Can you picture it?…The scene is the quad at Cal Berkley (but it could be any such institution of higher learning!) The sun is shining and the grass is littered with students working on their tans. Amongst them is group of Christians with guitars seeking to share their love of Jesus with their friends. Their plan, to use a bold act of worship (joyful singing!!) to arouse the curiosity and prompt questions from listening sunbathers ………but nobody had any questions in fact nobody was really interested .
This experience prompted one of  the worshipers to observe “our bold worship had grown our faith, but it made for weak evangelism. Our fatal flaw? We came up with our evangelistic strategy while we were alone in a room together with a bunch of Christians
……..and it prompted such questions as:
What is it like for those who are lost to take steps toward Jesus?
How can we be helpful to them on the journey?
Over the next ten years, while working amongst students Intervarsity workers Don Everts and Doug Schaup asked these and other similar questions and documented their findings. The results have been published in a book entitled “I Once was Lost”. The subtitle for the book is” What postmodern skeptics taught us about their paths to Jesus” and the lessons are remarkable and illuminating.
I hope to write in more detail about their challenging findings in the future but for now just a few “appetizers

“Each individual path to faith was a unique mystery ….and their collective paths had remarkable similarities”

“ There are five significant shifts (thresholds) that go in postmodern folk as they come to faith”
1 From Distrust to Trust
2 From Complacent to Curious
3 From Closed to change to Open to change
4 From Meandering to Seeking
5 The Threshold of the Kingdom itself

“Understanding the mysterious nature of the path has freed us from activism and ushered us into a humble place of wonder and prayer
…understanding the organic nature of the path has freed us from the frustrations of “one trick” evangelism and empowered us to get involved in the specific unfolding of mysteries of our friends”
“…the great news is the better we listen the better we serve those on the journey”

I am convinced if you are serious about sharing your faith you need to read this book ……and you need to have it on your shelves to refer to regularly!