013 – Sharing Our Faith

Episode 013 – Sharing Our Faith

Originally recorded: July 2006

This episode is a pivot point.

What begins as a story about a prank podcast episode (and the backlash that followed), slowly becomes a confession, a reconstruction, and a redefinition of what it means to share our faith with integrity.

I walk through a chapter in The Christian Handbook titled How to Share Your Faith. I read the seven steps. Then I sit with them. Question them. Wrestle with them. And offer what my own journey has taught me about:

• Why looking for “openings” can feel manipulative
• Why being yourself is the most powerful form of witness
• Why relationship must come before theology
• Why I rarely invite non-Christians to church
• Why some of the people I “led to Christ” showed no fruit—because I was selling, not serving
• And why love with strings is no love at all

This episode is not a teaching.

It’s a turning.

I believed evangelism needed to be reformed from performance to presence.

I believed the “step-by-step” approach to salvation had done more harm than good.

I believed God’s Spirit could guide us if we would stop forcing the script.

And I believed that relational integrity mattered more than theological mastery.

I now believe that faith can’t be shared—it can only be lived.

I believe the deepest invitation we offer others is not a tract or a teaching—it’s our frequency.

It’s the way we live, the way we love, the way we stay.

I no longer look for spiritual openings.

I live open.

I don’t sell salvation.

I embody alignment.

And I trust the Spirit to do what I never could.

Because this was the day I let go of spiritual manipulation.

Because this was the moment I stopped trying to win people—and started loving them.

Because this episode holds the seed of everything I now live.

And because this is where presence began to speak louder than persuasion.

Cliff