Jesus never forced conversations, but He always seemed to be talking about the gospel. Whether He was sitting by a well, sharing a meal, or answering a question, He drew people in with compassion and truth. Often, our conversations get bogged down in surface discussions about the weather, vacations, and the latest sports scores. How did Jesus do it?

We recently hosted ShareWord Global for an event that focused on this very question. We looked at Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John chapter four and then went out to have spiritual conversations with people in the neighbourhood. We focused on four levels of conversation.

1. Small Talk

Christians who are most eager to share the gospel can sometimes be the weakest at small talk, but small talk is the icebreaker where people take the first steps toward trust. In safe areas of surface conversation, people are asking questions like, “Does this person listen? Do we have anything in common? Could I trust them with more personal information?”

With a simple request for a drink of water, Jesus forms a bridge with a woman of a different culture in John 4:7. She’s clearly intrigued that He, as a Jew, would be speaking to her, a Samaritan (John 4:8), and she opens up as a result.

As we practiced these skills in the neighbourhood, I met a Jewish man. As we spoke, he was eager to talk about the release of hostages in Israel and the recently signed peace plan. Rather than rushing past this conversation, I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about what matters to him. I shared about a couple I know who do relief work in Israel through Christian Friends of Israel.

If we want to have more spiritual conversations, we need to have more conversations, and we need to grow in small talk. Taking the time to establish rapport and find areas of common ground is an important part of building trust, and no one listens to people they don’t trust.

Once trust is built through small talk, the next step is to get a little more personal.

2. Personal Talk

As trust is established through small talk, we want to get more personal. Conversations never move beyond small talk, either because we don’t open up or because we don’t invite others to do so. In personal talk, we look for opportunities to share about our feelings, our struggles, and our failures, and we ask questions of others that show our interest in them as a person.

Jesus did this with the Samaritan woman by asking her to call her husband. It revealed an area of need in the woman’s life and moved their discussion to a deeper level.

As I talked in the neighbourhood with the Jewish man, I asked if he had any family in Israel affected by the war. He opened up more and said in a sense that all of the victims on October 7 were like family to him. I learned that both of his grandfathers were rabbis. It helped me understand him better and appreciate his sense of identity and solidarity.

In the same way that we need to expand the number of people with whom we engage in small talk, we also need to grow in our willingness to have personal conversations. Opening up about our lives and asking questions that show that we care deepens our interactions and makes spiritual conversations more natural.

As personal conversations deepen, we may find natural openings to discuss faith.

3. Spiritual Talk

Spiritual talk is a move to discuss faith, but without any personal stakes yet. It’s like the small talk of evangelistic conversations. And like small talk, it’s where you need to build rapport and establish that you’re someone who can be trusted to have this level of conversation.

You can see this in Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well when she brings up the long-standing debate between the Jews and Samaritans about whether to worship in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim (John 4:20). Jesus addresses the debate (John 4:21-22) but doesn’t get bogged down in it. Instead, He speaks about it in a way that offers hope (John 4:23-24).

As I continued to speak with the Jewish man, I asked him what he thought about the promise in the Hebrew Scriptures about a coming Messiah. He said simply, “He’s coming. In fact, He might have already come.” He shared how some people believe that Lebovic might be the Messiah. I then said that I was curious what reasons people have for believing that he might be the one. He shared that there were reports of miracles, and he was a great man. The more that he shared his own faith, the more natural it became for me to share my own.

The key to spiritual talk is finding natural opportunities to express curiosity about what someone believes.

4. Gospel Talk

Gospel talk is when you’re no longer just talking about religion or spirituality, but you’re actually discussing Jesus and how He came to save us from our sins. Ideally, though, it should still be naturally connected to the conversation you’re already having.

When Jesus and the Samaritan woman were talking about water, Jesus moved into a discussion of living water (John 4:10) and described eternal life as being like a spring of water inside a person that forever quenches their thirst (John 4:14-15). Jesus also explicitly identified Himself as the one who can give that water.

After the Jewish man had given me the reasons that people offer for believing that Lebovic is the Messiah, I asked him if I might share how I became convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. I talked about His virgin birth, His miracles, but primarily how He predicted His death on the cross for our sins, and promised that He would rise from the grave on the third day.

He said that he had heard of an Alexandrian document that said that Jesus had only gone into a coma and was revived by the disciples who had brought medicine to the tomb. I explained that the biggest problem with that theory was that the resurrection was a core part of the apostles’ message and that they had each died for their faith. He said, “Many people have died for their faith.” I agreed but then added, “People don’t die for a faith that they know is a lie.”

It was a productive conversation that was made more natural by an awareness of the value of the different levels of conversation and how they function.

Growing in the art of spiritual conversation isn’t about forcing every conversation into a gospel presentation. It’s about meeting people where they are and helping them draw a step closer to Jesus. When we approach people with humility, curiosity, and compassion, God delights to turn our ordinary words into opportunities for eternal impact.

In awe of Him,

Paul