Monday, August 16, 2010

Some other good opening one-liners ... for pre-Christians


Yesterday, while preaching on "Sharing God's Gospel...on Napkins," I spoke briefly about my friend, Doug, the minor league Hockey Player -- who, though he'd sat through some church services & had at least one 'born again' friend, had never understood the gospel because no one had actually sat down with him one-on-one to explain it & field his questions. This was certainly a major reason why he was surprised by some details of the gospel in our conversation. I basically made the point that a good, opening one-liner that can lead into a presentation of the gospel is:

"Has anyone sat down with you, one-on-one, and actually shared with you why Jesus' news is so good?"

Below are some other good opening one liners for pre-Christians (ie. those who haven't yet trusted their lives to Christ, but through prayer we eagerly anticipate they will)

  • "Where are you on your spiritual journey?"
  • "If you died tonight, are you 100% sure that you would go to heaven?"
  • "If you were to die tonight & stand in front of God, and He asked, "Why should I let you into Heaven?" what would you tell Him?
  • "What do you think lies on the other side of death?"
  • "Why do you wear that cross?" (Note: Person being asked must be wearing a cross)
If someone claims to be a Christian but, as I said yesterday, 'you wonder because they've wandered,' here are some questions:
  • "Ah, you're a Christian. What do you mean by that?"
  • "How do you know that to be true?"
  • "What's required of being a Christian?" (Trust/faith/belief [which are all translations of the same Greek Word] should be the answer -- often times I find that someone has bought into the notion that being a good person, doing good deeds, or even being involved in church/Christian activities is the requirement or, at least, is the core requirement of being a Christian).
Do you have any other effective, opening one-liners that you've used or witnessed?


(Sidenote - for a funny batch of secular one-liners, watch just two minutes of this classic one-liner montage of CSI Miami's David Caruso).

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