“I feel guilty about not making a better effort at sharing my faith. I get so nervous because I am not sure what to say. If I get enough courage to speak up, I’m afraid that I will say something wrong. So it’s a struggle for me to start a conversation about Jesus.”

Does that sound like you? Most of us get the jitters when it comes to sharing our faith. What can we do to grow in our confidence to tell others about Jesus?

Start with a close connection to Jesus. Our Savior says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Faith in Jesus is vital for spiritual life. We can’t live eternally without him. Apart from him we can’t do anything, including sharing our faith. Our connection with Jesus grows stronger as we stay in his Word. God’s Word is the source of knowledge about our Savior and the power to give us confidence to tell of him.

Evangelism is sharing the good news of Jesus with people. Many books and programs instruct and assist us with evangelism. Many of them are helpful, but they may leave us with the impression that evangelism is quite complicated. It’s not.

Identifying those who need Jesus

There are three basic things needed for evangelism: the gospel, people who have the gospel, and people who need the gospel.

God has revealed the gospel in the Bible. That’s the first thing needed. By God’s grace, we have it. The Holy Spirit used the gospel to bring us to faith in Christ. That’s the second thing. The third thing is people who need Jesus. They are people who don’t have faith in Jesus or confess Jesus but do not actively participate in a Christian church. Millions of people just in North America need Jesus, and the number is growing. The immensity of the job before us can be overwhelming, but remember that God works on the hearts of people one at a time.

To underscore that point, there is a story about an old man walking the beach at dawn. He noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up with the youth, the old man asked what he was doing. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. “But the beach goes on for miles and miles, and there are millions of starfish,” countered the man. “How can your effort make any difference?” The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. “It makes a difference to this one,” he said.