Appendix 1. When You Share the Gospel with Your Family

How glad we would be if a whole household were one, having received the Lord and walking with him together! Yet look at Christian homes, and it is often not so. As long as husband, wife, and children do not serve the Lord together, the discord at home will go on. And if the one who believes lacks wisdom, will that discord not only deepen? Because of the church, family members come to eye one another like enemies, and some homes even break apart. At such a time, why not try this? Understand the hearts of family members who dislike the church and God, and love them more and more, until they realize how much you love them. Will they not slowly begin to open their hearts to you? Then draw near with care, very slowly, little by little. If you mention, almost in passing, how much God loves them, they will resist far less. Could it be that unbelievers drift further away because we who believe press harsh words on them, all from our own side—why won’t you come to church… it’s because of you that God won’t bless our family…? Because God is a personal God, when we come at people with nothing but our own one-sided ideas, those who sit in darkness cannot even begin to grasp what the light is. That is why they find it so hard to understand a personal God and his love, and so hard to come to church. If you will wait for them only as long as the Lord waited for you, they will open their hearts and come to you first.

But this, whatever you do, remember! That if you leave the rock to come down to their eye level, you can only perish together…

And that, holding fast to your faith, you must still put them at ease, as comfortable to them as their own tongue…