Guest Author - Diana Pederson

Elisa Morgan. Twinkle. Revell. 2006.

Sharing our faith is one of the most difficult things we do as Christians. Most of us have a million and one excuses for why we don’t tell “whoever” about Jesus Christ. This book will help you learn to share your faith in a very natural way.

Twinkle is divided into two parts. The first part deals with all those excuses. For example, the “I can’t; I might fail excuse.” The author reminds you that evangelism isn’t up to us. She compares our role in evangelism to holding just one candle in a church’s candlelight service. We are not responsible for the entire light—just our little candle. That’s all that God asks of us—keep our light shining for others to see.

This book is basically about a relationship way of evangelism. We are each to share our little experience with Christ. It is up to God to determine the final results—not US! Therefore, we can’t fail.

Recommdation

This book is guaranteed to get you thinking. It challenged me to realize what my role in evangelism is. I’m basically homebound due to physical problems. My role in serving Christ’s kingdom is to occasionally assist my pastor in wording his sermons and other communications, and evaluating the impact of his sermons. I also review Christian books. Perhaps one of my reviews will help someone find a book that helps them resolve a problem or seek a deeper, fuller relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pick up this book. Read it. Think about it. What is your role in reaching others for Christ? You’re only responsible for a small part of the process that eventually leads someone to the Lord for salvation.

William Carr Peel, TH. M, and Walt Larimore, M.D. Going Public with Your Faith. Zondervan. 2003.

While reading this book, I was struck by a problem that sometimes happens with Christians at work. They get so busy trying to share Christ with others and meeting spiritual needs that they fail to do their own jobs. What is the consequence? They get fired. These same people are often quick to complain about discrimination against Christians in the workplace. They seldom see that their poor quality of work got them fired – not sharing their faith.

My Bible teaches that we are to do EVERYTHING as unto the Lord. To me, this means we must do the jobs we have as though they were being done for the Lord Himself. Christians must be careful in how they handle witnessing on the job. It must not interfere with getting your job done in a way that pleases your boss and honors the Lord.

On the other hand, we are to keep our ears open for those “God moments” presented us. Perhaps just a gentle suggestion to a coworker or a kind word will help include their ears towards what you have to say about Jesus as Savior. Could you offer to pray with a coworker over their health problems or problems with their children, marriage or anything else? This can usually be done in an inoffensive way.

Recommendation

This book will give every Christian much food for thought. It also suggests some practical ways to share your faith at work. The book does not suggest Christians become so obsessed with sharing their faith that they fail to do their job. I wish I had owned this book when I still worked at Michigan State University. Perhaps I would have seen more ways to share my faith.