When I was in my early twenties, I served a full-time, 18-month Mormon mission to Bulgaria. Most of our time was spent knocking on doors, chasing people down in the park, and striking up awkward conversations on public transit. The vast majority of people ignored us. Some humored us. A few threatened us.
Every once in a very rare while, someone would engage us in conversation.
A Coffee Shop Encounter that Changed Nothing—And Everything
One of my most vivid memories is of talking to a woman at a coffee shop toward the end of my service (don’t worry, I was drinking juice, not coffee, which is forbidden in Mormonism). I have a pamphlet describing how the Book of Mormon came about. She has a pocket calendar of all the Orthodox Saints. We are showing them to one another.
She has no idea what I’m talking about. Golden plates in Upstate New York in the early 19th century? The words don’t even register.
I have no idea what she’s talking about. Who cares which Saint is celebrating his or her name day tomorrow? What even is a Saint, anyway?
We both wish each other a nice day.
As far as interfaith interactions go, it was relatively benign. Positive, even. Nobody yelled, punched, or burned anyone at the stake.
But neither did we come even remotely close to understanding one another. We were both so focused on our own religious agendas that we had no room to wonder what was going on for the other person.
Why did she believe what she believed? What were the experiences, heartbreaks, joys, and influences that brought her to faith? Was she raised Orthodox, worshipping surreptitiously under the surveillance of the Communist state, or did she find it later in life, after the Berlin Wall fell and religious observance opened up again?
I have no idea.
I didn’t ask her.
It never occurred to me to ask her.
Which is probably why I wasn’t a very successful Mormon missionary.
From Conversion to Conversations
These days, I serve again in an evangelism role. I’m back in my home state of Utah, this time as an ordained Lutheran minister, serving as pastor of mission and outreach for a lovely congregation in the southern part of the state.
But everything about my approach has changed.
I still occasionally encourage our folks to go door-to-door—but this time it’s to deliver cookies to our neighbors or to sing Christmas carols, not to convince them to let me share a message.
Most of the time, my role is simply to listen.
To listen to people’s stories without an agenda. To stop worrying about what I need to say in order to “convince” them of the doctrine of the Trinity or that Jesus rose bodily from the grave.
Many of the folks I talk to come out of a Mormon background, like me. They’ve been burned by church. They’re on high alert for anything that whiffs of pressure or coercion.
Which is why my only job is to let go of any desire to control the outcome and leave it entirely in God’s hands.
To show what unconditional love looks like by loving unconditionally. By praying for the people I’m talking to, not just for the words to say, but for the awareness of what not to say. To share the consolation I have received in Christ by being a presence of hope more than talking about hope.
This doesn’t mean I never have opportunities to speak. In my experience, listening well opens up depths of theological and spiritual conversations that would not have been possible otherwise.
My role is to trust God to lead these conversations and to give myself permission not to need to know the answer to every question or to consider my conversations a “success” only if it ends in a confession of faith or baptism.
(To be clear, since God is faithful, many will end up there anyway.)
The Spiritual Practice of Letting Go
This is easier said than done.
Most of us have agendas for each other. It’s human. We want to be validated in our worldviews. When we see people who have different sets of values, priorities, or beliefs, it can feel threatening.
But the call of Christian evangelism isn’t to argue people into faith. It’s to be so deeply rooted in the love of God that we can let go of the need to control.
I’m not sure of any way to do this but by deep prayer and self-reflection.
To confess to God and—better yet—to trusted friends when we find ourselves trying to take over the Holy Spirit’s job.
Listening, really listening, is not for the faint of heart. It is a practice of radical trust that God will keep His promises.
And it’s a practice of discipleship when we teach our people to do the same.
In the mainline churches, many of us struggle to “share” our faith. But when we equip those we serve to think of evangelism as listening more than sharing, and of being present more than presentations, then the depth of relationship will naturally lead to connections, conversations—and, yes, conversions—in God’s own time.
