole thing that we’re doing, as we talked about, is we’re trying to understand what are their assumptions. Remember: what are their idols? What are their felt needs, the lies, and the truth that they believe? What are the inconsistencies and how can I begin to challenge them?

What are the questions or truth behind the objection? Again, this is something that is both discerned by our natural listening but also spiritually discerned. What is the real issue that you’re dealing with?

A lot of times, people’s hostility is based on pain that they’ve experienced. So, that’s the real issue, not the intellectual objection that they have. How can you identify the real issue? Then, of course, our whole heart is win the heart, not the argument.

As someone that likes to debate, my parents had to teach me this one growing up because I like to win even if I lost a friend in the process. The whole idea is you’re trying to win people’s hearts, not their arguments. This is the context of how to engage in a spiritual conversation.

I want to end this part by just asking the question: have I failed if I don’t share the gospel? My answer to that would be "it depends." Because success is about obedience, not about you feeling good because you shared the gospel. It’s about what did God ask you to do?

If he asked you to share the gospel and you didn’t, then, yes, that’s a failure. By the way, there’s grace, and you can get back up and do it again. But if he asked you and you didn’t, then, yes.

But there are also times when we need to be discerning of the Spirit where it isn’t the right time. Sometimes we become such "Jesus robots" that we vomit our scripts without being discerning.

The point here is in 1 Corinthians 3:6 that it says, "I planted the seed, Apollo watered it, but God has seen to make it grow." The idea here is we all have a role to play. The big thing is that we are not the hero; Jesus is. That is an important point, and it’s also very liberating.

Because it’s not about me; it’s about responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and being obedient. If you’re really in tune, if you’re growing in intimacy with Jesus and you’re in tune to the Spirit, then in particular moments, maybe he’s going to call you to a prophetic word of challenging someone and speaking truth, and it’s going to be confrontational.

Sometimes that’s the way it is. Other times, all you’re there to do is be a friend. It’s because it’s not a formula; it’s about obedience to an active and living God that’s working inside of you. That’s how we want to do it.

The goal here is that we are moving people closer to Jesus every time we interact. That’s the goal. Every time we interact, I am moving them closer to Jesus. I am breaking down maybe some relational challenges, I’m challenging a truth, or I’m affirming something in them, but I’m drawing them closer and closer to Jesus by the power of the Spirit every time I interact with them.

This is our goal—how to engage in these spiritual conversations. I’m going to show you a video because I just want to illustrate to you how much people are very much open to this and how much they desire it. We’ve done a series of focus groups in which we basically use these principles, and people are so hungry for this kind of spiritual conversation.

Guest (Male): I think a thing would be that religion—I see religion more as like a way that people use to teach values and teach like what is right. That’s why you’ll see Christians here are going to be a lot different than Christians in the South, Christians across the world.

Same with any religion. There’s no—I’d be hard-pressed to find a religion that’s the exact same everywhere because people will take their values and apply it to the religion and use the religion to justify their values. So, it really—can’t just say like one religion would be right when people are taking it and using it to amplify what they already believe.

Aaron Pierce: And it also is about implications because, as you said, when what we believe about the world and what’s true and who we are has massive implications for how we act. A distorted view of Christianity has led to some horrible things.

But I would also argue that a view of the world that says there are no consequences—"I’m just a highly evolved animal and the best thing for me to do is survive and dominate the weak"—that could equally justify and has justified some horrible things. Which is why this discussion isn’t just Halloween candy and costumes, which is why there are serious implications even to things that we can’t fully grasp or fully prove. What do you guys think?

Guest (Male): I was just going to add like—right, you could go down that route of doing something bad or believing in an ideology that has like negative implications on the world. But then if we factor in the whole idea of love, right? Like if you’re going out killing people because like you think that that’s your truth and that’s like good for you, if you factor in love to that equation, that’s not a loving thing to do to kill people, right? So, I suppose like love could be a foundation for which we can strive for the truth.

Aaron Pierce: The definition of God’s love for us in the Christian idea is that he sent Jesus to basically sacrifice himself for you. That’s the ultimate expression of love. So, I think that is one of the challenges: so much garbage gets in the way of something that it distorts our view of it.

But if you consider the Christian view is actually not that it makes bad people good; the Christian view is that it actually makes dead people that are spiritually dead alive. That’s actually the Christian message. The reason that I find hope after this life is not in my deeds but actually in my connection in relationship with my Creator.

What was really surprising is people did engage. Even after it ended, people didn’t want to leave. People wanted to stay; people wanted to talk.

Guest (Female): Yeah, I really do appreciate the opportunity to get to hear the opinions of other people and the viewpoints of other people.

Guest (Female): It was a good conversation. I feel like I’ve kind of left with my head in circles a little bit. I definitely think about the truth, but I don’t always necessarily have an answer because like we kind of talked about, there maybe isn’t necessarily one. So, I guess I’m kind of left with my brain going a little bit.

Aaron Pierce: It was almost as if these people weren’t strangers anymore, that they were actually sitting there together and actually enjoying this kind of conversation. It was just an incredible example of how hungry the youth culture is today to have deep and meaningful spiritual conversations.

Guest (Male): I was just really happy to be here. Everyone here is very—very welcoming environment.

Guest (Male): It’s an eye-opener. It was good to hear a whole bunch of different perspectives and, you know, it wasn’t frowned upon to disagree with anybody.

Guest (Male): I came into it pretty skeptical, but after hearing everybody’s idea, what they were talking about, finding your purpose—all that—I definitely do believe it more. There’s got to be something else.

Guest (Female): This is going to have me leaving with a lot of thinking going on, and I love to think, and I love to hear what other people think about the world and the concept of spirituality. So, ten out of ten, would do this again.

Aaron Pierce: Pretty cool, right? So, here’s the thing: we can do this; you can do this. This isn’t just for apologists, people that are intellectual; all of us can have these conversations. So, again, spiritual conversations are not religious, literally a tool that’s helped you have these conversations with people in your life, seeing that you’re building that bridge from a friendship to the gospel through spiritual conversations.

Dave Druey: You’re listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, a special lesson from guest teacher Aaron Pierce. If today’s message stirred something in you, we’d love to put a practical tool in your hands. Aaron has poured decades of ministry experience into the "Not Beyond Reach" participant’s guide, a 10-session video-based study designed to equip small groups and families alike to engage with unbelievers in today’s skeptical post-Christian culture.

Each session includes discussion questions and simple exercises your group can practice together. This special study guide is available at a reduced price. So, don’t wait; get your copy at livingontheedge.org/offers.

You know, teachings like the one you heard today don’t happen by accident. They take preparation, planning, and a whole team of people working quietly behind the scenes to put biblical wisdom into words that actually land with a skeptical culture. None of that happens without listeners like you.

If this ministry has ever shaped the way you talk with someone you love, we encourage you to stand behind it with a gift today. You can give quickly and securely online at livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. You can also send your gift by mail to Living on the Edge, P.O. Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. Now, here’s Chip Ingram sharing a personal reflection on today’s message.

Chip Ingram: Thanks, Dave. I just want to pause and have just a couple what I think are important comments about something that Aaron said in his message: "What if I don’t share the gospel?" A lot of people approaching the idea of witnessing is like, "If you don’t share the gospel, if you don’t close the deal, if you don’t get them to sign on the dotted line, you kind of blew it."

For some of us, we’ve grown up that way. We don’t see it as an arc and a process. I just have to say that this idea of building relationships has helped me a bunch. I was playing golf just last week, and I bumped into this couple twice now.

We had a good relationship, and I’ve asked lots of questions: where are they coming from? She happens to come from Chile, and he’s fluent in Spanish, and I’m always trying to learn that. He’s a tech guy, and just a great relationship with him.

Then the second time we played, "Oh, it’s good to see you. We’re going to play again." She hit a shot, and she goes, "Yes, I’m praying to the universe that I’ll hit the ball better today." Just after we’ve had all these conversations, I smiled at her and said, "I’ve got to tell you, I actually know the God that created all the universe. I don’t have to pray to the whole universe."

She leaned forward and she goes, "Oh, you must believe like my mother." She’s someone who grew up in a very strict religion, felt a lot of guilt, walked away from it. But that conversation began just a warm relational talk about what God is really like and how we might know.

Then to my surprise, I walked into the pro shop, and I had a book. As I walked in, this lady’s husband walked in and goes, "Oh, did you write that?" I said, "Yes." It’s the book called *The Real God*; it’s who God really is and the attributes of God.

He goes, "Wow, I’d love to read that." I took a little golf pencil, signed a note in it, and gave it to him. He looked at me, grabbed it, and said, "I’m going to read this, and I’m going to tell you what I think." I said, "I’ll put my email in it."

Here’s my point: it’s building these kinds of relationships that will open the door for the gospel. Here’s my question: who are you building relationships with that’s different than you where God will open the door in due time if you love them right where they’re at?

Dave Druey: Next time, Aaron shows us what it actually looks like to introduce someone to Jesus and why a little resistance along the way might actually be a good sign. So, join us again right here on Living on the Edge. Today’s program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.