Posture Matters More Than Precision
Over more than 30 years of missional work across six countries, I’ve tried just about every evangelistic approach imaginable. Some approaches worked reasonably well, others failed spectacularly. Yet across every culture and context, one approach consistently bore the most fruit: good-deeds evangelism.
Being a good-deeds witness is not simply about performing acts of service. It’s about letting agape love define our posture toward those we serve with the Gospel. It’s about embodying the message of Jesus in tangible ways—through listening, helping, serving and walking alongside people without rushing to correct, convince or persuade. The posture of our hearts, not just the content of our words, creates openings for meaningful conversations and long-term trust.
In my study of evangelism methods, especially through the lens of 1 Peter 2:12–3:15 and Colossians 4:2–6, I found Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion particularly enlightening. Haidt observes, “We are terrible at reasoning about morality because our reasoning evolved to serve our social instincts, not to discover truth,” adding that “the moral matrices of politics are like religions—and trying to argue someone out of their moral convictions with reason alone is like trying to talk a fish out of water.”
He goes on to explain, “Trying to reason someone out of a position that feels morally sacred is almost impossible—you must first build a bridge of shared moral understanding,” and “If you want to change someone’s mind, you can’t start with facts. You have to speak to the emotions that shape their moral intuitions.”
While I had observed the importance of relational and empathetic approaches in cross-cultural missions, Haidt’s insights helped me see just how critical this is in engaging an increasingly polarised, post-Christian society.
Many people we encounter are not primarily debating ideas—they are testing whether Christians are trustworthy, whether we are safe to listen to, and whether our words are consistent with the way we live.
Reread the previous sentence because it’s just so very important.
Understanding this shifts the emphasis from winning arguments to winning hearts, from clever answers to curious listening, from precision to posture. No gotchas; no gimmicks.
How we respond matters just as much as what we say because many of the questions non-Christians have are as much about trust as they are about truth.
This is the principle behind our Making the Most of Faith Conversations workshop and the accompanying equipping resource Listening Answers: No Gotchas, No Gimmicks.
This resource is not about memorising clever answers or trying to “win” conversations. Instead, it teaches how to respond well when real people ask real questions about faith—often questions wrapped in confusion, disappointment or pain. Rather than rushing to defend ideas, we learn to listen carefully, acknowledge where Christians and churches have fallen short, and respond in ways that reflect the character of Jesus.
In practice, this means prioritising posture over precision. It means affirming the question, discerning whether someone needs to be heard or given perspective, and shaping our words with humility, empathy and grace. Scripture encourages this kind of approach: to speak with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15) and to “walk wisely” with those outside the faith, letting our words be shaped by grace in the moment (Colossians 4:5–6).
Yes, you don’t need a PhD in every argument; a humble, listening posture shaped by the Father’s love will do.
Good-deeds evangelism, informed by relational sensitivity and moral understanding, offers a path for followers of Jesus today: one where our lives and our words open doors, foster trust and point people to the Father’s love in ways that arguments alone never can.
