FP Method: Engage, Listen, and Adjust

Before reading this last introductory post, I recommend you read the first three posts: (1) What is Apologetics? and (2) What Is The Faith Pyramid? and (3) Why The Faith Pyramid?

As already stated, the goal of the Faith Pyramid strategy is to help you share Christ with anyone. It is based on this simple premise: Engage, listen and adjust. Coming to faith in Christ is a journey. And those who are on this journey are in different places on the narrow road (or the Pyramid, in this case). Therefore, we should not treat people as if they are all in the same place (which is what many evangelism strategies do). So the goal then is to discover their location. First, let me discourage you from viewing people as "projects." But we should also avoid looking at people as merely flesh and blood. Each person you make eye contact with everyday is a soul in need of God's grace. Looking at people the way Jesus did is something all Christians should purpose to do (but that's a different journey). Let's begin with engage.

To engage is to "turn the conversation." Often times, normal and everyday dialogue can be turned into a spiritual conversation. A simple statement about the goodness of God in your life or a probing question about spiritual matters can be well-placed within the thousands of empty words we converse with everyday. I must add that this is a skill which must be developed. As you attempt to turn the conversation, understand that it may be awkward at first, but over time (as with any skill), you will get better at it with practice, especially when talking about spiritual matters becomes more natural for you. And the best place to begin engaging is Level 3.

Secondly, you must listen. Once you have engaged someone with a spiritual conversation, you will often learn some things real fast. Inevitably, their view of God, their thoughts on religion, and perhaps even their beliefs about Christ will come to the surface. This, of course, depends on their openness to having a spiritual conversation. Listening is a very important step, because this is where and how we learn to adjust.

Why do we need to adjust? After you have listened, the spiritual needs of the person you are sharing with starts to become much more evident. What is their worldview, presuppositions and past experiences that have impacted their view of God? Everyone you talk to is coming from a different place. This is the heart of the Faith Pyramid. Only after you have discovered their location on the Pyramid can you adjust to meet them there, and help them journey to the top. Once again, the ultimate credibility in achieving this is through loving people the way Jesus would if He were the one sitting there talking to them. It is not only creation that speaks of God. Your life might be all the proof they need to know that He exists and loves them. 

Future posts on this website will be focussed on training Christians to "conquer" individual levels of the Faith Pyramid as they engage the people around them. But this point cannot be overstated: It is our calling, as Christians, to do all that is possible in peoples' lives, but it is only God who can do the impossible to actually change peoples' hearts to bring them into fellowship with Him.