Witnessing

[Maximus]

Do you ever witness to others?

If and when you do, what do you say?

I'm curious about this and have been thinking about it lately.

What do you emphasize?

If you are witnessing to someone you may never see again, do you try to steer them to the Orthodox Church?

Or do you keep your message simple, emphasizing faith in Christ, repentance, and baptism, and trust the Holy Spirit to guide them to the right Church?

Your thoughts?

[Monica, child of God]

I do witness verbally to people and what I say depends on the individual. If the person is a member of a non Christian religion, I mostly talk about who Christ is. If the person is a "nominal" Christian or a member of a psuedo Christian group then I do talk about the Church.

I don't go around looking for opportunities though. The subject comes up naturally in conversation. And I don't try to "close the deal" in any way besides inviting the person to church if they seem intrested.

M.

[pilgrimtim]

i have opportunities many time to speak to people about the True Christian Faith.
I have always start with an assessment of the other person. Are the open to this new and ancient path of salvation? Just Saying I am orthodox and Christian gets the ball rolling (usually down hill).
I look at our crossing of paths as I am just a lone "Burma Shave" sign on their journey in this life. Important but the journer can continue successfully without me. I have never been one to close the deal. GOD closes my deals.
I do speak the truth from th experience of GOD in the Orthodox Church. Most of the time my position is so strange they have to walk away not getting it.

[Monica, child of God]

And I give reading material if the person seems to want to know more.

M.

[Maximus]

Thanks for your answers.

I would be interested in hearing more.

[Marjorie]

I try (generally unsuccessfully) to live a life of example so that I might lead others to the truth.

If people ask me what Orthodoxy is, I try to explain it, and recommend reading material along the same lines.

If people tell me their beliefs, I will share mine in a way that I hope will lead them to Orthodoxy.

Posting here is often a means of witnessing, especially answering inquirers' questions.

Depending on how close I am to a person, I will share Orthodox means of getting through hard times if they are going through a trial.

I occasionally give Orthodox gifts to my friends who either are Christian or who are not antagonistic towards my beliefs.

Oh, and prayer.

On the whole, I don't do enough, and have to work on being embarrassed about being a Christian in the secular world.

In IC XC,
Marjorie

[seashale76]

Well, I'm not Orthodox, but I'll tell you what interested me in learning more about it. I read tons of fanfiction and came across a fic that had a character convert to Orthodox Christianity. It was so compelling, I decided that I had to find out more about it. The lady who wrote the fic also has a livejournal with her testimony and links to Orthodox sites.

[isshinwhat]

Has anyone found how profound an effect crossing yourself in public can have? If someone takes the Lord's name in vain and I cross myself, they without fail stop blaspheming... Just a simple witness, but it seems to work.

[Llauralin]

I'm still in recovery from working for Child Evangelism Fellowship, and have yet to find a witnessing style that doesn't come across as incredibly simplistic.

"So do you want to be saved? It's as easy as ABC. All you have to do is admit you're a sinner believe thatChrist died for your sins, and call on God, and ask you to save you. Do you want to do that now?"

"Yes, yes!"

*We pray (or the teacher prays for the child, if he's too shy)*

"Now that you're God's Child, he has saved you from every sin that you have ever commited, or ever will commit! Isn't that wonderful? And there's absolutly nothing that you can do to sepperate you from God!"

[Dust and Ashes]

How I go about it depends largely on the person. I love talking about Orthodoxy so much that I always find a way to bring it up, just not in the "so, if you died tonight would you go to heaven?" way that I was formerly taught.

Just tonight we had friends over from our former church who we have had very limited contact with since becoming Orthodox. We talked about Orthodox spirituality and how it differs from Protestant spirituality; we talked about monasticism, Scripture, the "Apocrypha" and the Septuagint vs. Masoretic text, etc. Of course it was all interspersed with conversations about tons of other things such as movies, games, Katrina, etc. I made a lot of effort not to "preach" to them or appear as if I were criticizing their faith.

I usually try to start out with issues that they don't have a problem with then do my best to answer questions as they arise. I don't really think of what I do as witnessing since I enjoy sharing my faith so much and it's just fun to talk about Orthodoxy.

[MariaRegina]

Well, I'm not Orthodox, but I'll tell you what interested me in learning more about it. I read tons of fanfiction and came across a fic that had a character convert to Orthodox Christianity. It was so compelling, I decided that I had to find out more about it. The lady who wrote the fic also has a livejournal with her testimony and links to Orthodox sites.

Who is the lady who wrote the fic?

And what was the story of her book?

Now you have grabbed my attention!

Do you think fictional writings like the Left Behind series had any long term effects?

Should Orthodox writers try to emulate the protestants as a way of bringing the truth to others?

[seashale76]

Who is the lady who wrote the fic?

And what was the story of her book?

Now you have grabbed my attention!

Hi Aria! :wave: Here's a link to her site: I hope it's okay for me to post it, if not, let me know mods. http://logospilgrim.com/

Do you think fictional writings like the Left Behind series had any long term effects?
I do think the Left Behind books had a long term effect. Of course, I could only bring myself to get through the first one. I found it to be poorly written, which really keeps me from enjoying a book. I've known people who've said that they became believers after reading the LaHaye books, or became converted to a pre-millenial eschatological view at any rate. Fictional books go a long way into introducing sometimes completely foreign concepts to people who've never heard of them before.

Should Orthodox writers try to emulate the protestants as a way of bringing the truth to others?
Well, I'd think a person who is living their beliefs consistently wouldn't be able to help but to introduce Orthodoxy somehow into their writing. Dostoyevsky did it, for sure. Before, I knew zilch about Orthodoxy, so reading did introduce me. Not all protestant ways of evangelism are good, but I personally see nothing wrong with writing books.

[icxn]

I like Mother Gavrilia's way:

Quote:

- Once when I was there where I was, some foreign missionary came and said to me, “You may be a good woman, but you’re not a good Christian.”
- I said, “Why?”
- “Because you have been here so long and you only go about speaking English. What local languages have you learned?”
- I said to him, “I haven’t managed to learn any of the local languages, because I travel a great deal from place to place. As soon as I learn one dialect, they start speaking another. I’ve only learned ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good evening.’ Nothing else.”
- “Bah, you’re no Christian. How can you evangelize? All the Catholics and Protestants learn all the local dialects in order to . . .”
- Then I said, “Lord, give me an answer for him.” I asked it with all my heart, and then I said, “Ah. I forgot to tell you. I know five languages.”
- “Really? What are these five?”
- “The first is the smile; the second is tears. The third is to touch. The fourth is prayer, and the fifth is love. With these five languages I go all around the world.”
- Then he stopped and said, “Just a minute. Say that again so I can write it down.”
With these five languages you can travel the whole earth, and all the world is yours. Love everyone as your own–without concern for religion or race, without concern for anything.

/end of quote

... and in this way she won the hearts of those around her so as to want to become like her... Orthodox Christians. :)

[prodromos]

Any witnessing we do can only take root if there is fertile ground for it to grow. We need to prepare the soil a great deal through love and prayer, through which even the most rocky ground can be broken up and made fertile. Our witnessing style to our nonchristian friends is to do our best to avoid being hypocrites, so that when God opens up opportunities for us to speak they can't simply dismiss what we have to say.

John