How can you break into a conversation about if they are unsure if there is a God or not?  How do you find out that they are an Atheist?

One effective method to ascertain someone's beliefs is to pose a question such as "Do you believe in God?"

If their immediate response is not "No!" ask this: "If you believe that there is no God, we will call this a zero (0), or if you are absolutely certain that there is a God, we will rate this a ten (10). How would you rate your belief on a scale of 0 to 10?"

This is a little exercise that my friend Dave K. added to our Blind Spot Test ice breaker. (Like the Blind Spot test it can be used for ice breaking evangelism or discipleship.)

Someone put a black dot in the middle of a white A4 piece of paper and held it up. Dave was then asked to tell them what he saw. He replied “a dot?”.

Ever wondered why your networks grow so easily within displaced ethnic groups compared to the people in your own country? Ever wondered why these displaced groups are on softer ground than they are in their home country? Ever wanted to reach out to the harder and sometimes more dangerous fishing grounds, but they seemed out of your league? Well, they are softer, and yes, you can reach out back to their home countries.

 Walking along the beach I see stones, lots of stones. As I continue to walk I see from a distance one particular stone.  It is not necessarily the best looking stone, but it has caught my eye.  I pick it up, appreciate the beauty in it, and put it in my pocket close to me.

The beauty of stones becomes greater when you put them together, one enhances the other. Dark, light, big and small, together they make a statement, a beauty to behold, simple but profound beach stones.

I Have a friend, Christine, and she has an amazing tool that she uses. (I am trying to persuade her to write an article on it.  In the meantime I will try and tell you a little bit about it.)

The Bible has many wonderful promises to equip us to do our assigned tasks for the Kingdom (e.g., “Perform signs and wonders,"  “that you will do even greater things,” Mark 16:17–18, and John 14:12–14, etc.). We do not seek out glory and power for ourselves, but miracles can accompany disciples as they go out into the world and interact. These can be very powerful tools in evangelism. You can easily crash and burn as well!  Don’t let yourself be the free goat (I'll expain later on).  

In this series, I have been trying to share with you some of my low points in disciple-making in the hope of saving you some grief and perhaps helping the Kingdom along the way.  This one is related to the first story in that not everyone sees the world as you do, but they are also not offended in the same way you might be.  This tale of woe is probably the worst one, and I don’t want to really admit it, but here goes.

Putting aside for the moment that we can boldly go ahead of God without any prayer, lacking gentleness or respect, there are less obvious reasons why we might crash and burn trying to share the Good News with someone.  In the West, we can get too myopic (tunnel vision). The simple fact is that not everyone thinks the same as we do.  We all see the world from a different perspective.

This is a simple kit you can download and use. The kit complements the previous article titled: Icebreaker #6a: Chat over a cup of coffee.

We offered a free beverage or drink if they would stop and share their story with us. We then offered a snack to go with the drink if they took a short survey.

The survey was just six questions about sharing Jesus without fear or argument. Actually, sometimes we add other preamble questions that are topical at the time.