From the very earliest days of our lives, we are taught to share. As soon as we are old enough to grasp a toy tightly, pull it to our chest, and say the word “mine,” there are adults responding with the word “share.” Sharing is a very good thing. From children to adults, most people like us better when we are willing to share what we have with them.

Of course, there are times when sharing is not such a great gift. Whenever a toddler wants to share a food item they have been working on for awhile, you may wish he was a little more “selfish” and would keep it to himself. Whenever a sibling wants to share a chore and your parent thinks it is a good idea, you may wish they had forgotten you are part of the family. And, when an adult wants to share too much information about a personal, maybe even gross, aspect of their lives, you may wish she didn’t consider you such a close friend. Still, for the most part, sharing is a desirable activity.

But then why is it that when it comes to “sharing our faith” both the one doing the sharing and the one on the receiving end can experience so many negative emotions? Since my earliest days of being a Christian, I have been taught that I ought to “share my faith” with others. The big challenge for me was that the practical definition of that activity was very narrow and for me personally very negative.

I am absolutely sure that the people who were trying to teach me to “share my faith” had good motivations. I am sure they cared about me and about other people. I am sure they believed they were just doing what God would want them to do. And, I am sure that what they said was probably much more broad and loving than what I heard. But, what I heard was that if I really loved God and loved people, I would memorize a bunch of Bible verses and a bunch of questions and answers that would form an argument that people could not defeat, and then I would go to strangers and confront them with this information, ready or not.

As a new Christian, I wanted to please God so I went to the classes that were supposed to train me to “share my faith” in this fashion. These classes always included being taken to neighborhoods where we would pratice what we had learned on complete strangers. The whole time it made me want to vomit.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t just my experience at one church. I grew in my faith and we moved a couple of times. At each stop along the way, I had to return to this experience of “sharing my faith.” I had to go because I was a Sunday School teacher. I had to go because I was a deacon. I had to go because I was in a seminary class on evangelism. I had to go because someone thought it was the best way for a church planter to start a church. I hated it every time.

I hated it because it didn’t fit my personality, but I also hated it because of the way I was sure it must make the other person feel. Moving a handful of times meant we changed churches with each move. Often a visit to a church in a new town was followed by one of these visits from church members who were planning to “share their faith” with me. I was already a Christian and yet I would have preferred to not answer the door. I always felt like I wasn’t going to have the right answer, or the right enough answer, and that one of us had to win and the other lose, it was so weird!

But the experience in my life that this “sharing my faith” most felt like, took me back to the early days of my marriage. One of the first vacations Sheri and I took together came when we had almost no money. We found an ad for some cheap accomodations near Gatlinburg and went there for just a couple of days. While there we were handed this flier about a great deal. All you had to do was listen to this brief presentation about a vacation property and get a gift certificate to a nice restaurant. Are you smiling yet? Have you been down this path? We were young and poor and naive.

So, motivated by a meal we couldn’t afford, wanting to cap off our vacation in a special way, we headed to the place for the “brief” presentation. We had no money, so we were never going to be tempted to buy anything. We told this to the man who made the “brief” presentation for the next several hours. We would have left, but once we got to the property they put us in a small bus and drove us a few miles before getting to the sales center. We were trapped!

I am sure this man had a good heart. I doubt he lied in his presentation. But, he was not going to let us go until we said yes, and we were not going to say yes. It didn’t matter that he offered us snacks. It didn’t matter that he did magic tricks (no kidding). It didn’t matter that Sheri and I were in our early 20′s but looked like teenagers who had eloped and obviously didn’t have the money to buy a vaction time share. And, it didn’t matter that my beautiful, sweet wife slowly began to burn with such anger that I was sure this guy was not going to live to sell another day (I kind of enjoyed that part). All that mattered is this guy knew what was best for us and had an argument that surely we couldn’t defeat and he had been trained to not take no for an answer. Sound familiar?

We finally got out of there. We got our gift certificate and went to the restaurant. But neither of us enjoyed the meal. We were so sick to our stomachs that nothing tasted good. We promised to never do that ever again.

Now, back to “sharing my faith.” I am not that guy and I don’t want to ever learn to be that guy. Not only that, I don’t ever want to make someone else feel like we felt that day. So, time after time when someone has pushed me to be “time share in heaven salesman for Jesus” I have endured it as long as I have to and then quit and felt like a failure. I know now there is another way.

Tonight at our summer small group meeting we talked about other ways we can “share our faith” and here is some of the options: Share our personal stories; Share our attention; Share our stuff; Share our help (serving, supporting); Sharing our words (encouraging, praying, comforting, and providing wisdom); and, Sharing experiences. “Sharing our faith” is really about sharing ourselves and sharing our lives. It should be something others are glad we are doing. We are sharing Good News!

Now, “sharing our faith,” even in these diverse ways will not necessarily be easy. We may not be appreciated. We may not get the results we hope for. There is great risk of being rejected or of someone taking advantage of us. Still, it is an activity, a lifestyle, that fits every personality and every situation and I believe is at the center of a life that really comes to understand every good thing we have in Jesus.

If like me you have been discouraged by what others have considered “sharing your faith” to the point that you just quit and felt guilty, I want to encourage you to join me and try again. Find the ways you share best and share, and share, and share, and share! If someone asks you, be ready to tell them about what Jesus has done in your life, don’t chicken out. But start with sharing and see if when that moment comes, you are not ready for God to use you to do something you never thought possible.

It is my prayer that everyone who reads this blog will get the chance to see someone else fall in love with Jesus, because they shared!