If you have been working with your teen students on faith sharing, you may have been spending quite a bit of class time helping students be the type of person who encourages others to start asking questions about God. You may have one or more students who has a friend or acquaintance that is showing some interesting in learning more about what God wants for their lives.
It’s very tempting to hand your students a prewritten study on how to become a Christian and believe they are ready to study with others. The problem is many people won’t be quite ready to jump right into a Bible study successfully. Whether they believe in a different God or no God at all, some will need to take some first faith steps to be truly open to learning what God wants for their lives.
This will be difficult territory for your teens to handle without adult help. You probably won’t be able to entirely prepare them for everything someone with different beliefs may say to them or ask them. What you can do is prepare them to understand their friends and acquaintances may need help accepting some basic truths before they are ready to talk about becoming a Christian.
The following chart doesn’t claim to cover every belief system. As it points out, many who would label themselves as following a particular religion may actually believe or practice very few of the things an official description of that religion would list. Give your students practice in asking non-threatening questions to encourage others to open up about their faith journey. Work with them to develop questions that will go beyond labels and discover where each person actually is in their faith.
First Steps in Faith Sharing
When someone shows an interest in learning more about God or how to become a Christian, it’s important to understand their current beliefs about God and Christianity. When asked, some people may try to give you a label for their beliefs (Ex: “I’m Hindu.”) Ask them to be as specific as possible about what they believe, as many people do not actually understand or accept all of the beliefs their label would imply. Everyone’s faith journey is very different, but you will find most people will fall into one or more of the following categories. People will need to approach studying the Bible in slightly different ways, based largely on their current beliefs. After completing the first step, the seeker should be ready to engage in any Bible study.
| Current Beliefs
|
First Step |
| Atheist/Agnostic/Practices Religion with no specific gods (Buddhism, etc.)
|
Need to help establish belief in God. |
| Believes in different god/gods/energy forces (Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, etc.)
|
Need to introduce the one true God of the Bible.
|
| Believes in God/Jesus but has had bad personal experiences and/or has an extremely negative view of God/Christians
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Need to clarify the true characteristics of God and establish Christians are still sinners following the Word of God imperfectly.
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| Believes in God/Jesus and has expressed an interest in obeying Him. (May have been raised in the Church or be unchurched.) | Can begin studying the Bible/baptism without any preparation first steps. |
| Believes he/she is already a Christian, but has not followed the Bible’s instructions for becoming a Christian
|
Need to treat as Aquila and Priscilla treated Apollos. Praise for having attempted to serve and obey God. Establish necessity of doing everything God requires of us to the best of our ability. |
|
Believes in the Bible and additional “Holy Books” (Mormonism, Scientology, Islam, some Catholics and other Christian sects.)
|
Need to establish Bible as primary source for knowledge of what God wants us to do. Additional books must be set aside as uninspired to be truly successful in any further Bible study. |
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Wants to convert you to a different religion or sect of Christianity or seems to want to debate for the sake of debating. |
Should assume they fall into one of the other categories at first. If the person insists on merely debating and not listening with an open mind after studying, you may need to take a break. |
As you cover this chart with your students, they may have questions about other religions. Remind them that within any religion people may follow its basic beliefs very carefully while others will reject some beliefs and add their own while still claiming the label. Remind them they should never assume someone believes something, but rather should ask the person to tell them what they actually believe.
Tell your students they may find themselves being asked questions they have no idea how to answer. Encourage your students to talk to you, their parents and others in your church about helping them when they are trying to study with others. Teach them it is perfectly acceptable to tell someone they would have trouble explaining it well, but know someone who would love to help them understand it better. Most people are open to talking to others the person they trust suggests- especially if they join them in the conversations.
For your students to be comfortable sharing their faith, they have to realize some people will need help believing in the one true God or processing past hurts before they are ready to learn how to become a Christian. Preparing your students for the various types of people they may meet, will help them share their faith more effectively with anyone they may encounter.
Please Note: You may find when you begin this discussion with your students, they are appalled at the idea of suggesting someone from another faith convert to Christianity. They may argue everyone should be allowed to believe whatever they want as a way to get to God. If this happens, you may have to back up and have a few lessons on absolute truth. Help them understand that although ultimately everyone is indeed allowed by God to decide to believe whatever they want to believe, there is only one true God and only one way to Heaven – through Jesus. This will be very difficult for many teens who have been immersed in a culture of relative truth to believe and accept. Convincing them of the existence of absolute truth will be critical for their own personal faith to live and grow and is well worth spending as much class time as necessary to teach.