Love Your Church - Week 8 - Chapter 7 

CHAPTER 7 — WITNESSING: DOING GOOD DEEDS AND SHARING THE GOOD NEWS

“If you build it, they will come” is a terrible evangelism strategy. Most unbelievers have no interest in joining you on a Sunday morning. Those who do show up are almost always there because someone loved them enough to bring them. And evangelism isn’t reserved for pastors — it’s the responsibility of all of God’s people. Some believers have memorized presentations and read every book on evangelism and still aren’t engaging non-Christians. That’s because evangelism is first and foremost about the heart, not the method. Consider a young woman who has just gotten engaged — she shows off the ring, she shows pictures, she doesn’t go days without talking about the man she loves. Guilt won’t sustain faithful witness. Beauty will. Hope will. Love will. Awe will.

Three timeless priorities shape faithful witness: practical goodness, Christ-centred reverence, and daily readiness. The Great Commandment and the Great Commission are not in competition — they represent the integrative model of mission: proclaiming good news and doing good deeds together. Peter’s model is live so well that the conversation starts itself — live an attractive life under the lordship of Christ that provokes questions. Peter’s answer to fear is reverence: “In your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). Two words in that passage are easy to miss: “always” and “anyone.” Faithful witness is for every day, with every person God places in your path.

The word translated “defence” is the Greek apologia — but Peter is thinking about ordinary conversations about our hope, not formal academic debates. Hope in the New Testament is not wishful thinking; it is a settled confidence in future glory that shines especially brightly in seasons of suffering. This hope is so rare that people will ask you about it — particularly when they see you navigate hardship with visible peace and confidence. The woman at the office who watches you walk through a cancer diagnosis without bitterness, the neighbour who sees you grieve without losing your footing, the colleague who observes genuine joy in someone who has every reason to despair — they will ask. Peter assumes they will ask. And when they do, be ready: not with a perfected five-step argument, but with a simple, honest account of where your hope comes from. It is more about adoration than argumentation. You need more than logical answers; you need a heart captivated by Jesus.

Network evangelism is a lifestyle of gospel intentionality within the ordinary rhythms of your existing relationships. Think of your relational web in five categories: familial, geographical, vocational, recreational, and commercial. In each of these spheres, you already have proximity, trust, and shared experiences — the raw materials of gospel conversations. C. S. Lewis kept two lists of names in his prayers — “those for whose conversions I pray and those for whose conversions I give thanks.” Pray for the people in your networks. Invite them into your home, your activities, your life. Serve them with practical kindness. Share the gospel. Remember that everyone is already evangelizing about something — the gospel is too good and too important to keep to ourselves.
 

Questions - WITNESSING Read 1 Peter 3 v 13-17

1.  Why do you think honoring and revering Christ (v 15) makes it easier to avoid fearing others (v 14)?

2.  What results should there be from doing good (v 13, 14, 16)?

3.  As we engage with others, why is it important both to articulate a reason for our hope and to speak with gentleness and respect, as verse 15 directs us to?

4.  Are you full of hope? What can you do to cultivate this virtue? How would you explain the reason for it?

5.  What does it look like to speak with “gentleness and respect”? In what kinds of relationships is doing so particularly easy or particularly challenging? How can you help one another to grow in this area?

6.  In what ways are you currently pursuing obedience to the call to make disciples (Matthew 28 v 19) both individually, as a group, and as a whole church? How could you be most effective as witnesses to your particular community?