Resources on How to Talk to Skeptical Friends About Things that Matter

Resources on
How to Talk to Skeptical Friends About Things that Matter

For Further Reading

	Telling the Gospel Through Story: Evangelism That Keeps Hearers Wanting More Christine DillonMy friend John G, a returning missionary from Asia, was once asked by his seminary, “What’s one thing you wish you’d learned from seminary that would have really helped your ministry?” John immediately replied, “How to tell the Gospel as story.” This is because 90% of the majority world are oral learners rather than literate ones. They prefer to learn from a story than from a book or lecture. But the astonishing thing is that 80% of the Western world is the same! For many of us, our preferred learning style is also from story. That means that one of the best ways to talk to our friends is through story. And one of the best resources for this is Christine Dillon’s StoryTelling the Gospel, and the accompanying website www.storyingthescriptures.com
	*Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People’s Hearts the Way Jesus Did* Randy NewmanThe art of conversation is not to talk, but to ask questions and listen. In a good conversation we actually do very little talking. That means, when we talk to our friends about things that matter, it’s rare that we get a chance to talk without interruptions. Instead, in order to talk to our friends, we need to learn the art of asking questions. Randy Newman’s Questioning Evangelism gives some guidelines on how to ask questions that will help our friends see the presuppositions behind their beliefs and expose the true question behind their questions.
	*Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World* Timothy KellerIn the last ten years, many of our non-believing friends no longer even know what it is that Christians believe. Their problems with the Christian faith isn’t that they have “defeater beliefs” (e.g., how can a loving God allow suffering?). Nor is their problem that they don’t know what to believe. They don’t even know why they would need to believe something as outrageous as the Christian God. Timothy Keller’s Making Sense of God helps our friends to see that much of what we believe as a priori truths—such as human rights, equality, justice, identity, purpose—can only be true if the Christian God exists. Thus, for both believers and non-believers alike, we need the Christian God to be true.
	Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism Timothy KellerSome of our non-believing friends, who are familiar with the Christian faith, will have “defeater beliefs” that stop them from believing in the Christian truth claims. For example, they might be asking, “How can a loving God send people to hell?” Or “Aren’t all religions the same?” In the first half of Timothy Keller’s Reason for God, Keller engages with these defeater beliefs and gently addresses them. In the second half of this book, Keller provides reasons for why the Christian claims (the resurrection, the reliability of the Bible, the person of Jesus, etc.) are trustworthy and should be believed.
	Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable Sam ChanThe methods for evangelism that once worked decades ago no longer seem as effective in the 21st century. My book, Evangelism in a Skeptical World, offers fresh suggestions for evangelism. It applies insights from missiology—cultural analysis, contextualization, story-telling—to evangelism. These methods have been field-tested in universities, high schools, conferences, and cafes. And they work. They get past the hearer’s sceptical posture so that they can seriously consider the good news of Jesus.
	Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense Francis SpuffordUnlike me, who is a Christian trying to become a writer, Francis Spufford is the opposite! He is a writer who became a Christian. Spufford was once an atheist, but he recently converted to the Christian faith. He writes Unapologetic to explain to his non-believing friends why he made this transition into faith. This is a helpful book because it gives insights into how someone might decide to become a Christian. It also gives insights into how someone might explain this to their skeptical friends.
	Saving Truth: Finding Meaning and Clarity in a Post-Truth World Abdu MurrayChristian and non-Christian views in the West seem further apart than ever before. So how can we bridge such separate worldviews? Abdu Murray’s Saving Truth helps us navigate this new post-Christian world. He explains how we’ve come to a post-truth society. He then shows how the Christian worldview is essential for the very things that our friends hold to be true—i.e., human dignity and freedom.