The Table Briefing: Men And Women Working Together In Ministry

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is cultural engagement project manager.]

I had a woman come into my office and plop down almost in tears.” Sue Edwards, a professor of Christian education at Dallas Theological Seminary, turned her attention to the young graduate student. The woman explained, “I was just in the elevator, and a gentleman walked on. I said to him, ‘Good morning.’ And he said, ‘I can’t talk to you. I’m married.’ ”

While this response may seem extreme, this woman’s story highlights the extent to which dysfunctional views of male and female interaction still exist in the Christian community, and it serves as a reminder that the church must recognize the importance of training men and women to serve in biblical roles together.

In this Table Briefing, we share a few highlights from a series of conversations about Christian brothers and sisters serving together. How can men and women develop healthy relationships in ministry? How can men better partner with women in ministry? How can women better partner with men in service of the church?

How Can Men And Women Develop Healthy Relationships In Ministry?

In order to better develop healthy relationships in the church, Christian men and women must relate to each other as equal spiritual members of God’s family. In a Table series called “Mixed Ministry:

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,” Edwards explained the importance of the familial language used in 1 Timothy 5:1-2 (NET): “Do not address an older man harshly but appeal to him as a father. Speak to younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters—with complete purity.” As the story of the woman in the elevator shows, these healthy relationships between men and women are not yet pervasive in the Christian community.

Edwards: [The woman in the elevator] was so taken aback [by the man’s statement] that she hardly knew how to respond. She told me, “I wasn’t flirting. I had no desire in any way. I wasn’t approaching, I was just being pleasant.” And yet she felt like, “I can’t even have a conversation with this person who I want to see as my brother.” That’s one of the things [Kelley Matthews, Henry Rogers, and I] say in the book.[1] . . . If we can begin to see each other in our heads as brother and sister, [like] we have biological brothers and sisters, . . . we have no sexual temptation, if we’re healthy toward them, at all.

We can learn to do this, and yet [some men] tend to look at all women . . . as temptresses, as people that [they] can’t go near, can’t talk to. That man in that elevator? He’s not going to be the kind of [pastor] who will have a woman on his [church] staff, which could very well mean that his whole church will look like a single parent family. Strong male, no mother there, no woman to bring in that we’re all created in the image of God. It’s both male and female that bring the beauty of that [image] together.

Perhaps some of these attitudes reveal the way that certain conceptions of leadership and servanthood have confused men and women about how to perceive each other’s roles in the church.

While much popular culture tends to view hierarchy between men and women only in terms of power and rank, Scripture gives an additional perspective that allows the whole Christian community to flourish. That is, one’s motive must be to serve sacrificially out of love for the other person, not to exert power over others. For example, Paul taught that the husband should be the head of his wife, but this kind of headship must follow the model of Christ, who lovingly and sacrificially gave himself for the church (Eph. 5:25-33). Bock and Edwards discuss how Jesus framed the way believers must approach the idea of rank and power:

Bock: Jesus redefines the way we think about rank in such a way that rank itself is redefined. The amazing thing about it is that when Jesus talks about this directly he says things like, “You’re not to lead the way the world leads, where the person in charge holds it over the people around them.” No. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” So you get these examples that show . . . the way in which [men and women] can encourage one another, edify one another, serve one another, lock arms with one another, and engage in ministry and mission together. . . . It’s simply ministering out of biblical standards and out of biblical concerns that affirm the value of the whole of the body.

Edwards: Yes, and I don’t want it to be an agenda with an edge, but I do think it’s worthy of intentionality on the part of men. I think an awful lot of these attitudes are because men grew up with their mentors in an age when this seemed to be the right thing to do and they listened [to these] men they respected. And so to look at something differently is very difficult for them.

Bock: The change in ministry over thirty years has changed the game. It really has. Because now there are a series of ministries in which women are alongside [men]. They are brought onto the staff. Thirty to thirty-five years ago that would have not necessarily been the case. . . . Now we have invited women into ministry and have said, “We want you to partner alongside of us. We recognize the value of this.”

But when you do that with the older structures in place [sometimes] you end up having this awkward kind of half and half thing [where men’s actions seem to say], “We’re going to invite you on the staff, but we really want you to be quiet.” That just doesn’t work. So there are tons of situations that I see regularly in the context of ministry where I think, “Not only am I glad [that] women are ministering alongside of me, but it’s almost necessary that they be there because there are certain ministries that they have and certain capabilities and certain sensitivities that they have that I won’t have and that I can’t have. I need them alongside me. I don’t need them merely as a presence. I need them as a voice.”

Edwards: Yes.

Bock: And so getting beyond any kind of tokenism and actually engaging directly and affirming, “We’re very much in ministry together, and I value what it is you bring to the table, and in fact in some cases I’m going to ask you to take responsibility for what is going on.”

Edwards: Yes, and when that occurs I can assure you [that] women are so grateful, because women feel a call to serve just like men do. [There are] opportunities to [serve, but] the men are the ones who can open the doors.

Indeed, men must intentionally seek to develop healthy relationships with women in the church, seeing them as sisters in Christ who are full, participating members of the community.

How Men Can Better Partner With Women In Ministry

Here are three points that came out of recent conversations at the Hendricks Center: First, men can encourage women to develop their giftedness in serving the church. Second, men can share ministry responsibilities with women. Third, men can recognize the diverse nature of callings God gives women and see that there are many roles where a woman has much to offer to the church.

Encourage Women To Develop Their Giftedness

On an episode of the Table called “Challenges Facing Young Women in Ministry,” Bock sat down with his daughter, Elisa Laird, and two members of the Hendricks Center staff, Heather Zimmerman and Kymberli Cook, to discuss their experiences in ministry. A key theme arising from each woman’s story was the need for men to be advocates—for senior pastors, professors, and other men in leadership to speak for women in ministry and those who need encouragement to serve the church in a variety of appropriate capacities.

Zimmerman: My pastor meets with DTS students and anyone going into ministry on a weekly basis. . . . The first time I came, I was the only girl, and they were just talking about pastors’ concerns. And I said, “This is cool, but I don’t really plan on being a senior pastor.” That day, I got home and there was an email waiting for me saying, “Hey, we need you here. We’d love to have you here.” And so it’s surprising how God has used men in very positive ways to invest in me, to believe in me. My preaching professor at Moody [Bible Institute] took me aside and really coached me. I’ve had some really positive experiences when people actually take the time . . . to invest. Their investment gives me credibility, as well.

Bock: So you need to be able to trust the church to help you see the space that’s possible. Sometimes we do build our boxes so narrowly [that] there’s next to nothing that a woman can do. Well, in fact, there’s tons that a woman can do in the church, and should be doing, is gifted to do, and should be encouraged to do. [We want] to say to churches, “Think through the rich well of resources that you have available in your communities when you give women permission to function in relationship to their giftedness.” When you work that through biblically, the possibilities are actually quite open, and there’s lots of potential to go in lots of directions with it.

Cook: The encouragement of it has been huge for me. I’m shy. It’s taken several male leadership voices saying, “You should do this. You should do this. Here’s the opportunity. Get up there.” It’s not just, “Okay. Well, you go do whatever you’re going to do.” It’s investing in [women] and making them do stuff that might be outside of their comfort zone.

Bock: Yeah. There’s some encouragement involved here that I think is extremely important and is something that helps the church to grow and to see how to function as a body and to take advantage of the gifts that are available and to do so in ways that are honoring. . . . What’s the one thing you would say to churches about being a young woman in ministry?

Laird: Create a mentorship or leadership pathway, and be specific and intentional with it. We’ve actually started something like this at [my church]. And it’s been really cool to watch, whether it’s women mentoring women or men mentoring women. . . . There’s value in speaking truth over young women and saying, “I see this [gifting] in you, and I see this [gifting] in you now.” Because it’s a time of life where there are a lot of other things competing for [your attention].

Bock: Creating that space is important. That’s why we’ve done the podcast, to make people alert, to encourage them, and to have ministries think about what the possibilities are with young women, because the possibilities literally are endless.

Edwards puts a similar value on mentorship and the need for male advocates. She cites her own experience of joining the faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary and encourages men to take the lead on ensuring the entire church—men and women—serves together in biblical ways.

Edwards: There are a number of men who champion women, . . . but when it comes to actually standing up for women with their brothers, many of them are silent. I can be an advocate for another person so much better than I can be an advocate for myself.

Bock: Right, because it looks defensive.

Edwards: It looks defensive. It looks like I’m coming because of something for myself, and [men standing up for women will] make the difference. I’m here at Dallas Theological Seminary because Mike Lawson decided that it would be a healthy thing to have a woman on his full-time faculty staff and have her partner with male colleagues in the classroom, create courses together, minister to students, [and have students see male and female faculty members working together] in the classroom.

Men can better partner with women in the church by advocating for their inclusion in ministry. Male leadership done well includes encouraging women to develop their giftedness by serving the church because sharing ministry responsibility is rooted in the way God designed men and women to complement each other and work together for his glory.

Share Ministry Responsibility

Consider God’s design as revealed in Genesis. Eve’s role as Adam’s helper did not in any way diminish her giftedness or reduce her status as a human being made in the image of God. The Lord himself is described as the helper of Israel (Deut. 33:7; Ps. 33:20). Even from a position of submission, Eve was to work hand in hand with Adam. They were to be one, a team that worked together side by side. It is the oneness that the text in Genesis 1 highlights. The beauty of both genders working together is a unity that Gary Barnes calls a “oneness that is not based on sameness.”[2] Rather, this unity is based on a common goal: Fulfilling a divine calling to work together for the glory of God.

That being the case, why are some churches hesitant to allow women opportunities to serve in biblical ways? We all know that conversations, even debates, surround the biblical teaching on female leadership in the church across evangelical groups. Yet, Edwards notes, disallowing women from most forms of service can result in frustration and division, and it ultimately hinders the work of the church.

Edwards: [Women in] positions that some men would say are exclusively for men, for example a seminary professor or a leader on a church staff—not a senior pastor—aren’t exceptional. . . . We have just been given the opportunities [by men], and there would be millions of women like this if they were given the opportunity.

[Many women] are very frustrated. . . . Either they walk away from the church altogether or they use their gifts in the secular arena or in a parachurch kind of place. . . . My husband uses this analogy. We’re in a canoe and the canoe is going down and everybody needs to bail [water]. The water is coming in, but the guy in the front says, “Okay, all women sit there with your hands folded. We will bail.”

Bock: “We’ll take care of it.”

Edwards: “We’ll take care of it.” And you’re thinking, “We’re going down. Everybody needs to be on board and bail.” And yet over some of these kinds of issues, the infighting and the backbiting and some of the stuff that goes on happen partly because in many places they never even address the issue. So women just don’t have a clue where they stand, and that shuts them down. We understand it’s controversial. It is controversial, but this affects six out of ten of our people in the church.

Bock: Well, it actually affects ten out of ten, because how we interact with women and how we model it actually impacts the way men think about it and approach it. . . . Everybody really engages with this.

In short, the church needs substantive female participation in its ranks. While many are willing to serve, it helps when men invite the dialogue and let women know that they are being heard. Recognizing the diversity of the church body includes recognizing the diverse gifts and callings that women have. When men advocate for women who use their gifting in biblical ways at church, the whole body flourishes.

Recognize The Diversity Of Callings Women Have

Just as God calls different men to a variety of ministries, so he calls different women to a variety of ministries. While this may seem obvious, many women report feeling stereotyped in the church. Perhaps this is because the picture of female service held up by many in the Christian community over the last thirty years has inadvertently focused on a very narrow category of gifting. This has affected young women growing up in the church who may find it more difficult to follow the Lord’s leading in their lives due to their past experiences. Consider the tension revealed in this excerpt from our conversation on the challenges facing young women in the church:

Laird: I want to be obedient to my calling. I want to follow where God is leading me. . . . On the one hand, I don’t want to just push on ahead because I feel like, “I am female, and I can do anything and everything that a guy can do,” because that’s not necessarily what God’s calling me to. But I also don’t want to be disobedient in the sense of saying, “Well, traditionally, that’s a guy’s role, so I shouldn’t even consider that. That’s off the table.” But there’s a process of working through what [my calling] is and wanting to be obedient to Scripture.

Sometimes it means turning to a female mentor, or other mentors, too, and unpacking what that looks like. Sometimes it means doing a little bit more research, and getting into the Word and saying, “Okay, God. This is the direction I feel like you’re leading me in. Help me to be obedient with that, whatever that looks like, not because I have an ax to grind or have an agenda, but because this is truly what you’re calling me to.”

I think the biggest thing I would say that makes it hard, whether it’s a seminary or a ministry perspective, is when people are sitting there looking at you, saying, “Hey, you’re a woman. This is not open to you,” [but] you feel called to it, and you feel equipped, and you feel created to do something. It becomes extremely personal. It’s hard for me to separate the two at times. And it becomes hard, in those conflicted moments, to communicate clearly, “You may think this is a doctrinal statement or a philosophical debate. But for me, what you’re saying is, ‘The way God wired you and the way God equipped you—it’s not okay for you to actually act on it.’ ”

Cook: In the church.

Laird: In the church, at least.

Zimmerman: I’ve had times like that, too. And it’s hard [when] you genuinely want to do what God wants, and you’re not looking to disregard Scripture. But then, like you say, God’s wired you and equipped you. And I’ve sat in a church before, a large church. And it hit me that [when I complete my Master of Theology degree at DTS] I will have higher education than everyone in the church except for the senior pastor. And I’m not looking to overthrow the senior pastor, but I was thinking, “Is there a place in this church for me? Is there a place for me to be used? Not even [in a] paid position, . . . but to be used in my gifting?”

Bock: Yeah. I think it’s a real serious tension. And everybody has to negotiate it because the space that you’re talking about is not something you end up creating for yourself. It’s something that the church has to give you in order for it to work. And so it can be a real serious challenge for everybody involved, particularly in communities where there may not be agreement on what it is that a woman can or can’t do. . . . People have expectations about what a woman can and can’t do. And their expectations are actually pretty narrow.

Laird: Correct. There’s this defined little box that you have to fit in. We’re not all Beth Moores. We’re not all these different women that you see teaching. And there’s nothing wrong with them. They have completely amazing ministries, and they’ve changed ministry in so many ways. . . . [But] I feel like when you walk into a room there’s an expectation already on you. This fall, for the first time, I taught women [rather than children, where I usually serve]. I’ve never done that. I would have told you before I got asked, “I would never do that.” [I would say to myself,] “What do you have to say to these women? Because they’re going to look at you like, ‘I can’t relate to her.’ ”

But it was a completely different situation. In fact, it was really amazing. And it opened my eyes to the fact that maybe my box was too small and that I’m not necessarily giving our [local church] body enough credit for the fact that they’re willing to listen to many different types of voices. And maybe that’s part of what’s been a shift in culture. I don’t know if that would have flown ten or twenty years ago. But at least now, I think part of it is the move to challenge our young women to step out in faith and encourage them to be willing to put themselves out there [in a teaching capacity].

To better work with women in ministry, then, men must combat the tendency to stereotype the kinds of ministries to which God calls women. Rather than assume that women only can care for children, provide hospitality, or teach the young, men must help women discover their giftedness as well as encourage and empower them to obey God’s calling to serve in a variety of capacities in the church. On the one hand, men need to better partner with women in ministry for the church to flourish. On the other hand, women need to better partner with men as well. How can women do this?

How Women Can Better Partner With Men In Ministry

Three key ideas emerged from conversations on how Christian women can better partner with their brothers in Christ to serve the church: First, women can be more gracious. Second, women can complement the ministries of men. Third, women can be faithful to the callings God has placed on their hearts.

Be More Gracious

Over the past thirty years, Edwards has seen countless women who have been emotionally wounded seek power in unhealthy ways—even in the church. She suggests that women must intentionally strive to be more gracious, resolving conflicts in accordance with Scripture. Bock and Edwards discussed how bitterness destroys relationships between men and women.

Edwards: What I [tell] women is not to harbor a bitter spirit, not to have an agenda or get this edge in which you’re so wounded that you become mean-spirited and aggressive. Then it’s counter-productive.

Bock: It also can create this—I’m going to put two words together that don’t often go together—but this kind of hostile timidity that is actually very, very unhealthy.

Edwards: Yes. It’s a poison. It’s not healthy. If they’re married, they end up sabotaging their marriage. They end up not parenting in healthy ways. They end up sabotaging [relationships] at church. . . . I try to teach women to rid themselves of this passive-aggressive kind of way that women interact. [They say,] “I can’t have power, so I’m going to go behind the scenes. I’m going to manipulate. I’m going to gossip. I’m going to create factions.” Women are seeking power in unhealthy ways, [but] we don’t get a pass on Matthew 18—which tells us how to interact with people when there’s difficulty—just because we’re female.

Bock: Right.

Edwards: All of us are called to the fruit of the Spirit—to treat each other as people made in the image of God. The Holy Spirit is within each of us. I think [the problems with bitterness] are changing with our younger generations, but there’s a lot of work to do. I work with women to help them not become bitter and mean-spirited and poisonous and unkind. We have too many women that are like that.

Recognizing that there are differences in how various generations of women have experienced working with men over the past decades, the church must work toward generational understanding. On the one hand, the church should help older women understand the experiences of younger women. On the other hand, the church should also help younger women understand the history of mixed ministry and the experiences of older women—including the reasons behind their approaches to interacting with men and the emotional baggage some women may still harbor. Both men and women need to be more gracious, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit in their biblical roles in ministry.

Although the church may have contributed to misunderstandings, a supportive community of believers is key to helping men and women more effectively minister together. In such a community, gracious women complement, rather than compete with, the ministries of men in the church.

Complement The Ministries Of Men In The Church

Luke 8:1-3 records how a group of women traveled with Jesus and his disciples, partnering with them in ministry—something uncommon in their first-century Jewish context. Jesus and the early church elevated the status of women in part by allowing them to minister alongside the men in the Christian community. These women advanced God’s kingdom through their resources.

Today, Edwards notes, “There are still churches where women are looked at in a rather suspicious way as temptresses, . . . but in many places it’s become much healthier.” As American churches mobilize women for ministry, institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary are seeing an increase in the number of female students. Bock and Edwards discuss her approach to equipping female seminary students for ministry, revealing how women complement, rather than compete with, their brothers in the church.

Bock: What kinds of things are you emphasizing as [female seminary students] think about ministry, and how are you preparing them for this shift that’s taken place?

Edwards: We look at all the various issues related to women: How women learn, how women lead, how to work with men, how to help men see that we’re not here to compete. We’re here to complement. We have that male pastor’s back. We want him to be the finest Christian man, pastor, father, husband.

We’re there to protect him in some ways. There are [unhealthy] women that he probably does need to protect himself from. But there are a lot of us [for whom] that’s not the case at all. So we help come alongside [and minister] to those [unhealthy] women instead of him trying to do it.

[The church has been] so fearful of working with qualified, godly, called women that we end up putting men in places where they’re the ones ministering to unhealthy women, and I think that’s caused a lot of moral downfall. . . . I talk with the men about how wise it is to partner with what we call a “Titus 2 woman,” who’s called, who has his back, who’s mature.

The younger women today are clamoring. They don’t want fluff the way women’s ministry has looked in churches so often. . . . We need ministries that teach them sound doctrine, sound theology, that are missional. You get them serving, not just [having] head knowledge. There are so many aspects of helping women minister to women and then to children and then in some capacities to the congregation at large, wherever the leadership says that is appropriate.

God has designed men and women to complement each other in a variety of contexts, including the church. The kinds of partnerships Edwards suggests can greatly assist the church in its mission, modeling God’s design for both men and women to serve side by side in ministry. When done in a biblical way, the ministries of women in the church do not threaten the ministries of men. Rather, they beautifully complement them. In pursuing these kinds of ministries, women can fully embrace the diverse callings God has placed on their hearts.

Be Faithful To God’s Calling

While men can attempt to more intentionally pursue a woman’s perspective and recognize her contribution, some women struggle with balancing assertiveness and humility in ministry. Some tend to overly downplay their giftedness. Others are serving the Lord amidst insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. This might mean questioning a calling to speak, write, get published, or lead a ministry. Edwards notes how these things can lead some into an unhealthy form of self-deprecation, devaluing themselves and questioning the calling God has given them to serve:

Edwards: Women shut themselves down a lot. . . . We don’t want to come across as aggressive, as going against what Christ would teach. We want to do what the Bible says that we are to do. . . . Godly women want to contribute, . . . but we tend to be our own worst enemy. [We] look down on ourselves.

If [a woman] does poorly, [she says] “I’m stupid. I’m not capable.” I don’t know if this sociologically occurs because we [were raised a certain way] or if it’s really something within us that [makes us] tend to come down on ourselves more. [We need to] help women realize that God has gifted them. A lot of women think, “If I develop myself, someone else loses.” It’s a crazy way of thinking, but women tend to think that way.

Christian women have important things to say. This is why they must be on guard against the temptation to devalue themselves in ministry. Their ideas and experiences are worth sharing with men, women, children, and the church community as a whole. Each one of us must obediently pursue the callings God has placed on our heart and develop our giftedness for his glory.

Conclusion

Perhaps only a few can relate to the extreme experience of the woman in the elevator. Still, dysfunctional views of what constitutes appropriate male and female interaction can linger in the church. This is why open conversations between men and women about serving together are key to developing healthy ministry relationships. Men and women must relate to each other as spiritual members of God’s family. On the one hand, Christian brothers can better partner with their sisters by encouraging them to develop their giftedness, sharing responsibility in ministry, and recognizing the diversity of callings women have. On the other hand, Christian sisters can better partner with their brothers by being gracious to men, complementing their ministries, and staying faithful to God’s calling in their own lives.

Notes

1. Sue Edwards, Kelley Matthews, and Henry J. Rogers, Mixed Ministry: Working Together as Brothers and Sisters in an Oversexed Society (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008).
2. Darrell L. Bock, Gary Barnes, and Debby Wade, “A Biblical View of Sexual Intimacy,” The Table Podcast (video podcast), July 29, 2014, accessed November 28, 2016, http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/biblical-view-sexual-intimacy.

The Table Briefing: Engaging The LGBT Community With Truth And Love

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is cultural engagement assistant.]

Because they are afraid of being misunderstood, many people struggle to relate to others who see moral issues differently. This fear makes some Christians hesitant to engage people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. How do we maintain our convictions without ambiguity while obeying what Jesus described as the second greatest commandment—to love our neighbors as we love ourselves? How can we engage the LGBT community with truth and love?

In this Table Briefing, we consider the tension that arises in engaging with LGBT people, the difference between acceptance and approval, and how to challenge people well. We focus on the relational aspect of conversations with the LGBT community.

Tensions In Engagement

The church has been slow to engage the LGBT community. In many congregations, an unhealthy bifurcation between those who regularly attend church and those who do not has fueled a culture-war mentality that tends to drive people away. At a cultural engagement chapel on engaging with LGBT persons, Mark Yarhouse and Gary Barnes joined Darrell Bock to discuss the root of this mentality and a biblical starting point for humble engagement.

Yarhouse: I think there is an “us-them” mentality, that they’re all out there and we’re sort of hunkered down within our churches. And it lets us have an in-group and an out-group. It serves the culture war [mentality] because “they” are taking strides to damage things that are sacred to us . . . whether that’s around marriage or other issues . . . . That whole dynamic assumes that there are no people within our own churches who are dealing with this issue.

And when you say, “Homosexuality is a sin,” it’s not that theologically it’s incorrect to talk about homosexual behavior as sin. But when you use language that we often use from the pulpit, it actually intensifies and increases the shame the person in the pew feels, and it’s more likely to drive them away from the church. . . . Why would they stay with the church when the church doesn’t even know how to engage and talk with them and love them well?

Bock: I actually think that the cross is a great leveler: We all have the same needs before God. We may have different areas, but we all have the same core needs. We all stand in the same position of needing God’s grace. . . . We’re all stuck in Romans 3 to a certain degree: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But what we gain in our relationship with God, we gain because he gives us and supplies us with what we need that we can’t garner for ourselves, that we don’t earn . . . . It’s something that we’re gifted with . . . , that levels out the playing field. That’s not “us and them.” It’s all of us together sharing the same need for God and what he has to provide.

Barnes: [The cross] is a good leveler, but if you really have great theology and go deeper with that, the cross is also a model and a motivator. Think about Romans 15:7, “Receive others as you have been received by Christ.” So how was I received by Christ? When I was different from him, even alienated from him, he took the initiative at extreme cost to himself to move toward me. It wasn’t me moving toward him. It wasn’t me getting to a place where he could move toward me.

Paul’s words are convicting and instructive in this conversation. Every human is born with the tendency to rebel against God in many areas of life. Reflecting on the atonement brings a humble recognition that everyone—including us—needs God’s grace and forgiveness. This realization can help believers develop sensitivity and lower communication barriers. Still, many in the church struggle with offering grace and truth, especially in this area. How does one love neighbors and hold Christian convictions?

Distinguishing Acceptance And Approval

When it comes to the same-sex conversation, believers often feel a tension between acceptance and approval. For example, some wonder, “Will I be compromising my stance on biblical sexuality by being accepting toward my gay neighbors?” Caleb Kaltenbach, who grew up immersed in the LGBT community and is now the lead pastor of Discovery Church in Simi Valley, California, joined Darrell Bock on a Table Podcast called “Grace and Truth in LGBT Engagement” to help distinguish acceptance from approval and explain his church’s culture of inclusivity:

Kaltenbach: There is a difference between acceptance and approval. I believe that we are called to accept everybody as an individual. That does not mean we approve of every life choice that somebody makes.

Especially parents of teenagers who come out . . . , Christian parents, or really any parents who may not agree with the choice to be in a same-sex relationship, would have a problem with that. So they believe, “Okay, if I accept my child, that means that I’m approving.”

My point is “No.” Every Sunday, anybody should be able to walk through my church doors when I preach and attend our church. I already know that I shake hands every Sunday with people who made life choices that week that I wouldn’t approve of. But that doesn’t mean that I accept them any less.

Our church really focuses on trying to be a church where you can belong before you believe, for lack of a better word. [I’m] not saying that we integrate people into the body of Christ without salvation. But we give people a chance to be a part of our community. And that’s where we really try to live out that acceptance versus approval.

If we are going to call people, eventually when they follow Christ, to primarily identify with the church community and not the LGBT community, we had better have them comfortable and ready to primarily identify [with the church], because I don’t think many people will leave one community if they don’t have another one to walk into.

There’s a real tension between acceptance and approval. There’s a tension between grace and truth. We have to own the fact that it isn’t our job to change somebody’s sexual orientation. It is our job to speak the truth into people’s lives.

We need to understand people from their perspective. If a missionary goes overseas to share the gospel with a particular culture, they have to do contextualization. They have to learn culture. They have to engage culture—not as a means to water down the gospel, but . . . to use culture as a vessel to share the gospel, to communicate it. . . . a lot of Christians are not, for one reason or another, willing to do that when it comes to certain people, including the LGBT community.

Bock: I like to make the distinction between [respecting] every person because every person’s made in the image of God. That’s the acceptance part. Approval has to do with signing off on everything that they do or say. That’s distinct. So, being able to keep that in place is important.

The other way I like to talk about this tension is that there’s a moral challenge for the way God calls people to live in the standards that he displays. [That is]: “The most efficient, effective, authentic way to live is to live this way.”

But you’ve got people who live differently. And the problem is that the people you want to challenge with those standards are the very people you want to invite into a new experience with God, which is the solution. So if you wall them off from going there, you’ve actually cut yourself off from the solution.

The tension between acceptance and approval—grace and truth—must be viewed in light of our role as ambassadors of Christ. As his representatives in the world, believers must develop the ability to see things from another person’s perspective and help people understand the gospel in their cultural context. While the church can never approve of sin, the ethos of accepting all people and loving them well mirrors Jesus’s example of both challenging people with truth and compassionately serving them. How can Christians navigate the tension of relating well to people while simultaneously holding biblical principles without compromise?

Engaging With Convicted Civility

Yarhouse explains the importance of a concept some call “convicted civility,” focusing on the relational aspect of cultural engagement in the context of conversations with LBGT persons.

Yarhouse: We have far too many Christians who are strong on convictions, but you wouldn’t really want them to represent you in any public way because . . . they do it [in a way that is] not very civil in its engagement and loving and caring for the other person. Then you have Christians who are so civil, so loving, so caring, that you have no idea what they stand for.

What does it mean to hold conviction on the one hand and civility on the other? Yarhouse explains what this can look like by sharing a story about a day he invited a protester to his presentation on sexuality. This remarkable meeting broke down stereotypes and led to meaningful conversation:

Yarhouse: I was making a presentation . . . and a local activist who would identify himself as a gay activist contacted our university and said, “I’m going to [be in attendance].” He did a YouTube video and he called for all of his gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other friends to come and just sit in the front couple rows and stare this “son of a gun” down . . . , so I invited them to come. [I thought], “He’s coming anyway, protesting me!” So I invited him to come and meet me and meet my students, and sure enough, they sat down in the front rows and stared at me as I was presenting.

But I talked with him afterwards. He made a video afterwards and said, “You know, I didn’t agree with everything this guy said, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.” And I’ve got to tell you, he was just eviscerated by people within the gay community who felt like he should’ve been tougher on me.

One of the guys who came to protest me, I went out for coffee with him a few times, and he shared [that] he was raised in a Christian home. He talked about his upbringing. He said, “Look, I thought when I met you that you were going to have smoke coming out of your nostrils and horns on your head. That’s the way you were depicted to me, and yet here we are having coffee and talking about this.”

The protestor in this case received more pushback from his gay friends than he did from a Christian community that embraced him. Yarhouse noted, “That gave him pause. . . . That’s part of what convicted civility does. It’s really relational. But it’s not like I changed my theological position in interacting with these folks.”

Indeed, relating to people on the basis of love may cause those who disagree with us on moral issues to stop and listen. Some may come to recognize that Christians with an extended hand offer something more than the mere tolerance and agreement the world demands. They offer that which is truly needed: the love of Christ.

Practical Advice On Engagement

How can Christians effectively engage the LGBT community with grace and truth? Consider these three practical tips:

1. Develop Compassion For LGBT People

The Scriptures reveal God’s compassion for hurting people. For example, the Gospels show God’s compassion in his saving and forgiving sinners (Matt. 18:27; Luke 15:20). Further, compassion was a key motivation for Jesus’s healing ministry. He even told a story about a Samaritan’s radical compassion for a wounded man, challenging an expert in Jewish law to have compassion on neighbors who were different from him (Luke 10:33-37).

Christians must develop loving compassion for LGBT people, especially in light of the negative experiences many have had with the church. Kaltenbach shares a sad story about how stereotypes can be formed when believers fall short of the biblical standard for cultural engagement.

Kaltenbach: When I was two, my parents divorced, and both of them came out of the closet. . . . In elementary school and preschool, [my mother] took me with her to gay parties and clubs and campouts and events. I even marched in gay pride parades. I remember at the end of one of these pride parades—and again, this is in the 1980s—there were all these Christians holding up signs saying, “God hates you. Go away. Turn or burn.” And if that wasn’t offensive enough, they were spraying water and urine on people.

And I remember looking at my mom, and I said, “Mom, why are they acting like that?” She said, “Well, Caleb, they’re Christians. And Christians hate gay people. Christians don’t like people that are not like them.”

I just saw this reinforced in so many different ways that I describe in [my] book . . . families ended up alienating their sons who had AIDS. We watched people in my mom’s community die of that. We watched Christian parents alienate them.

Christians must also develop loving compassion for their fellow brothers and sisters who struggle with same-sex attraction. Yarhouse shares one scenario that especially helps married Christians consider the experience of those in the church who commit to celibacy for the sake of Christ in this context:

Yarhouse: You have a young person in the church dealing with [same-sex attraction] saying, “You know, you get to go home to your spouse. You get to live this [dream] out. You’re with your best friend.” And I don’t even think most of us appreciate what they’re giving up or what they’re saying “no” to [in order] to be faithful to God.

Most of us get a pass in our churches for the things that we deal with. It’s not that our church teaches that what we struggle with is not sin, but we really get a pass when we struggle with our own stuff because we do it privately or we say, “Well, guys are guys,” or whatever.

Bock: We certainly act differently toward it. We certainly seem to have created a ranking where there are the “super sins,” you know, the sins on steroids, and then there’s the other stuff. And as long as you’re in the “other stuff” category, you’re okay. But if you commit one of the super sins, then you’re marked out. So that’s a huge sociological mentality that you’re dealing with that’s actually in need of some change.

2. Avoid Focusing Primarily On Sexuality

When people share deep thoughts on life and God, it provides a window into their souls. This is why listening is a key starting point to engaging someone as a person created in the image of God, rather than as one primarily characterized by sexuality. Indeed, beginning to understand spiritual motivations and the things that drive a person’s life allows for more meaningful interaction. Kaltenbach highlights the importance of engaging an LGBT person as a person rather than as an LGBT person. He explains:

Kaltenbach: The biggest cultural issue that we have in our society today—and maybe [that] we always have had—is the issue of identity. That’s why we have Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner, and that’s why we have the leader of the Northwest NAACP who was Caucasian, but she still says she identifies as African-American.

And you see this play out when conservative or evangelical Christians deal with the LGBT community. So, let’s say that there’s a guy named Joe, and Joe is in his workplace, and he knows that somebody he works with is gay. He thinks it’s his job to share [Leviticus and Romans 1] with that individual.

And the person on the receiving end, who’s gay, says, “You just reduced me to my sexual orientation. That which you tell me I shouldn’t do, you’ve just done. And you think that this is all that I’m about, when maybe intimacy is really the smallest [or] one of the smaller ways I identify as LGBT. You haven’t taken time to get to know me, my experiences, my hurts, my pains.” And they walk away hurt.

And I think that a better way to do it is Jesus’s way, spending time with people, having deep convictions about theology, but also having deep relationships, getting to know the whole person and helping them to primarily identify with Jesus. And as Jesus starts driving all the domains of their life, I believe that it’s within the context of trust and relationship that we can have difficult conversations about holy living.

After this conversation, Darrell Bock talked with David Bennett, a former gay rights activist who is now committed to celibacy for the sake of faithfulness to Christ and who believes homosexual behavior is sin. On a Table Podcast called “The Same-Sex Attracted Christian,” Bennett explained how authentic relationships were key in his spiritual journey from atheism to Christianity:

Bennett: Any person can receive Jesus Christ. And I think our first protocol is not to worry about someone’s sexuality. We want to answer that question, but before we do, [we must] talk about Jesus first, talk about God’s grace.

Bock: The image of God is more important than a person’s sexuality.

Bennett: My aunt said to me, “David, no matter what happens, I will accept you.” She said, “I don’t know what it’s like to be homosexual. It’s easy for me to read those verses in the Bible because I’m not homosexual. But you are and you struggle with that. And that is . . . really difficult. So I don’t want to hold anything over you. I just want you to know Jesus and to be filled with the Holy Spirit and for him to teach you.”

[We must] allow people to explore God and explore a relationship with Jesus first. . . . If you’re not one of the same-sex attracted [people], you’re not going to understand that issue as intimately. But I think that just your presence and just being there and not running away—and, you know, the girl in the pub [who] prayed for me, when I said, “You know, I’m homosexual, and I don’t want prayer.” She said to me, “I don’t really think that matters. Have you experienced the love of God?”

Bock: She was relating to you as a person, and the sexuality was just kind of this side thing over here that really didn’t enter into the equation of how she was relating to you, because she was going to relate to you as a person no matter what.

Bennett: That’s right. But she also . . . could tell it was difficult for me and didn’t force me. And she was saying, “Here’s an even more important thing: Do you really know what it means to be a Christian and to know the love of Jesus?”

Bennett appreciated his aunt’s priority on the gospel. Further, being challenged with the love of Christ before turning to the issue of homosexuality was a key part of his conversion to Christianity and his renunciation of a former practice. He appreciated the space to take time in reconsidering the importance he had placed on his sexuality. This highlights the need for patience and understanding in LGBT engagement.

3. Be Patient With People

In any ministry context, it takes time for people to yield more and more of their lives to Christ.

Bennett: People need to first have a heart change before they can understand fully what God is calling them to. I think letting that process actually happen—the true born again experience, allowing people to actually receive from Jesus that new heart, the new desires—[comes first]. And then from that, they, over time, as they walk through it, as they live, as they enjoy their life in Christ, it works itself out. . . . It requires patience and loving kindness, and it requires us really to be pres-ent and to really back up the words that we say with action.

Bock: I’m hearing the word “patience” a lot and really giving time. And what I’m also hearing from you, from your story and reflecting on it, is there was at one point . . . this radical change. It was like almost a 180-degree turn. But working that out actually took a lot of time on the other end. . . . Everything [didn’t] just drop into place.

Bennett: That’s right. . . . If I didn’t have the support from my family, and [if] I didn’t have the support from certain people in the church who were faithful, it would have been really hard. And that’s why the grace of God is so crucial. [We must] come alongside anyone that comes to Christ and help them and be there for them and bear their burdens.

Kaltenbach explains how the church can exhibit an inclusive environment that demonstrates love, patience, and kindness for those struggling with same-sex attraction:

Kaltenbach: When somebody walks through our doors, I don’t care who they are, what they’ve done, or what they are in the midst of doing. I want them in there to hear the gospel, to [let it] have influence in their lives. . . . Some churches, when they find out somebody who is visiting or . . . one of their members has just come out this way or is doing something, sometimes will overreact, and will act harshly, and sometimes will even alienate them. And I know that every situation is different, but I’ve seen this so much.

And I’m thinking to myself, “What about giving God a margin? What about allowing people not to be perfect? What about understanding that God is the best at changing lives, not us? What about the fact that it’s always taken God time and a process to break down pride around our heart?”

And I think that part of the principle of “belong before you believe” is not pronouncing salvation on people. But when somebody comes to our church, we give them a margin; we don’t expect them to be perfect. And we know that God, as long as they’re there, is in the process of drawing them to himself.

Bock: So your approach is to really challenge them to let God go to work, but to do it in a way that also wraps around them support that says, “We care about you; we love you. We love you enough to challenge you on the one hand, but we love you also enough to be there for you.”

Kaltenbach: Absolutely. Unfortunately, some people eventually get to the point where they run up to a barrier. And our barrier is our theological belief on sexual identity, on sexual gender, and the expression of sexual intimacy. And some people, when they run up to that barrier, they don’t like it. And other people, when they run up to that barrier, they understand it, and they stay there. And some people will leave. But even the people who leave, I praise God that at least they were there for a time. . . . And who knows, maybe God will bring them back, or maybe we planted a seed, and hopefully we haven’t hurt them.

Indeed, healthy engagement requires individual Christians to develop true compassion, avoid focusing solely on the same-sex issue in conversation, and exhibit patient kindness to LGBT people. But how can churches challenge people in their congregations well when it comes to issues of sexuality?

Challenge People Well

One key aspect of convicted civility is challenging people in an environment where they know the challenge comes from deep care and authentic relationship. Unless people know you care, they will not care about your critique. The challenge for churches, then, is to create a safe space where healthy confrontation and healthy reflection can take place. Moreover, churches must be willing to foster an environment of mutual learning, since there are many things churches can learn about and from interacting with LGBT people. Bock explains how to think about challenging people well:

Bock: We’ve got the biblical standard that says, “This is the way God calls us to live,” and we have a pastoral problem when a mother comes in with a child, [and she] says, “My child just came out as gay, what do I do?” . . . The pastoral problem isn’t met by simply saying, “Well, the Bible says . . . .”

The Bible doesn’t say, “Have nothing to do with them.” The Bible says, “Challenge them like you would any person who’s in need of being restored by God. Challenge them to be restored by God. Challenge them to be reconciled with God.”

Conclusion

Ministering to the LGBT community presents tensions involving grace and truth. Challenging people while loving them well mirrors Jesus’s example of proclaiming truth while serving compassionately. Effective cultural engagement requires balancing conviction and civility. May we develop true compassion, avoid focusing solely on sexuality, and exhibit patient kindness to LGBT people. As Kaltenbach says, “God has never called me to change someone’s sexual orientation or to resolve the tension. God has called me to point people to Jesus and walk in the tension of grace and truth.”

The Table Briefing: Dialogical Apologetics And Difficult Spiritual Conversations, Part 4

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is senior research professor in New Testament Studies and executive director for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament studies, project manager for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and adjunct professor of Christian apologetics and world religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]

As Western culture has been shedding its Judeo-Christian beliefs, the array of voices in our more tightly-connected world presents a cacophony of options. Whether it be a plethora of religious choices or of life choices, our culture exposes people to a wider set of options. What was once exotic and foreign has moved next door. Dialogical apologetics maintains that the best way to cope with such choices and reflect biblical faith is to be equipped to articulate the uniqueness of the Christian faith. Yet, somewhat counterintuitively, to listen carefully before speaking is crucial to this.

In the previous three parts of this series, we discussed the importance of listening and empathy. Now we focus on why this “way in” to a conversation is so important. As dialogical as apologetics needs to be, any good conversation requires a keen ear for what is best discussed and a probing heart to consider the best way to engage with someone—especially someone who may be thinking very differently about the world. This involves understanding how conversations work beyond what is said on the surface and how to determine the best way into substantive territory.

Understanding How Conversations Work

In a DTS Magazine article titled “Negotiating Difficult Conversations: Understanding the Three Layers of Communication,”[1] Darrell Bock explained three elements of any significant conversation. He called it “understanding the triphonics in any dialogue.”

Conversations are a primary way we relate to others. Whether it be in marriage, business, politics, theology, over Skype, social media or the phone, human conversations are precious commodities. . . . Understanding how discussions work and what can make them break down is important. In cultural engagement, conversations are a primary means of relational commerce.

Triphonics refers to something playing on three sound channels at once. That’s what most conversations are. . . .

The first level is the topic at hand. . . . Here is where we concentrate our attention—communicating what we see and why—often with a goal of persuading. In this level, we engage with the purpose of establishing assertions, garnering our evidence, and making the case. When we set up a discussion this way, the path leads to a debate versus a conversation. . . .

The second level is a combination of emotions, perceptions, and judgments at work as we speak within our discussions. It is here where conversations can get murky because people will look at the same scenario and read it differently. At this level, we see a strange brew of emotions and perspectives that work as filters in what we see and how we arrange the “facts.” Sometimes we promote these elements to level one, but they may not belong there. . . .

This premature leap often creates a misunderstanding in what is happening, so that progress in the conversation ceases. For example, when my wife complains about my not helping her enough or not caring about her, my instinct is to get defensive, defend myself (emotional level) and feel attacked as not being a good husband (identity level). My response ought to probe why she feels this way and what I can do better to help her. Being aware of our own emotions, perceptions, and judgments helps us in these conversations, especially difficult ones.

The third level is how our identity and self-understanding is impacted by what we are discussing. This is the deepest and trickiest level, but it is also always in play in conversations. It asks, “In this conversation, what is at stake for me and how am I seen as a result? How am I impacted in my soul by what is going on? How is this playing out? Am I looking bad or good in this?”

Our questions aren’t often shared and yet can be what is directing how we respond . . . We fail to make a real effort to understand [others] before engaging in any problem solving about the conversation we are having.

Listening takes effort. The exhortation of James 1:19 applies here. It is to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” (NET). In applying this to an apologetics context, we are not saying we should cease communicating biblical ideas, concepts that represent a defense of our faith, or arguments for belief. We are saying that it matters how we say it and make the case.

Dr. Gary Barnes and Dr. Wendy Miller discussed these dynamics with Dr. Bock in a Cultural Engagement Chapel titled “Difficult Conversations.” As counselors, they have seen these levels and how we can miss the connection:

Barnes: I find that difficult conversations are having the “facts and events” conversation, but that’s not where the real conversation is. It could be one or two levels below that, but the relational themes . . . are activated or triggered by the fact of that event. But we continue to have the conversation just at the “fact and event” level. To go down to the deeper levels requires a sense of trust and safety. If that’s missing, we continue to have the conversation at the “fact and event” level. For example, spouses can talk about the sequence of the wash soap and the wash cycle for ten years and not really get to what that is connected to that we need to be talking about.

Bock: “You didn’t help me with the dishes tonight,” but it’s really not about dishes. There’s the topic you’re talking about, and there are the lenses and filters that you take that conversation through. Then there are the identity issues that are wrapped up in that conversation. Think about CNN and Fox News. They’re looking at the same set of things, but they are taking it through a very different set of processes and a very different set of results. There are things going on underneath what you’re seeing in front of you that impact the way you are processing what’s in front of you.

Miller: People care more about being known than about what you know. It is important to chase the connection more than chasing change. When we’re up in those upper layers of just the event or trying to chase agreement, when the goal is that we agree, then we’re not chasing the connection where the trust is built. Then that’s where we just stay.

Before you can talk about whether or not you can agree, people have to feel like they’ve been heard. So spend time in the conversation making sure that you’ve heard somebody. You may think you’ve heard them, but what matters is if they think you’ve heard them. Then, after they feel heard, you can go on to whether or not you understand what they’re saying.

Bock: For example, I’m listening to you and my default position is to figure out my response to you. I’m working on framing the rebuttal. But that kind of listening is getting in the way of the type of thing that you’re talking about, isn’t it?

Miller: Yes, you’ve skipped to the top layer to chase agreement. You’re not chasing connection. Connection happens in listening and understanding. To get back down, let go of the rebuttal and leave that until the end—until somebody feels heard and understood. If not, you’re gonna argue about who’s right. It becomes an arm-wrestling match, which is just silly.

Bock: The first goal is the relational element. We also think about it in terms of content, making the effort to understand the other person, expressing it in such a way that they’re able to say to you, “You get what I just said to you.”

In the same conversation, Gary Barnes discusses what blocks us from making progress when we disagree.

Barnes: Whenever we’re bumping into differences, problems, or conflicts, emotions are a part of that experience. Everything is communication—verbal, nonverbal, emotions—it’s all communications. What you don’t want, especially when you’re talking about differences, problems, or conflicts, is to be driving under the influence of negative emotionality because there’s a biological thing that happens in your brain. You leave your prefrontal cortex where you do reasoning and analysis and you get hijacked to your midbrain where you do fight-or-flight. You cannot reach your goal of understanding-reasoning problem-solving when you’re in your midbrain.

The counselors are telling us that when we argue and lose connection, we really lose connection and get nowhere fast. Some might question this by noting the use of marriage illustrations and say that apologetics is different. But is it? We are after more than minds. By the wisdom of the Spirit, we are pursuing the whole person when we engage in a conversation about the faith. Listening and connecting are a key part of having a conversation where even more listening becomes possible. That goal raises the question of the best way in and what are we listening for when we engage. How does one relationally, dialogically, and effectively discuss issues about the faith?

The Best “Way In”

We are listening for a “way in.” This is not so much about the topic as it is about the person—what lens they are wearing, why and how their identity is tied to those glasses. We call this “getting a spiritual GPS on the person.” Just like the GPS tells us where we are as we drive, a spiritual GPS tries to map out where a person is and why. This often is not about the topic being discussed but how one sees it and why. It requires asking questions beyond the topic at hand. What does the person see as driving life and why? What is their knowledge of the church and the Christian faith? Is there an experience, even a bad one, with the church? Such questions are asked not to rebut misdirected ideas so much as to see what lens is being worn and what might motivate it. We speak of muting your doctrinal meter at this point and just listening for a way in. You can turn the meter back on later, once the connection is made and trust exists. You are looking for uncertainty about how the world is seen, a longing for life to make sense, a bad experience that colors how the church is seen, or the discovery of a lack of contact with what Christian faith is about.

In a series on World Religions, going from the listener to our faith, we asked three questions. (1) What does this faith hold to as its contents? This seeks to understand how that belief is structured and what drives it. (2) What is the “Velcro factor” of this faith? When someone holds to a faith, what holds them to it? What do they think they get from it? This seeks to understand why someone is an adherent. It looks for more than “I was born into this family or into this faith,” though that may be all it is. (3) How does the gospel speak into that factor? The first two questions are all about listening and asking questions, getting that GPS not by challenging but by becoming informed about the person’s spiritual direction. This fits what drives people in conversations.

In an episode called “Conversations from Coast to Coast,” Northwest Bible Church Pastor Neil Tomba shared how he used his pastoral sabbatical to bike around the country and have conversations with people. Here is how those conversations worked.

Tomba: I’ll go ride my bike early in the morning at White Rock Lake. Not long ago I came up next to a guy, he was riding slower than me, so I slowed down and I just made a comment about his bike. Next thing you know we’re in discussions about his family and about some very hard things, and he said, “Man, right now my wife and I go to bed every night and she cries.” And over the course of the conversation I prayed with him not thinking anything about it, and when we went to split here’s what he said when he went his way, I went my way, he said, “Thanks for the kindness.” And that’s just what I do, just asking questions.

Bock: You’re illustrating something fundamental: Just sitting and doing a wonderful job of listening, then asking natural but incisive questions that allow a person to tell their story and what’s driving them. Conversations have three levels: There’s the topic, the filter that you’re reading that through, and then the way personal identity is wrapped up in that conversation. Usually, what drives a conversation is that base identity level, but most people never realize it. They think they’re talking about the frosting on the top layer of the conversation. When you ask these questions, it’s like a laser that’s precisely hitting a nerve—but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s a natural conversation that emerges because you’ve asked a caring or a sensitive question. You get honest disclosure that’s not threatening.

Tomba: I started telling people, “We’re here to be curious, kind, and respectful about your story.” There are times when I’ve been riding my bike with men my age. Next thing you know, I look over and they’re weeping, from talking on a bike ride. In a culture where people are constantly confronting each other face to face, there’s something helpful for people when you’re riding side by side, shoulder to shoulder, we’re together instead against each other.

Bock: Well, working alongside together goes back to Genesis 1 and the point of the creation. Adam was created and he was alone. Eve was put at his side. They were designed to function together and harmoniously to oversee the way the creation worked and then pass that on to subsequent generations. It didn’t work out that way, but that was the design. There’s something inherently human in coming next to someone and being supportive—not in a condescending way or in a way that says, “I’m just gonna accept whatever you tell me as being the way to go,” but in a way that’s really interested with what is going on in their lives and raising questions about why they do what they do and what drives them.

Tomba: There was a man and a woman getting ready to ride their bikes, and they’re looking at us. I just said “hi.” The next thing you know we’re talking about what they’re doing, where they’re from, what they think about God, and, boom, within five minutes of the start of our ride I’m like “Oh, this can happen.” At the end of the time, they said something that took me off guard: “Thanks for talking to us today.” I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “Thank you for talking to us today.”

Dialogical apologetics is simply pursuing a dialogue, not a debate or a diatribe. You pursue the topic by working to get to the person and how they see life. You look for a way into their world and then seek to engage with the hope of the gospel. It is good news after all. People may have obstacles in the way of getting to that good news, but the best way is to listen hard and look for a good way in to meet that person in their soul. It is called dialogical apologetics for a very good reason. It is all about a genuine conversation.

Notes

1. Darrell L. Bock, “Negotiating Difficult Conversations: Understanding the 3 Levels of Communication,” DTS Magazine, August 29, 2017, https://voice.dts.edu/arti-cle/negotiating-difficult-conversations/.

The Table Briefing: Dialogical Apologetics And Difficult Spiritual Conversations, Part 3

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is senior research professor in New Testament Studies and executive director for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament studies, project manager for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and adjunct professor of Christian apologetics and world religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]

Someone who unexpectedly tosses you a ball might call out, “Think fast!” It’s unlikely, however, that anyone has ever told you to “think slow.” In The Three Languages of Politics, Arnold Kling uses the terms “slow political thinking” and “fast political thinking.”[1] The latter refers to a kind of knee-jerk reaction, much like the automatic impulse to avoid a baseball that’s about to hit you. Here people see an issue from only one angle and quickly react to assertions without much reflection. The former refers to a slower, methodical kind of reasoning—the kind one might use to solve a geometry problem. Here people work to see an issue from more than one angle and respond after some reflection.[2]

While Kling’s observations focus on difficult political conversations, it can be just as easy to immediately react without much reflection in the midst of difficult spiritual conversations. This is one reason we have discussed his work with our staff at the Hendricks Center, and some of his ideas have come up on episodes of the Table Podcast with Dallas Theological Seminary faculty, including Adjunct Professor of World Missions and Intercultural Studies Jenny McGill, Professor of Theological Studies Glenn Kreider, Professor of Biblical Counseling Gary Barnes, and Assistant Professor of Biblical Counseling Michelle Woody. We also saw how these ideas can be applied to apologetics in the church while talking with DTS alumn and Watermark Community Church Director of Equipping and Apologetics Nathan Wagnon.

In this third installment of our series on dialogical apologetics, we share three key elements of practicing “slow thinking” that emerged from conversations with these guests. These are (1) detachment, (2) decentering, and (3) empathy. We share how incorporating these things can slow us down enough to see beyond the negative in someone else’s view.

Detachment

While maintaining biblical convictions at all times, we can practice detachment in order to understand those who think differently about Christianity. Kling notes how detachment can provide insight when assessing one’s own views and the views of others. He writes, “Detachment can help us to see the merit in other points of view and avoid taking our own views to erroneous extremes. Detachment can lead us to take a charitable view of others’ disagreement, rather than retreating into demonization.”[3]

The first step is to be open to thinking in a different way, seeking to understand how others view their identity and personal story. McGill calls this “compassionate imaging.” On an episode called “People on the Move,” Jenny McGill and Darrell Bock discuss this, focusing on the concept of identity.

McGill: Sociologically, we’re prone to in-group bias. . . . Compassionate imagining is when you are challenged beyond what you’re comfortable thinking. You begin to identify with the other person . . . but are also challenged to evaluate, “OK. What’s biblical? What’s cultural?”

Bock: It pulls you out of your own in-group . . . and produces a sense of empathy with the way different people live, and sometimes why.

McGill: Yes. You’d never anticipate someone else’s need [in the same] the way you would know the needs in [the group you identify with] . . . I got really interested in a narrative view of identity . . . and how we view ourselves as part of a narrative adventure. . . . [It’s] how you tell your story of life.

Bock: Christians are very familiar with that because, obviously, the giving of a testimony is a prime example of that kind of exercise.

In the same way that we would like others to listen to our story and our ideas, we must be willing to listen to their story and their ideas. Approaching difficult spiritual conversations with a kind of detachment can be a helpful way to enter into their experience. This helps us at least begin with a charitable view of our conversation partners and consider the merits of their perspective.

Next, what does it mean to practice decentering in the midst of uncovering the reasons people hold their views?

Decentering

Practicing decentering means seeking to discover why a person is reacting to his or her perception of Christianity in a certain way. Rather than dismissing or refuting a skeptic’s argument, believers must first seek to understand the personal reasons for an individual’s objection to Christianity. Unfortunately, some Christians are concerned that hesitating to address a challenge may suggest that they fully agree with the skeptic’s perspective. However, it’s important to distinguish understanding from agreement. Indeed, listening for the purpose of understanding is essential to dialogical apologetics. On an episode called “Responding to the New Atheism,” Darrell Bock and Glenn Kreider discuss this.

Kreider: A stereotype of Christian apologetics and engagement with culture . . . is often very quick to condemn the question and to provide a simplistic answer to a complex question.

There is the relativistic worldview . . . that often dismisses truth claims by [saying], “Well, that’s your view. It works for you and not for me.” In the midst of that, listening is the first and most important thing, in order to understand, to the degree that we can, the context for and the content of the objection and the claim. Most times, these are not theoretical and ivory tower objections that people have to Christianity. They are rooted in experiences.

Sometimes, they’re not even aware of the degree to which those experiences are formative and informative, but it’s stunning to engage with somebody and . . . learn the kind of abuse or the kind of evil that has been behind [their objections to Christianity. We must] spend the time listening and understanding, with empathy, compassion, sympathy—those Christian virtues—in order to speak the truth in love.

Bock: When we talk about empathy and compassion, we’re not necessarily equating that with agreement. But what we’re saying is you’re moving towards an understanding of why the person is coming from where they’re coming.

My grandmother-in-law had a very low tolerance for Christianity, because she had a father who claimed to be a Christian, . . . but in the way he treated his wife and his daughter, he was awful. And so, underneath her view was, “If that’s how Christians treat people, I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Understanding the context of a person’s objection to Christianity is very important and includes being careful to avoid assuming that a person’s struggle depends entirely on one argument, issue, or experience. Although most people use the term “empathizing” in the broadest sense of understanding someone’s feelings or thoughts, Gary Klein makes a distinction between focusing on feelings and focusing on reasoning: “Decentering is not about empathy—intuiting how others might be feeling. Rather, it is about intuiting what others are thinking.”[4] This observation highlights two ways to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, understanding both the feelings and reasoning of your conversation partner. Beyond decentering, however, Christians must never overlook the emotional component of difficult spiritual conversations.

Empathy

Operating in “debate mode” often undercuts healthy interpersonal communication. As Christian ambassadors, we must exhibit empathy and appreciation for life in a fallen world. This is part of obeying James’s command to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). Like decentering, empathy does not imply agreement with another person’s views. It can, however, help us guard against automatically seeing someone’s motives in a negative light. In an episode called “Beginning Difficult Conversations,” Darrell Bock, Gary Barnes, and Michelle Woody discuss:

Bock: If I’m constantly pushing back on the other person and in rebuttal mode, not only have my phaser shields gone up, but I’m going to produce phaser shields on the other side that will actually block the communication.

Barnes: We can get in the way of the hearing. . . . It is not true that understanding means I’ve compromised my convictions.

Bock: This is very important: Understanding is not the same as agreement. . . . You can divide up your conversations in terms of a process: First, getting to understanding. If you get to the point where you agree on what exactly you’re talking about and the nature of your differences, you’re in a better place to talk about those differences rather than talking past one another. . . . The ability to articulate what someone is saying to you is not saying you agree. It’s saying, “I’m hearing what you’re saying.”

Woody: “Empathy” is a good word because you have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and get some sense of what their journey is. . . . It takes patience. Something else that most people don’t like . . . are moments of silence. . . . The natural tendency is to think, “I have to jump in.” But giving people a chance to process what’s being said is also important. So, a part of understanding is not just listening, but waiting for the person to respond and then take time to process that in a way that’s not forced or awkward.

Bock: Another thing that we tend to do that undercuts conversations is impute motive to why it is someone is saying something. They may not have given any indication that that’s what’s going on. And in fact, that may not be what’s motivating them, but we will read it through our filters in such a way that we will assume, “This is why you’re telling me this,” and respond at that level.

Barnes: One of the phrases that researchers use for that is “negative interpretation.” When I’m looking at something in the moment, I look through lenses that shape what I’m looking at. . . . That sets me up to attach a wrong meaning, understanding, interpretation, motivation, or conclusion.

Bock: If I make the effort to listen, . . . I give myself the chance of actually hearing what the other person is trying to say to me.

Empathy plays a key role in correctly identifying the contrast between your view and that of your skeptical neighbor. In an episode called “Leading with Courage and Compassion,” we highlight the idea that agreeing on the nature of the disagreement is essential for moving forward in a difficult spiritual conversation.

Bock: We’re talking about something that’s almost a requirement, relationally, in order to be able to interact well. And particularly in areas of conflict, it’s important to at least know what you’re disagreeing about. . . . If you can both say, “Yep. That’s exactly what we disagree about. Now let’s talk about it,” you’re in a much better place. What often happens in these conversations, particularly when they’re debates, [is] you end up talking past one another, and you aren’t touching the issue that you really disagree about.

Del Rosario: Yes, it’s so important to develop empathy, that understanding of the other person, rather than feeling like, “They said something I disagree with. Now I have to defend the entire contents of the Christian worldview, because they have a different view than me on this particular topic.”

Appreciating the life experience and personal reasons someone may object to Christianity is a key part of effective engagement. Doing this allows you to better assess how to proceed in the conversation. It also allows you to discover any common ground that might move the discussion forward or allow the other person to consider giving Christianity a fresh hearing. This ties into our mission of shaping leaders.

Bock: We seek to shape compassionate and courageous leaders . . . [and] that only happens through the power of the Spirit of God. When that happens, you have a person who can deal with anything fresh that comes their way. . . . It isn’t that they have a rote answer. In fact, the answer that they might have is the recognition that the answer in this particular situation is particularly complex. They know not only how they should deal with the situation, but also how to lead other people into and through the situation. And in the context of the shifting times that we’ve been talking about, that skill is essential. It requires boldness, it requires being prophetic, it requires a comfort zone with their own status before God that’s willing to take the push back. And in the midst of all that, they’re able to develop the skill to read and react to what’s in front of them.

Del Rosario: This is an ambassador who’s able to engage well with people who see Christianity differently [and] walk with them even before they get to the crossroads—before the gospel even becomes a challenge in their lives.

Understanding detachment, decentering, and empathy is key to practicing “slow thinking.” But what does it look like to employ these in practical evangelism and apologetics ministry?

Practical Application In Ministry

In an episode called “Equipping and Apologetics Ministry,” Nathan Wagnon describes how this kind of approach works in his ministry at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. He also shares what he describes as “one of the greatest mistakes” in apologetics and evangelism and the solution to this problem.

Wagnon: We’ve had international students come in [for our Great Questions evenings] where this was their first encounter with Christianity. . . . So we really get into the relational space. We say, “We’d love to buy you coffee or lunch. . . . We want to hear your story.” This is because you can answer somebody’s questions, but you’re not actually answering a question, you’re answering a person. The question is secondary. The primary deal is “Who are you? What’s your story? What shapes the way that you think about the world and God?” And you can’t know that in an initial meeting. So we try to cultivate relationships. . . . That’s where the real work of apologetics is going on.

Del Rosario: We miss out on that sometimes if we’re too quickly giving people answers to what we think they’re asking. They are giving us a window into their souls and where their heart is at when they share.

Wagnon: One of the greatest mistakes that a lot of evangelicals make is we think of evangelism as like closing the deal. You feel like a used car salesman, because you’re trying to push people towards “Do you want to pray this prayer? Do you want to accept Jesus?” And unfortunately, Mikel, there are people who push toward that because of insecurities in their own lives. Their spiritual life, a lot of times, is deficient. And so they’re trying to fill that void with ministry activism, so that they can raise their hand and go, “See how the Lord used me?” so that they can get this sense of self worth.

That expresses itself [often when Christians] don’t listen. They’re using the space, when someone else is talking, to formulate in their own minds how they’re going to respond, instead of actually listening to what the person is saying. We don’t get to do that. Jesus has called us to love people. And that looks like treating them with value and worth, because they are valuable, and they do matter to God.

When you do apologetics or evangelism, you’re . . . talking to somebody who’s made in the image of God, who’s deeply loved by God, who deeply matters. Their story matters. Their views matter. And so, yeah, we don’t get to just mow over people. We have to love them.

Del Rosario: People can sense right away if you’re treating them like a project. And that just shuts down communication. In 1 Peter 3:15, the command is to be prepared always to give an answer to anyone who asks us about the hope that we have in Jesus, but we have to do it with gentleness and respect.

Wagnon: Yeah. That last part gets left out an awful lot.

Del Rosario: That’s right. But the context of 1 Peter 3 [should make us consider], “What was God’s attitude toward us before we had embraced him or his message?” and “Why can’t we be like that with other people? That’s how God was with us.”

Wagnon: Well, it requires somebody to take their personal walk with Jesus really seriously. . . . When people ask, “How do you do evangelism and apologetics?” The first thing I say is, “You gotta get close to Jesus.” I’m never asking myself, “How can I do evangelism today?” The question is “How can I walk with Jesus today?” If you get close to Jesus, you will do evangelism and apologetics [not in your own strength but in the power of the Holy Spirit]. If you follow Jesus . . . that will spill over and you’ll be . . . co-laboring with him in the gospel.

Conclusion

A survey of comments made on social media and in the public square shows it is not easy to demonstrate compassion when engaging with those who see things differently. Unfortunately, some Christians seem to hold the most uncharitable view of skeptics possible. When this comes out in our engagement, we not only misrepresent the tone of a Christian ambassador, but we miss out on richness of authentic conversation.

Rather than “think fast,” let’s “think slow” when engaged in dialogical apologetics. Instead of immediately reacting, we can pay careful attention to what people are saying and calmly assess the situation. Whether the conversation takes place online or offline, take the time to respond in a thoughtful way. Let’s avoid seeing only the negative in our skeptical neighbors, and seek to understand the merits of their perspective as well. Most people will appreciate this and some may be struck by the respect you show them—especially if they have a negative Christian stereotype in mind. Practicing detachment, decentering, and exhibiting empathy can help us represent Christ and his message well even in the midst of difficult spiritual conversations.

Notes

1. Arnold S. Kling, The Three Languages of Politics (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2017), 22.
2. Kling writes, “I encourage readers to adopt slow political thinking, which means seeing an issue from a number of angles rather than along just one axis. In contrast, fast political thinking means settling on a single axis to frame an issue. Readers familiar with psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow will notice that I am borrowing from his terminology.” Kling, 10.
3. Kling, 31
4. Gary Klein, “Decentering,” in 2017: What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known?, Edge.org, accessed December 30, 2019, https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27119.

The Table Briefing: Dialogical Apologetics And Difficult Spiritual Conversations, Part 2

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is senior research professor in New Testament Studies and executive director for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament studies, project manager for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and adjunct professor of Christian apologetics and world religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]

While actor and filmmaker Alex Kendrick is noted for his movies like Fireproof, War Room, and Overcomer, few people realize what undergirds his ethos of engagement. On an episode of the Table podcast called “Faith, Work, and Filmmaking,” he revealed how 1 Peter 3:15 became his life verse:

Kendrick: During college, I was talking to [someone] of the Baha’i faith. They believe there are a number of ways to get to heaven. . . . We got into a little bit of an argument and I found myself growing in frustration that he couldn’t see what I saw in the gospel. We began arguing and . . . both left frustrated.

But the Lord convicted me . . . when I saw 1 Peter 3:15: “But in your heart, sanctify Christ as Lord.” In other words, set him apart as more important than anything else. Then it goes on to say, “And always be ready to give an answer to anyone that asks you of the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect.”

Kendrick’s experience is not uncommon. Many Christians find it difficult to include both truth and love when engaging in difficult spiritual conversations. But what does it look like to engage with truth and love on a practical level?

The previous Table Briefing introduced the idea of dialogical apologetics for approaching difficult spiritual conversations not as debate but as loving dialogue. In this briefing, we share four guidelines for bringing truth and love together while navigating conversations with those who see Christianity differently: (1) Ask good questions, (2) listen to understand your conversation partner, (3) consider your character, and (4) reflect God’s heart in every encounter. These points came out of our discussions with Stand to Reason president Greg Koukl and staff apologist Amy Hall, Dallas Theological Seminary professors Gary Barnes and Michelle Woody, and Biola University associate professor of Christian apologetics Sean McDowell as well as our personal reflections after recording episodes of the Table podcast.

Ask Good Questions

How can we lovingly begin spiritual conversations? Rather than rushing to explain the evidence for Christian truth claims, it is best to let others share their views first. This allows us to better understand the other person’s spiritual concerns. What are their pains and longings? This, in turn, informs how we can better engender trust as we discuss our Christian convictions. On an episode of the Table called “Approaching Spiritual Conversations,” Del Rosario talked with Stand to Reason president Greg Koukl and staff apologist Amy Hall about how to use questions to engage in a more personal way.

Koukl: When I meet somebody, . . . I’m not thinking about winning them to Christ; I’m not even thinking about getting to the gospel. All I’m thinking about is getting the lay of the land. So, my first step is to gather information. How do I do that?

Del Rosario: You ask questions.

Koukl: Right. I’m being friendly, making small talk. . . . But if I hear something that seems like an opportunity, I’m going to use my key question: “What do you mean by that?”

I saw a woman wearing a pentagram. It’s a five-pointed star; it’s often an occultic symbol. In this case, it actually was. But I found out because I asked her, “Does that jewelry have religious significance?” Turns out, she was a witch. But she was happy to talk about her jewelry and her Wiccan convictions. How did I find out about that? I just asked a pleasant question about the thing: “What do you mean by that jewelry?” Show interest in people, and they start talking.

As they’re talking, I’m starting to get a picture, a lay of the land, a kind of a topography, maybe even a spiritual topography or a cultural topography. I’m starting to get a little picture of where in the culture this person fits. And now I have a map, in a certain sense, based on what they’ve been telling me.

So I’m in a better position to decide whether there’s an opportunity here. . . . If there is an opportunity, now I have an idea of where I might go with my next question.

Del Rosario: The challenging thing for many people is turning down their truth meter, because a lot of Christians will feel like, “Okay, they just said something I disagree with. Now I have to defend the entire content of the Christian worldview, because they have an opinion different from mine.”

Koukl: This is where that first question comes in so well, especially when somebody says something I disagree with. [Let’s say someone] throws this little line out [that] is meant to stop you in your tracks: “You think you have the truth, but everything’s relative.”

The Christian thinks, “It’s my job to [say,] ‘No, it’s not. The Bible’s the Word of God.’” [But] now they’re off on the wrong foot. They’re saying something true, but they’re not getting anywhere. So, what’s my first question when I hear somebody say, “Everything’s relative”?

Del Rosario: “What do you mean by that?”Koukl: “What do you mean by that? What do you mean by ‘relative?’ ” Now it’s their turn to explain their view.

Hall: What Greg is describing . . . makes your conversation more personal, because it allows you to tailor what you’re talking about to the person. A lot of people go into witnessing situations with set things they want to say, and it’s not necessarily going to connect with the person they’re talking to. But [this] enables you to connect with someone as an individual. It’s not something that just forces people into the same mold.

Koukl: It gives you a game plan. I do this first. If this is successful, then I think about the second step. If that is successful, I think about the third step.

At the kick-off in a football game, you get the ball way down in the other team’s zone. You don’t think, “Okay, I’m going to get a touchdown on the next play.” No, you work down the field, one play at a time. You’re focusing on those plays. If you do your individual plays well, the touchdown is going to be—hopefully—an inevitability. But that’s down there.

I don’t want people to think about the end game, . . . leading them to Christ, even getting to the gospel. Not yet. That’s down the way, . . . and every step is genial in my plan. . . . I want engagement to look more like diplomacy than D-Day. So I’m gathering information. Every time they bring up an objection [or] challenge, I’m asking the same question: What do you mean? Am I avoiding their objection? No, I’m trying to get clarity on their view.

The first question is meant to find out what a person means. You’re going to have clarification on their point of view. [But] we also want to know why they hold their point of view. The person who makes the claim bears the burden of proof. So, if a person says something, . . . it’s that person’s responsibility to tell us why we should take that idea seriously. It is not our responsibility to [immediately] try to refute it.

This is where Christians, especially the more aggressive ones, sometimes mess up. Somebody says, “Well, that’s relative.” [Some Christians immediately] think, “Oh, I’m going to show you why everything’s not relative.”

Well, wait a minute; you just jumped the gun. You gave that person a free ride because you haven’t asked, “How did you come to that conclusion?” or “Why do you think that’s true?”

Now, we’ve got to be careful that we don’t ask that question in kind of a snotty way, “Oh, really? How’d you come to that conclusion?” Like, “You idiot.” We really want to know the rationale. We want to communicate that with the tone of voice, and we want them to offer [the reasons they hold their view]. Now, we’re getting two pieces of information . . . their point of view, and the reasons for their point of view—if they have any.

Asking questions can help you learn what someone believes and why they believe it. Letting people share their views on God, Jesus, and the Bible is very important because they are giving you a gift—a window into their soul. While some people have thought deeply about their views, many people’s ideas about Christianity are based on what they have uncritically absorbed from the culture. It is important for Christian leaders to understand how culture affects common perceptions of Christianity and equip believers to engage people at that level.

Listen To Understand

After asking good questions, the next step is to actively listen to the answer with the desire to minister to the person. How did they come to hold their beliefs? Sometimes, though, we miss the answers to our questions due to internal communication noise. This can include distracting thoughts or listening with the intent to refute challenges. On an episode of the Table called “Beginning Difficult Conversations,” Bock discussed this with DTS professors of biblical counseling Gary Barnes and Michelle Woody.

Bock: If you go into a conversation with an agenda, you’re actually not interested in a conversation. The tension becomes how to engage in a good conversation well, . . . but the key to having a good conversation is being a good listener first.

Barnes: Yes. When we’re bumping into differences, there are underlying things that are driving within us: “Will I be accepted or will I be rejected with my difference?” . . . The most important thing is that awareness of “What is it that’s welling up within me that becomes a barrier for me actually moving toward the other person with their difference?”

Bock: Well, difficult conversations have three layers: There’s what you’re talking about. Then there’s the filter through which you’re looking at what you’re talking about. And then there’s your identity or your perception of yourself—what’s at stake in what you’re talking about. Oftentimes, people think they’re only talking about the top layer, and they don’t think about the other two layers. But the other two layers are driving what’s happening in the conversations. So, how do you move past the top layer and think about what’s underneath?

Woody: Subconsciously, winning and losing is a part of our conversation: “I have to win. . . . I’ve got to make sure I can persuade you.” So active listening—that’s where we have to start.

Bock: There’s a test that I run . . . [to] tell whether I’m in the right mode or not to advance the conversation: When the person is talking to me, am I paying attention to what they’re saying?

Or am I thinking through my response? Usually, if I’m in a combative mode . . . then [I’ve defaulted to] rebuttal mode.

Christians must engage holistically and recognize the importance of listening to understand the other person’s perspective. One helpful exercise is to repeat that view back to the person in order to ensure that you are engaging it fairly. Christian ambassadors must develop an awareness of factors beyond the subject matter—including worldview filters and identity issues—that may be influencing the discussion. A patient, listening ear can do much to demonstrate courageous yet compassionate engagement.

Consider Your Character

How should we respond when a difficult conversation gets tense? Peter writes, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17, NET). That is, we must not react with hostility, even in the face of unjust responses. As ambassadors of Christ, the character we display in the midst of difficult spiritual conversations must be congruent with the fruit of the Spirit and the way Jesus himself suffered. Hall and Koukl explain:

Hall: Character is actually an apologetic because we are representing Christ. So in 1 Peter [2:9], when it says, “We were called so that we can proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us,” that passage is actually sandwiched among a lot of behavioral commands saying, “Prove yourself to be someone with good behavior so that they’ll glorify God” (v. 12).

So our character is representing Christ to other people. . . . We can show the gospel to them by responding in ways that they don’t deserve. Because that’s how God responded to us.

Every time they’re rude to us and we respond with grace, we’re giving an apologetic for Jesus’s character that people need to see. . . . [1 Peter 3:15, which says] to give a defense with gentleness and respect, begins with saying, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” And that’s your obedience to Christ; that’s your character that begins this whole process.

When we respond, character is a huge part [of that]. We want to represent Christ; we want to be truthful; we want to be humble. We want to show all the things that make Christ great so they can see who he is.

I think the key thing you have to remember is the dignity of the human being you’re talking to. . . . We’re speaking to someone who is made in the image of God, no matter how rude they’re being.

Koukl: Proverbs [15:1] says, “A harsh word stirs up anger, but a gentle answer turns away wrath.” . . . You don’t want to be poking people in the eye by the way you’re communicating.

Here’s the deal: If I get mad, I’m going to lose. What if I don’t get mad and they get mad? Well, then I’m still going to lose. If anybody gets mad, then we’re going to lose. That is, we are not going to be able to have the positive impact as ambassadors for Christ we want to have.

Sometimes, it’s not our fault they get mad. It’s the message’s fault. And we live with that. But we want to try to avoid anything that makes them unnecessarily angry. We want to maneuver with the kind of grace that’s appropriate to the message of grace that we’re communicating.

Disciples of Jesus must engage and show a different way of relating, even to those who reject them. In this way, believers who demonstrate a Christlike character may be the most effective way to overcome negative Christian stereotypes. On an episode of the Table called “Truth, Love, and Defending the Faith,” McDowell talked about the importance of having reasons for faith and how he helps churches consider a better way to engage skeptics and others who see Christianity differently.

McDowell: I [heard Darrell Bock’s presentation] on the church responding to the broader issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and something [he] said at the end really stuck with me. . . . The idea was that when some people think about Christians, they think of intolerant, bigoted, hateful, homophobic [people]. And the most important way that we can help change this narrative for the sake of the gospel is [to engage in such a way that] when somebody hears this charge against Christians, their first thought [becomes], “That doesn’t really ring true. I know Christians and they don’t treat me that way.”

The power of individual Christians reaching out to nonbelievers . . . is probably the most important way to overturn this cultural stereotype that is affecting the way that we’re seen and relate to people, . . . and I think the only way we can really speak with meekness and respect and gentleness, is in fact if we know what we believe and why we believe it.

Our apologetic arguments or explanations of the faith are not heard in a vacuum. They are experienced in the context of life and personality. A quiet confidence in the truth of Christianity and a character congruent with the example of Jesus carry a persuasive strength that merely refuting arguments will never match.

Reflect God’s Heart

We must reflect God’s heart for all people and present the Christian message as a positive one. On the one hand, there is a tension in how the gospel challenges our beliefs and actions. On the other hand, it includes an invitation to know and experience God in a personal way. Unfortunately, some tend to emphasize what is wrong with society and inadvertently minimize hope in Christ. Others seem to portray this hope as an exclusively future reality rather than one that can be present today.

However, Christian hope should result in humble engagement and genuine love for the people we challenge with the gospel message. Reflecting God’s heart means engaging in difficult spiritual conversations with gentleness and respect rather than with fear, anger, or resentment. Before entering a difficult spiritual conversation, ask God to help you reflect his heart as you minister to your conversation partner.

Spiritual conversations become unproductive when either participant becomes angry. Rather than respond in anger, let us reflect God’s heart and model a different way of relating to people who reject our message.

This was the example of Jesus. Peter wrote, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pet 3:18). God took the initiative to reach out to us before we embraced him or his message. Let us navigate difficult spiritual conversations while remembering the gracious way God treats us.

Conclusion

Reflecting on the conversation he had with the Baha’i student during his college days, Kendrick says, “I could articulate [the faith], and I was ready to defend it, but there wasn’t the meekness or the gentleness the Scripture talks about. [I had the demeanor of], ‘You’re crazy [because] you don’t see my way.’ But truth and love should go together.” Today, 1 Peter 3:15 undergirds his ethos of engagement. “Now I try to incorporate a very loving but truthful approach.”

We must help Christians understand what influences popular ideas about God, Jesus, and the Bible and equip them to engage the culture and defend the truth. At the same time, we must help believers understand the importance of reflecting God’s loving character at all times. Our demeanor in the midst of difficult spiritual conversations must always emulate the way God took the initiative to pursue us before we embraced him or his message. Engaging in dialogical apologetics includes asking good questions, listening to understand, considering our character, and reflecting God’s heart in every encounter.