Don’t Be Afraid to Witness Boldly
God made each and every one of us exactly how He wanted us to be. We are unique and different and have skills that are specific to us.
It’s up to us to be willing to use our skills the way they were intended.
As a Christian, it can be scary to talk about our faith. We may not know what others believe and don’t want to impose our beliefs on them. This “kid glove” viewpoint seems to be more and more common.
A recent article in The Washington Stand, written by Sara Holliday pointed out that 40% of British Christians prefer not to share their faith. According to a recent survey, British Christians seem to be going through a bit of a “self-confidence crisis”, as phrased by the researcher.
“Authorized by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) and steered by Whitestone Insight, the survey, “Britain’s attitudes to faith in public life,” received responses from 2,064 U.K. adults between May 1 and 2 of 2024. Author Dr. Jake Scott emphasized, “Data were weighted to be representative of all U.K. adults.” Among several key findings, perhaps the most eye-opening was that roughly 40% of the Christian respondents prefer to keep their faith to themselves and out of “the workplace and politics.”
Some other statistics include “49% of religious respondents” who were opposed to seeing more religion in the media, and 27% felt religion was not necessarily “a force for good in society.” This isn’t exactly encouraging news.”
This doesn’t sound very bold.
“However, there were two positives — maybe even encouraging — aspects to these results worth recognizing.
First, there was a distinction between “exclusivist” Christians and “cultural” Christians — the former being “those who believe their religion is the only true faith,” and the latter being “those who were baptized but attend church infrequently and do not strongly identify with the Christian faith.”
The exclusivists were far more willing to share their faith, as they are called to in Scripture. And we can’t be too surprised the cultural Christians, who don’t appear to take their faith seriously, don’t take intentionally sharing their faith seriously.
The second encouraging point was the influence faith seems to have on younger generations such as Gen Z. As reported, “69% of respondents within the 18-24 year old bracket believe their faith significantly impacts their lives,” 72% “find faith helps them find purpose in life,” 78% “feel their faith has shaped their moral values,” and 53% “believe their faith to be the only true religion.”
Reading about Christians intentionally keeping their faith to themselves and not having an optimistic view of their faith should motivate us to offer some encouragement. Moving forward, let’s not focus on these statistics.
Scripture calls us to be bold, not timid. It calls us to share our faith, not purposefully keep it to ourselves.
In Acts 4:1-13, Peter and John are arrested and taken before the rulers, elders, and teachers of the law because they healed a crippled man. Peter told them that the power that healed the man was Jesus, the man they killed.
The members of the council were amazed at the boldness of Peter and John because they were just ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. But they were with Jesus.
Being bold doesn’t mean we shout from a mountain top or get up in someone’s face. We can be bold by living our daily lives the way God made us.
We are all ordinary. Made just the way God wanted us. It’s up to us to witness boldly the way He made us.
