I
was looking for a way to teach people to share their love for Jesus with family,
friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and yes even those strangers you might meet
at the grocery store or on an airplane. So when the title of this book came
across my computer, I was curious. I’m
not sure if 42 Seconds: the Jesus Model
for Everyday Interactions by Carl Medearis (NavPress, 2018) is destined to
become the classic textbook for the topic, but it was definitely a fun read,
and has a lot of good information.
The
basic premise is that according to a non-scientific study (Medearis and a
friends identified all of Jesus’ conversations in the Gospels, read them aloud,
and took an average of how long each lasted) that when Jesus interacted with people,
the conversation lasted about 42 seconds. Seconds, not hours or even minutes,
but seconds. If Jesus could teach someone about God the Father in that short of
a time, why can’t we? For most of us the
answer is that we’re too afraid to even try to talk about Jesus, and for the
rest, we get tongue tied and go off on rabbit trails. Medearis offers some
helpful tips to help us through those difficulties.
This
model goes along with another evangelism model: the elevator testimony: sharing
the gospel in only the amount of time you get to share on an elevator with
someone. It’s not a long time, unless your fear of public speaking in general,
or talking religion at all is greater than your fear of being bitten by a
vampire bat. But the truth is, unless you have a solid relationship with
someone, and that person has specifically invited you to speak Jesus into his
or her life, we generally don’t get the opportunity to spend hours on the
subject.
This
is a guide for the initial encounters, those divine encounters. What Medearis seems
to be offering is a way to develop a relationship, a relationship that may grow
to the point where the in depth conversations can take place.
4/5
B+
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