Weekly Action - 27 November 2023 - Sharing Faith at Advent
Advent
Advent begins this week on Sunday 3 December. Every year during advent, Christians from different churches all around the world anticipate and prepare for the celebration of Jesus coming into the world to save us on Christmas Day. Advent is also a time to prayerfully reflect, and expect with excitement Jesus’ second coming again to the world to restore all broken relationships and bring in the Kingdom of God in full.
Advent is a natural time for churches and Christians to be thinking about sharing our faith more widely with friends and family, and inviting them to church. As Christians we are all called to talk about and share our faith. As Jesus said, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1: 8). We should do this in loving and gracious ways with our friends, family and neighbours. We want all to know the good news that God loves us so much that he came in the person of Jesus to die for us, that he has forgiven all the things we have done wrong in our lives, and that he wants every one of us to turn around, come back to him, and have a personal relationship with him.
Sharing our faith
Of those non-Christians who come to a church, an incredible 77% of them come because friends or relatives invited them. So, it is ordinary people like you and me, worshipping in ordinary local churches around the world, sharing our faith powerfully and effectively with our friends and neighbours that will have the greatest impact for the gospel. Yet so many of us lack confidence, are somewhat embarrassed, and struggle to talk about our faith clearly and boldly with our friends and family. This is why Arise has developed Equipped to Share, a free course of five sessions that can be run in any church. Equipped to Share empowers individual Christians to talk with confidence about our faith in an easy and natural way, releasing us to evangelise in our daily lives.
We see this in the stories of people like Darren, a friend of Arise in the Greater London area. Darren got to know a group of friends who all happened to be Christians. Over several months they all shared a little of their faith with him in natural ways in conversation, over coffee, or in the pub, using principles from the Equipped to Share course. They invited Darren to come to church with them. After some time listening and discussing issues of faith in a safe environment, Darren made a commitment to Jesus. He is now a wonderful dynamic Christian, serving Jesus in amazing ways.
This advent, will you take action as part of Arise’s Equipped to Share campaign, and plan to run the course in your church, to help your friends become much more confident and relaxed in reaching out to their families, neighbours and community to share the good news about Jesus?
Take Action
Practical Action
Talk to the leaders of your church about whether you can run the Equipped to Share course in your church. Download the Equipped to Share course materials. Get in touch with us at info@ariseuk.org if you are going to run the course. We might be able to come and lead the course with you if you would like, or support you in other ways.
Pray
Pray for any of your friends and family who do not yet know Jesus. Pray for opportunities to talk with them about your faith. Pray that they will come to faith. Pray that the Equipped to Share course will be exciting, effective and a real blessing to your church.
Give
Give to your local church, to support its ministry of sharing and growing faith with the people of your community. Consider also giving to other Christians organisations like Alpha, Christianity Explored or HOPE Together, that are focused on sharing and expanding the Christian faith.
Encourage us and others by letting us know what actions you have taken – message us at info@ariseuk.org, or via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Find out more
It’s great to take this action as individual Christians, but even better to come together with others to pray, discuss, worship, learn, have fun and take action together. Contact Arise if you are interested in joining or starting a local Arise group in your church or area.
Find out more about the importance of training, equipping and supporting ordinary Christians like you and me to share our faith with confidence as a crucial part of God’s bigger vision for our world in the Arise Manifesto report.
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