Leverage Your Ordinary Moments for the Gospel

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"How Your Home Can Point to the Gospel"

"Share What Jesus Is Doing in Your Life"

"The Gospel Changes Everything"

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Dannah Gresh: This morning I had the most thrilling text exchange with my mom! You see, she and I had taken a meal to some older relatives who can’t get around much. They are not eating the best so we wanted to take some food to them. These family members are also not believers.

Just as I walked out the door to meet my mom for the delivery, I grabbed a copy of a book by A.W. Tozer on the topic of the Trinity. It seemed a bit of a lofty gift, but I felt led by the Spirit to deliver this book with the food.

We’ll talk more about how we can leverage our everyday routines for the gospel today on Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

Well, today, fast forward a few weeks, my mom texts me. The elderly gentleman has been texting her asking questions about . . . you guessed it, the Trinity. He’s intrigued, but he's also confused. And so, he’s asking my mom because she is known to be a lover of Christ. 

So my mom texts me, "Don’t you love a book about the Trinity? What’s the title? I should buy it for him [this gentleman]."

I text back, “I gave it to him when we delivered the food.”

She texts back, "I texted him and that is what he’s reading. He loves it but is having difficulty understanding it. He needs to be saved. I’ve been praying for him and his wife for a long time. Maybe it’s time. Pray with me on that." 

Then I text, "Yes, He needs saved. There is no understanding without Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But this sounds like the beginning of illumination. Curiosity is the first sign. Hallelujah! I’m praying for your gospel witness, Mom!"

I am so proud of my mother. She is an evangelist! And let me tell you, there are few things as exhilarating as being on the Great Commission team of Jesus. This text thread made my day!

You know, delivering food was a pretty ordinary thing, but it became the stage for my mom to be an evangelist. And since so much of our lives our ordinary, we’ve got to learn to leverage those moments for the gospel!

Let’s talk about living a gospel-centered life, and more specifically, how we can pursue the lost even when we’re feeling a like our lives are ordinary . . . possibly even overly busy ordinary. As in, when would we have time for the gospel?.

Let’s start here, in Matthew 28:19–20, where we find the mission Jesus gave to all of His followers just before He ascended to heaven. 

He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” 

Jesus’ command is pretty clear here, isn’t it? He doesn’t seem to think that evangelism is optional. 

But we’re not always good at this, are we? According to Lifeway Research, only 3 in 10 unchurched Americans say a Christian has ever shared with them one-on-one how a person becomes a believer. That leaves 7 in 10 unchurched Americans who have never heard the good news about Jesus from a Christian? We need a gospel vision for these people.

What if our busy routines didn’t hinder us from sharing the gospel? In fact, what if our mundane daily responsibilities could become opportunities for gospel ministry? I hope you will ask yourself this question during our time together: "How can I leverage my ordinary life for the gospel?" 

Rosaria Butterfield has been such an inspiration to me in terms of making the ordinary moments of a life into a pulpit for sharing Jesus. She wrote a book titled The Gospel Comes with a House Key. It's all about using your home as a place where you can reach unsaved friends with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here’s Rosaria in a conversation with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Rosaria Butterfield: I have a dear friend from church who was really inspired to practice hospitality. She’s one of the most hospitable people I know. She moved into a new area; she has two children, ages one and five. What she decided was that she would have a ministry explicitly to children and moms.

She lived in a cul-de-sac. She wrote handwritten notes to every single person, invited them all over for Bible story time at her house on Monday mornings. Everybody came! I mean, the moms who are not Christian came.

You know why? They’re lonely. It gave you a reason to take a shower and leave your house. And you know you’re an overachiever when you have a toddler and you shower AND leave your house. Right? (laughter)

So it’s been wonderful in that way. But then my friend, who is a very faithful Christian, she also learned about some of the needs in each of these homes. One of the basic things is, “How do I go grocery shopping with kids on different nap schedules?” Well, all these moms started doing grocery shopping for each other!

They just became a team. Then from that, a husband/wife Bible study started—and these are not believers! Let me just say this. This is not the church; they were not believers all together. But there was a need for community. My friend who’s a Christian saw that.

She put Jesus at the center of that community by using Dana Dirksen’s music and teaching children Bible stories. Soon the moms were curious: “Is it true? Does God answer our prayers? Are we alone in this world? Is there a purpose for my life? Is there meaning in my suffering? How would my marriage be different if my husband and I were both submitted to Christ?” These were questions that came out of a children’s story time!

But one of the things that was so vital about what she does is, she does it every Monday morning. It’s not, “The third Monday of the month, bring a dish.” That’s the other thing. It’s, “Come as you are. Come in your pajamas.”

Nancy: “Even if you haven’t had your shower!”

Rosaria: Yeah, “Don’t be an overachiever. Just come.”

Nancy: And that’s the way you are about your home as well. You may still have some homeschooling stuff going on. You’ve got things in various stages of preparation. This is not entertaining.

Rosaria: This is not “entertaining.”

Nancy: And your menus and your meals and your table settings, you paint a picture for us in your book that it’s very real.

Rosaria: It’s very real. It gives other people a chance to minister. You know, my life is pretty messy. The Lord has sent a number of people who are struggling with a number of things. I remember, once I was on a Skype conversation with a friend who was struggling. It was about five o’clock, which isn’t an ideal time for me to still be on Skype, because I need to get dinner ready.

One of the single men in our church walked in, and he could see that I was ministering to a friend. He looked at me and he did this, he kind of gave me the, “Get outta here; I can handle dinner!” And surely I thought to myself, I don’t even know that this man can cook, but . . . okay.

And so I took my computer to the homeschool room, closed the door, talked with my friend who was struggling, and came out a half-an-hour later and the guy had dinner ready. He did a fine job.

Nancy: Get that guy a wife!

Rosaria: Yeah, well you know, he did a great job. 

Nancy: He stepped in, part of the family. 

Rosaria: He stepped in, and it made him feel really good . . . and needed. And that’s what a hospitality home says. It doesn’t say, “Well, here are the hosts, and here are the guests.” A hospitality home says, “Jesus was both Host and Guest.” And “hospitality” is different from “counterfeit hospitality.”

You see, the problem is, too many Christians rely on counterfeit hospitality. We don’t have any need for real hospitality. Counterfeit hospitality is the hospitality you can buy, you’re in charge of it.

Nancy: You’re the giver. 

Rosaria: You’re the giver; you don’t have to be the taker, you don’t have to be the receiver. That’s humbling! But in a home where people really are gathered together, you really see a picture of that home in the Book of Acts. . .

What was it about that home that was the place that all the people prayed for Peter? You know, those kinds of things. What was it? Well, who knows? Maybe it was big enough, maybe it had a certain location that made it easy, who knows? But it just was. It’s the place that people gathered. So in our house, the kids know how to set the table. 

Nancy: And not everything matches. 

Rosaria: Oh, my goodness, no! No, no, no, things do not match. I sort of kid around that, “Lower your expectations, increase your joy.”

Nancy: So we’re not talking about Pinterest-perfect table settings. 

Rosaria: No. There’s no one that I know of who’s ever come into my house and wanted to take a picture.

Nancy: And there’s nothing wrong with that, but that shouldn’t be something that intimidates, or keeps us from exercising hospitality.

Rosaria: Right, absolutely. I love the fact that I have friends who do like to decorate. So ours is the home that we gather at for holidays. We’ll have everybody over on Easter. I have a friend who just came to me and said, “I’ll decorate.”

I know what that means, because you know, I don’t decorate; I vacuum. And we have pets, so people should be thankful that I vacuum! But if somebody wants decorations, great! I’m all for it, but I just want to make it sensible and not distracting.

Nancy: And speaking of vacuuming, let me just read a quote from your book. You wrote this, Rosaria, “Hospitality is necessary whether you have cat hair on the couch or not. People will die of chronic loneliness sooner than they will die from cat hair in the soup.” That’s a little gross. 

Rosaria: I know, for the people who are not cat lovers, that’s a little, you know . . .

Nancy: But you’re making a point there: We've got to decide what really matters, and people matter more than stuff and things.

Dannah: Isn’t that thought-provoking? I hope it takes the pressure off for you. Your ordinary life, your less-than-spectacular home, your regular ol’ relationships can all be used by God in advancing His kingdom. Wow! Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth was talking to Rosaria Butterfield there about themes you’ll find in Rosaria's book The Gospel Comes with a House Key. You’ll find a link to that book and the full conversation when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and click on today’s program. 

What keeps you from being a witness to your lost friends and family? For many, it’s things like distraction or a lack of intentionality. Like, we can get so caught up in our own day-to-day responsibilities that we forget about, let me be clear, people who are dying and going to hell.

Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth encouraging us with some practical suggestions for how to be more intentional about sharing the saving love of Jesus Christ.

Nancy: Number one, ask God to give you His heart for the lost. Just start there. Say, "Lord, I would like to have Your heart for those who are lost." To help you with that, think about where your life would be without Christ and consider the eternal future of those who live around you—in your neighborhood, in your workplace—what their eternal future would look like without Christ. And then beyond them, think about the glory of God and how God deserves to be worshiped, how He deserves to have first place in their lives.

Then number two, cultivate relationships with non-believers. As I’ve said, so many of us live in this Christian bubble and have so little contact with non-believers. For salt to be effective, it has to get out of the shaker. It has to come in contact with the food. Many of us have way too little contact in any kind of meaningful conversation or meaningful way with those who don't know Christ. Now don't get overwhelmed by that, just think of the place you frequent—the grocery store, the dry-cleaners, the place where your kids go to school. If we're living as Christians when we're out doing life, then we're going to be in a position to engage with people, to show an interest in them, to be friendly, to pay attention to them, and to cultivate relationships with them.

I find sometimes just thinking about that is really helpful. Otherwise, I just go from point A to point B. I'm doing my business and I'm not, sadly, thinking about the people that God has caused my life to intersect with that day. So ask God to help you cultivate relationships with non-believers. That takes some intentionality. A friend mentioned to me recently that during the summer months, she tried to get out regularly to the Farmer's Market in our area so that she could meet people, talk with them, establish a relationship, and begin to develop some contact with unbelievers.

We have some people in our ministry who are doing a great job of establishing relationships with their neighbors and serving and loving and helping and blessing and connecting. They are staying planted in that neighborhood. One of them told me the other day that in her neighborhood they have ex-drug addicts and alcoholics all over the place. It's just a pocket there. But she is so excited about being able to help cultivate relationships to point these people to Christ.

It takes intentionality and it takes asking God for His love for those that we might not naturally have any affinity toward. It's fun to be with our Christian friends all the time who all think the same way and love the Lord. It takes God's love in our hearts for us to connect with those who are are different, who don't have the same values, and who don't have that heart for Christ.

And then number three, ask God for opportunities to engage people on spiritual matters. Just ask Him for opportunities and ask Him to help you to be alert, sensitive, and ready when those opportunities present themselves. I was on a trip to Florida recently to see my mother and both directions on the flight I had opportunities to sit next to people—one a new mom with an eleven-month-old baby, her first. She was so concerned about that baby being disruptive to the flight. She sat next to the right person because I love children. I was able to engage with her in conversation about spiritual matters.

On a different flight on that trip, I sat next to an eighty-five-year-old woman and the thought just kept crossing my mind, she can't have very long to live. It may be several years, maybe fifteen years, but it's not very long. That thought helped me get into a conversation with her about spiritual matters. She was not particularly open. She didn't pray to receive Christ there, but I was asking God for an opportunity just to plant a seed in her life and was able to do that.

Number four, ask people how you can pray for them. I find this is such a way to enter into spiritual conversation, or to at least to communicate an interest in a heart. It can be servers in restaurants.

I did this recently with a lady in a boutique I went into. I saw that she was selling the business. There was a “For Sale” sign outside, and I asked her about it. She told me that she was going through a divorce and was losing the business.

So I did a little shopping in there and then came back to her—thankfully nobody was in the store at the moment—and I said to her, "This may seem a little strange, but I would love to pray for you. I know you're going through some hard times right now. Would it be okay if I prayed for you?" And I did. I just had a chance there to connect with her, to pray for God's blessing in her life, to pray that she would come into a personal relationship with Christ. Ask people how you can pray for them and you'll find that some of them are really open for you to minister into their lives spiritually.

Number five, tell your story. There are so many programs and methods and ways of presenting our faith, but one of the most powerful and effective means of introducing people to Christ is to tell them how you came to faith and how God is changing your life. For them to see the power of the gospel at work in our lives opens them to want to know Christ who is making that difference.

I have a friend who is living in a Muslim country and sharing the gospel as he and his wife are able to do that. He was asked recently, how would you suggest sharing the gospel with Americans in our country? His answer, I thought, was great. He said, "Treasure Jesus and share with others what He is doing in your life."

That takes a lot of the pressure off. It's simple. You don't have to present the whole gospel to every person every time. You don’t have to lay it all out every time. At points along the way, just let people see how you treasure Jesus, share what He is doing in your life, and then see what doors God opens for people to want to know more.

And then number six, grow in your understanding of the gospel and in how to share it with others. The power is in the gospel. That's why we need to understand it. We need to practice explaining aspects of it. There is not one four-sentence way to explain the gospel. Get to know the gospel. As you do, as you dig deep into it and come to understand these great truths of our faith, then you will find that you are better equipped to share those truths and to share the gospel with those people who are ready to receive it.

And then number seven, trust God with the outcome. Trust God to be the one who brings the harvest as you share the gospel. He is the one who draws people, who opens their eyes and their hearts, who grants them repentance and faith. We are just part of the process, part of the means that He uses.

Dannah: What a great list! You can review Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s seven suggestions for developing a heart to share Christ with unbelievers when you read the transcript of this program. Just go to ReviveOurHearts.com/Weekend.

Well, I know one thing for sure. God’s kingdom will not grow through the hypocrisy of His people. 

Jacquelle Crowe Ferris wrote a book about the gospel called This Changes Everything when she was just eighteen. A few years later she came to the Revive Our Hearts headquarters in Michigan from her home in Canada to sit down and talk to Nancy and me about that book. 

Well, Jacquelle brought up an interesting point when it comes to sharing the gospel: nobody likes a hypocrite. Here’s how Jacquelle put it.

Jaquelle Ferris: One thing that I see, consistently . . . This is a little bit of a buzzword, but I think it’s accurate. My generation craves authenticity. So we want to see authentic faith. We want to see people who have a faith that is active and passionate, but that it actually changes their lives.

So, connected to that, I see hypocrisy as something that is very repulsive to my generation.

Nancy: So put some handles on that for us, because we hear that word used a lot. We’re not throwing criticism at anybody, but give us some examples of what younger people may see in my generation that would ring hollow or untrue for them.

Jaquelle: What is a beautiful thing that I see in your generation is that you have so much knowledge to share, and I love that! But I think some people in your generation, we see the knowledge, but we don’t see a change in their life. 

We see them sing the words on Sunday mornings, we maybe even hear them teach a lesson, but we don’t see any real change—or joy, even—in their life. They just go through the motions. We hear them complain. We see them be bitter. We see them be unforgiving. We think, Wait! There’s a disconnect here.

Because you say all these things that we want to believe and we think are true, but if it doesn’t change your life—if it doesn’t change what you do Monday through Saturday—then maybe we don’t really want to be a part of that. Maybe that doesn’t really have as much meaning in our lives.

Dannah: And that’s not just your generation, that’s everyone of all ages is saying, “If you’re as depressed and as anxious and as lonely as I am, why would I want the gospel?” And so that means there’s something . . . Our faith might be getting stuck in our head and not making a transforming difference in our heart.

Nancy: I know one of the characteristics of many in your generation is a lot of passion. You hear the passion movement, and there’s just something about youthful energy. You’re a passionate young woman, but you’re not alone in your generation about that. Even nonbelievers, you hear a lot of passion about whatever they’re passionate about.

Does it impact your generation . . . And I don’t want to make an “us” and “them,” because we’re believers together and we need each other. But I think it’s helpful sometimes to see through each other’s eyes.

Does your generation sometimes look at ours and feel like, “This faith thing, this church thing, this Christian thing, they’re not making it credible because it doesn’t seem like it really matters to them!”

Jaquelle: Yes, I think so. As you said, we are very passionate. We want to go; we want to do; we want to change the world . . .

Nancy: . . . tomorrow!

Jaquelle: Yes, maybe today even, if we can get a flight! Sometimes when we look at those older than us we kind of wonder, Well, where has the spark gone? Why aren’t you as excited about this message? Why don’t you have the same passion for life, to seek and go and change?

So I think that is a criticism, and that also kind of sows some confusion in our lives, because we wonder, Well, hey! Is this going to be us in thirty years? In that case, is this even worth pursuing right now?

Nancy: Wow. Now, you love the church. You love your church, which is a small church. It’s not some big megachurch with humongous programs. What have you seen through your childhood, your teenage years, in the people in your church (make it really visible for us) that made Christianity and the church desirable to you? Can you think of particular people, old folks?

Jaquelle: Yep!

Dannah: Any godly old women in that church?

Jaquelle: We do have some godly old women.

Nancy: Paint a picture for us of what has made this attractive to you.

Jaquelle: One thing that is amazing about my church is that my church is very authentic! We can use that word because they don’t really put on a facade. We are a messy bunch. 

Nancy: And “the church,” when you say it, you’re not talking about the building where you meet.

Jaquelle: No, no, no. I’m talking about . . .

Nancy: You’re talking about the people.

Jaquelle: We have about fifty people in our church, so we are a family; we know each other very well. We know what’s going on in our lives. We know the messy and hard times. We have a foster mom in our church. She’s a single mom, a single parent, and she fosters special-needs kids.

We have two older women in our church—one is a mom, one is her daughter—who have gone through many struggles of a variety of kinds. They have just continually been faithful! We have so many young families in our church. We have our third family that have just gotten pregnant with their fourth kid.

So a very small church, but so many young moms, so many young dads trying to be faithful in their work and also care for their kids.

Nancy: So how do they get ministered to, lifted up, encouraged by the body there?

Jaquelle: We have lots of babysitters in our church! That foster mom that I mentioned, she goes and she does stuff with our young moms. We just had two young moms and this foster mom who last week went to our local Discovery Center, and they took all of the kids!

Nancy: So they include her. 

Jaquelle: They include her. Something that I love so much is that we have our older members who seek to include our younger members in all sorts of stuff. 

Dannah: So they’re getting rid of the barriers that some of the other churches are experiencing, where, “Here’s where the Golden Year people go,” and “Here’s where the single people go.” They’re blending, which I think is so authentic. When you say they’re messy, does that also include freedom to talk about sin and temptation?

Jaquelle: Yes. Something that you mentioned earlier that immediately made me think of my church is that sometimes my generation looks at your generation and sees them going through disappointment and struggles, but they really see them dealing with it in ungodly ways. They see them caving to bitterness.

Something that my church has fostered pretty well (imperfectly, but we’re seeking it to foster it better) is being open with our struggles, but seeking to be faithful in the midst of them. So I have seen members of my church go through cancer diagnoses. I have seen them go through seeing their children walk away from the Lord. I have seen them go through infertility and miscarriages. 

And I know those things. I knew those things as a teenager because the members of my church asked for prayer. They talked to me.

Dannah: Nobody was putting on a mask of perfection.

Jaquelle: No masks, no airs!

Dannah: I feel like a mask of perfection is like the last accessory many people put on before they go out the door to go to church on Sunday morning. Why are we showing up for a Savior if we don’t need saving? I think that excites me, because that is one thing the generation is complaining about that needs to be fixed! 

We need to be more authentic. We need to be taking that mask of perfection off and saying, “This is why I need Jesus!” I always go to that verse in Revelation that says we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (see Revelation 12:11). And I pray that there’s always a testimony!

I don’t think I’m quite as carnal or as fleshly as I was when I was fifteen, but the Lord is revealing new sins and new areas where He wants to . . .

Nancy: It’s not just a thirty-year ago testimony, but a fresh one.

Dannah: Yes. Exactly. A fresh testimony. We need to be sharing our fresh testimonies in the church.

Again, Nancy and I were talking there to Jacquelle Crowe right before she added a new last name, Ferris. She mentioned the need for us to be authentic in our interactions with others as we share the gospel with them. 

So, what have we learned today? Well, the Lord can leverage the ordinary moments of life and home and friendships in His plan of reconciling lost people to Himself. But it’s going to take genuine love and authenticity. 

I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a great way to pray! “Lord, give me a heart for the lost!” Do you ever pray for yourself in that way?

I want to let you know about a resource we’d love to share with you that will help you pray the right kinds of prayers for yourself. It’s a prayer journal by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth called My Personal Petitions. She lists ten different requests that she often prays for herself, asking God to give her a heart for others is one of those petitions. 

This month, the My Personal Petitions Prayer Journal is our thank-you gift to you for your donation of any amount in support of Revive Our Hearts. There’s also a handy bookmark to go in your Bible or wherever you’d like to use it. That bookmark lists the ten personal petitions on it. 

To support Revive Our Hearts financially, just head to ReviveOurHearts.com/donate. And you’ll be able to request the prayer journal there. 

I want to let you know about a series Nancy will be starting this Wednesday on our daily program, Revive Our Hearts. She’s going to take a deeper dive into the life of a praying woman in the Old Testament. Her name is Hannah. That’s right, Samuel’s mother. Be sure to tune in to Revive Our Hearts this week.

And next week on our weekend program, we’ll explore how to navigate the difficult waters of infertility. That’s something Hannah dealt with, too! I hope you’ll join us for that. 

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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