15 MINUTE READ

From Luke’s Journal May 2025 | Vol. 30 No. 1 | MIMBY

Have you been wanting to share the gospel with a friend but have no idea how? No idea how those around you have been evangelising so effortlessly? Have you felt unprepared when asked questions about Christianity? Ever given an unsatisfactory answer when trying to explain why you’re Christian? Struggling with evangelism in a highly secular, “post-Christian world” that is hostile to Christian faith and the church?

If you have answered “Yes” to any or all of the above (I know I personally have answered ‘Yes’ to all of the above), well, well, well, do I have the book for you. The only conflict of interest I can declare is that I have been provided this book by Big Author for free for review purposes (although I had stolen my sister’s copy to read and became a fan prior to this anyway).

In this book, the author, Sam Chan (doctor turned ministry worker) offers highly practical and personal ministry tips along with a few examples that are uniquely relevant to medicine. But before we get to that, let’s take a step back and ensure we have gotten the theology of evangelism correct.

There is a scene in Season 3 Episode 2 of The Chosen where Jesus sends out the Twelve to drive out spirits and heal the sick, where John asks Jesus why He has sent them out. Simon the Zealot rebuts, “He doesn’t need us. He wants us.” Jesus seems to appreciate this response and adds that He has chosen them over the religious leaders. I think the illustration of jars of clay in 2 Corinthians 4:7 is apt – we are not indispensable to God’s mission, but he has chosen us who are fragile and breakable as vessels for treasure – His Gospel. Further, in 1 Cor 1:27-29, Paul argues, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

The example given in the book is Tim Keller’s explanation that God sent the fire, but Elijah still had to build the altar (1 Kings 18). Our simpleness and brokenness are evident so that all can see that greatness does not lie in us but in God. This stark contrast serves to further enhance God’s majesty and honour (much like how the purpose of a surgical assistant is to make the surgeon look good).

“Our simpleness and brokenness are evident so that all can see that greatness does not lie in us but in God.”

Evangelism sounds like a mammoth task both in importance and in effort (especially since we aren’t very wise and strong). After all, the command in Matthew 28:19-20 is called “The Great Commission”. So, as Sam puts it, “you know you need to do something, and it had better look good”, much like when you step into an OSCE station and have no idea what to do. Although the nature of such a task is high stakes and urgent, it’s easy to be overwhelmed and end up being paralysed with no idea where to start. Just like how there is a structure of “inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation” to fall back on for physical exam OSCE stations, Sam has also set out a structure for evangelism in his book. I would summarise my highlights into four things, all starting with ‘B’ (not to be confused with the 4B movement), which you can fall back on if you feel like you’ve been thrown into the deep end when trying to talk to someone about Jesus:

1. Building relationships and community
2. Being their chaplain
3. Being a witness and a listening ear
4. Being prepared to give testimony and communicate the gospel clearly

Building relationships and community

In order to evangelise, you need another party to evangelise to and, hence, relationship and community are the indispensable foundations of evangelism. These concepts are also bigger than just evangelism itself, which shouldn’t be the primary driver for the fostering of relationships and community. Instead, the triune God should be as He himself is in relationship with the Son and the Spirit. God is also relational with His creation, seen both pre- and post-fall. God has also made His creation for relationship and community through giving us family and church.

However, loneliness has been declared an epidemic in our current reality. In 2022, post-COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that “over 1 in 6 (16%) Australians were experiencing loneliness”[1]. In a world where meaningful connections are becoming a scarce resource and people are crying out for a sense of belonging, it is imperative that Christians are intentional with relationship and community building, as we know that humanity’s greatest need is for relationship and communion with God Himself.

In our current post-Christian culture, we have gotten many things backwards. The order of “Belief, Behaviour, Belonging” that a believer stepped through in the Billy Graham era has now been subverted into “Belonging, Behaviour, Belief” (Figure 1). This underscores belonging as the essential precursor to belief in our time. So essential, in fact, that Sam points it out as being key in determining a person’s beliefs. He argues that no matter our Christian faith or political beliefs (e.g. whether Donald Trump will fix America), the biggest reason why we believe exactly what we believe is that the community around us hold the same or similar beliefs.

“The beliefs of our community have more impact on why we find these concepts believable or plausible than straight, hard facts.”

The beliefs of our community have more impact on why we find these concepts believable or plausible than straight, hard facts. I think we all have anecdotal evidence to attest to this, as we would have had numerous instances in our lives where we failed to change someone’s mind by engaging in rational debate. The book highlights the importance of merging the universes in which we participate, both the Christian and the secular, so that our friends can be surrounded by Christian community, thereby increasing the believability and plausibility of the gospel.

Merging our universes sounds like another big and daunting task; rather than a paradigm shift, it sounds more like a paradigm crash. In one sense, it is because it requires a complete lifestyle change. The good news, however, is that we can use the approach of “coffee, dinner, gospel” (Figure 2) to further break down this task into smaller, more manageable pieces, as well as make it into a team effort. This helps us to not be THAT guy by going from 0 to 100 really quickly and scaring away anyone with any remote interest, but rather slowly building trust from more superficial topics like common interests, then transitioning to talk about values, then worldview and faith. We can also involve our Christian brothers and sisters– we can be merging our Christian friendship groups with our work/school/volunteering/you name it friendship group at each step of the way.

This is also where the need for hospitality is paramount. I have personally witnessed how hospitality can open the doors for gospel conversations, as one very hospitable Christian doctor had invited me and other medical students to his home on multiple occasions, and this facilitated the exchange of values and worldviews. As doctors, we’ve already got the hospital part covered, we just need the ‘ity’ – so be praying for this spiritual gift or opportunities to show it!

Further information on how to merge your universes, how to ‘nudge’ conversations into deeper topics and how to invite your friend to read the Bible with you is in the book.

Being their chaplain

We are called “a royal priesthood” in 1 Peter 2:9, and Sam puts this as us being “their unofficial, de facto chaplain, their connection with the sacred.” In our official capacity as doctors, we are often dealing with the impacts of sin, whether it be physical or emotional, in the lives of our patients, so there is much we have in common with a chaplain’s role. However, the differentiating factor is consideration for the spiritual needs of the person in front of us.

What are some ways we can ensure we address spiritual needs? Sam recommends praying as well as demonstrating wisdom. After all, “[w]hat is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27) so we should submit our requests to God in prayer as led by the Spirit. In the same vein, we are not wise in and of ourselves but because we have the wisdom of God through Christ (1 Cor 1:24). The assurance that Christians have in the answers given in the Bible should stand out and be attractive to the world around us who are riddled with doubt and questions.

“The assurance that Christians have in the answers given in the Bible should stand out and be attractive to the world…”

The need for chaplaincy doesn’t just stop with patients and those we’ve built a relationship with. You could be called upon to be a chaplain by a close non-Christian friend because of their trust in you or by someone around that you don’t know all that well because you happened to be in the right place, at the right time to witness their suffering. But you would think you’d know their name at the very least! Sam shares his personal approach where he makes “a deliberate attempt to learn the names of all the people who work at my section of the hospital – especially the transporter and cleaners.”

If you want more encouraging examples, read this book to see how lives have been impacted by Christians being Jesus to others, e.g. how Dr Shawna helped encourage Tatiana, the transporter’s relationship with Christ.

Being a witness and a listening ear

Talking and apologetics are important parts of evangelism, but not the only part, or the most important, depending on the circumstances. As our personal evangelism mostly centres around friends and family, as well as the occasional stranger, the emphasis falls on our listening and personal life (Table 1). Sam writes that in his personal experience, as the relationship becomes more intimate, the amount of verbal talking decreases. Instead, our lives and our actions are doing most of the talking. Peter calls us to “[l] ive such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see. Your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12).

In addition, there is an inverse relationship between our talking and listening. Our talking should decrease because our listening should increase. As doctors, how lucky we are that we have been able to cultivate our listening skills every day in our interactions with patients so we can easily transfer this across to an evangelism context! Furthermore, listening is even more crucial in an increasingly polarised and fractured society that has much to disagree with Christianity. As Sam puts it, “Win the friendship, not the argument” – and you certainly have less time to argue if you are focussing on listening! More in the book about how to listen actively and lean into disagreement.

Public Talk	Stranger	Friends and Family
90-100% talking	50% talking	0-10% talking
0-10% listening	50% listening	90-100% listening
0-10% personal life	20-30% personal life	90-100% personal life
Logical, linear, orderly on-off monologue	Back-and-forth conversation	Organic, unstructured multiple conversations

So, we not only need to talk the talk but more importantly we need to walk the walk. I read this book while accompanying my grandpa in hospital and though I’ve tried to talk to him about God, he hasn’t been open. However, I did notice that has been assessing my character during the time I spent with him, so our behaviour is a very important aspect of our witness for Christ.

Being Prepared:
Communicating the gospel without the Christian jargon

So, if like me, you’ve done the walking (as best you can) and also the listening, it now comes to the talking. So how do you talk about Jesus? While gospel tracts like Two Ways to Live have their place in some contexts, for example, talking to strangers, they are very formulaic and may feel out of place in organic conversation with friends or family. Aside from organic-ness, we need to communicate the gospel so that it speaks into the lives and hearts of our listeners. Additionally, as Blaise Pascal puts it “make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is” [2]. The book has some examples of how to make the gospel relevant for the listener – this is pretty tricky as each situation requires a unique approach, so I won’t delve into this here. The book also advocates for telling stories about Jesus as another strategy. However, I will focus on Sam’s tips on how to tell your story so that it makes a compelling testimony to the gospel for your audience, as this has much wider application.

In a world that has elevated individualism and personal definition of truth, testimony is a powerful tool. Sharing our life story can be how we deconstruct and prove that the post-Christian narrative is idiosyncratic and subjective. Our testimony is not subject to the usual counterpoints that a non-believer would usually espouse when debating Christianity.

So why can’t we just share the testimony in the same way we would if we were to be baptised as an adult?

Firstly, if we shared our testimony this way, it had better encapsulate our current life depending on how long ago we were baptised.

Secondly, a testimony written for baptism is probably written for an audience that are predominantly church-goers and would include our Christian lingo like “growing up in a Christian family”, “grace”, “salvation”, “justification”, “sanctification”, “works”, and “legalistic” to name a few. Just like how a patient would struggle to understand medical jargon, we cannot expect a non-Christian to successfully understand and contextualise what we share if this is how we are communicating.

Thirdly, everyone loves a good story, and good stories are impactful, so we should aspire to tell our stories well. Superhero stories are so loved by the general public (about as much as I personally hate them) because they set up a highly relatable character (sarcasm included at no extra cost) and clearly define the mission, goal, obstacle and climax.

Why not apply this blockbuster-making, tried-and-true template to tell the stories of our own lives? If you would like to read Sam’s example that he has written for his own life, it is available in the book. However, the template is below if you are ready to have a go yourself. Obviously, some alterations may be necessary in order to work around your own unique story as well as include examples or events to illustrate each point.

• Introduction (describe yourself): I am…
• Mission (state your mission): My mission in life was…
• Goal (what goal were you trying to achieve): Because I wanted to achieve…
• Body (describe how you tried to achieve this mission): So I…
• Obstacle (explain the problem of trying to fulfil the mission without God): But…
• Bridge (this is your “aha” moment of the gospel, explain how Jesus became your goal, and Jesus achieves your mission for you: But Jesus…
• Climax (explain how you decided to follow Jesus): That’s when I decided to follow Jesus
• Denouement (explain what living with Jesus looks like in your life now): So now I.

If you haven’t gotten the memo by now, I will just reiterate that I would highly recommend you read this book for yourself. It is well worth the read and is fairly short. It should only take a few hours, so to finish, reading it in a single sitting is an achievable accomplishment. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks as much as I do, you can listen to it too (free on Spotify if you have Spotify Premium)! And, of course, keep reading the Bible – you’ve got to know Jesus if you want to talk about Him.

How to Talk about Jesus (Without Being That Guy)
by Dr Sam Chan
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0310112693
HarperCollins Religious US (28 April 2021)

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