[00:00:42] Hi everyone, I'm Jo Vitale. Welcome back to the podcast. Last week we were speaking to the question, why do I find it so hard to share my faith? And this week's episode is actually part two of that same conversation. So if you haven't already, it might be worth listening to that episode first, as we're going to jump back in with part two. But before we do that, Vincent and I have been asking you guys to leave reviews for Ask Away online and we've been really appreciating them. Thank you. Please do keep them coming. Although we discovered that's a bit of a risky ask when you have a younger sibling. My sister had some personal feedback for us on our advice from last week's episode, which made us laugh, so we thought we'd share it with you all as well. 

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Alice [00:01:26] Morning, I haven't listened to your new podcast yet but Mark has, and he just told me about the theme of this week, and he said that he tried one of your questions on me yesterday, and he absolutely stacked it because I just didn't even reply. I think he asked me what the best part of my week has been. I think I said something like lying in my pregnancy pillow and then I fell asleep. So, yeah, some feedback for you. 

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Jo Vitale [00:02:04] Thank you Alice for that helpful feedback. It is a fair critique. Based on his own life experience, Vince should have known better and included the qualification that if you're dealing with a very pregnant British woman, then none of the usual rules of engagement apply, and you definitely shouldn't try to start a deep and meaningful chat when she's already settled into her pregnancy pillow. Those things are an absolute game changer. As you can see, all reviews are welcome and we love hearing from you. For those in need of a recap, last week we introduced the spiritual discipline of conversation, and we shared a few pointers for how to get into more meaningful conversations in general and talking about Jesus more specifically. For example, like becoming goal setters or always being question ready. Today, we're going straight back to where Vince left off. Here's part two of the spiritual discipline of conversation. Often we think, well, people just don't want to share or people are very private, but they're actually not. 

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Vince Vitale [00:03:12] Absolutely. 

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Jo Vitale [00:03:12] I think they are desperate to be heard. I think people are desperate to feel like somebody cares, and someone really wants to listen to what's on their heart. It's just that most of the time people feel like everyone's disinterested and they don't want to know, but it takes so little for people to pour their hearts out if we just show that we care enough to ask those next questions. So that one's a really big one. Another one that joins up with that, the fourth piece of advice would be don't only be question ready, but also be response ready. One way to actually get people to share vulnerably, to let them know it's safe for them to share vulnerably in response to your questions, is to be vulnerable in the responses that you give to their questions. You know don't stay on the surface when they ask you an everyday question. Think about ways that you too can take it to the next level and let them know, hey, with me, we can have real conversations. We can go deeper. We're not going to stay on the surface. Think of the common responses we give to everyday questions. They're just as bad as the questions themselves, aren't they? Yeah. Okay. Alright. Not bad. Pretty good. Can't complain. Yeah. Getting by. Nothing. Not much. Fine. I mean, it would be hard to make any responses more boring or less contentful. But if I know I'm going to see somebody today, why shouldn't I take some time to pray about them and to ask God for a good answer to a question that they always ask me? I actually don't see anything artificial or disingenuous about that. It just means I care enough about the person to give them a real answer, rather than the first thing that just happens to jump into my head on the spot. I wouldn't do that with my teaching. If I just showed up to record today and I just started rambling about the first thing that came into my head-- okay, to be fair occasionally. 

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Vince Vitale [00:04:49] Don't let them know, Jo. 

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Jo Vitale [00:04:50] Don't let them know. But, no, that's not what I typically do, at least not for most of the content. Likewise, you would never just wing an important presentation for a course we're taking or for an important work proposal, would we? So why do we almost always just wing conversation. And think about some of the questions we get asked most often. You know what they are. But is our conversation well seasoned? Is it well prepared? How is your weekend? You could say not bad, thanks. Or how is your weekend? Well, really good actually. Saturday we just did some stuff around the house. But then Sunday we went to church, which is always a highlight for us. Do you ever go to church? Oh no, I never used to go either, but a friend invited me along a few years ago and I found it deeply meaningful and a valuable community to be a part of. Honestly, I've actually never felt so known and so loved. It would be great to have you join us sometime. You know what? That's just an honest answer. There's actually nothing weird about that at all. And actually, if you've encountered the living God in church on a Sunday, and if someone asks you, how was your weekend and you just say fine thanks, it's not even an honest answer, is it? Your weekend was so much better than just fine. So why do we dumb it down and act like our lives were as boring as everyone else's? You experienced something incredible. Why wouldn't we want to talk about it? If you're a churchgoing Christian and you're excited to share with others in that question, how is your weekend? That is an absolute gift. 

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Vince Vitale [00:06:17] It's so exciting to me because, I mean, think about it. How was your weekend kind of question that you probably get on average, I would say at least five times a week. Okay, 52 weeks a year, let's say roughly 250 times a year you're going to get that question. Multiply that by, let's say, 60 years in your adult life. That means in your adult lifetime, you're going to get that exact question like 15,000 times. Well, what if instead of shrugging it off with a "Fine thanks" when that question comes, or just spitting out the first thing that happens to pop into our head, what if today you took just a half hour to prayerfully come up with some really meaningful, life-giving responses to that one question, which could open the door to meaningful conversation? Can you imagine over the course of a lifetime what a difference that could make? How many spiritual conversations might flow out of that? How many relationships might deepen? How many people you might be able to invite to church? How many lives could be transformed from just one meaningful thought through response to that one question? 

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Jo Vitale [00:07:23] That's so good. Some answers we give are going to lead to meaningful conversation, and others are unlikely to you. But every day questions are this amazing opportunity that we just pass up all the time. And I used to think it was remarkable how quick Jesus was on his feet in response to questions. And, yeah, of course I still do. But to a certain extent, I used to find it really discouraging because I was never as fast on my feet, you know what I mean? He's always coming out with these amazing lines, like, why did you call me good? Or you who are without sin, throw the first stone. Or render to Caesar what is Caesar's, but to God what is God's. And those are the kind of lines I think of when I'm lying in bed at the end of the day, like 10 hours too late. I'm still just as amazed at Jesus' conversational gift. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether these are just instances of Jesus being incredibly quick on his feet, or whether that also cases of him having prayed and thought hard about how to respond to common questions, or the questions and challenges that he saw coming that day. The British abolitionist, William Wilberforce, who played a key role in bringing an end to the British international slave trade in the early 19th century, he was actually also an excellent personal evangelist. 

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[00:08:31] And one of the reasons for this was because every evening after dinner, he'd spend an hour looking over his calendar for the next day at who he was going to be spending time with, and then developing and writing down what he called launches. Responses to questions or topics of conversation that he knew would lead to meaningful spiritual conversations. You can actually read about them in his diaries. It was even common knowledge among many of his friends and acquaintances, but no one thought it was weird or was put off by it. In fact, one of his contemporaries even wrote about him when the little man-- which I find funny. When the little man came in late to a dinner party bristling maybe with launches, every face lighted up with pleasure at his entry. And what if Jesus spent an hour after dinner, or early in the morning, thinking hard about the people the father had placed in his life, and the conversations he would like to have with them, and thinking of good questions to ask and good answers to give to the questions that he could expect. And perhaps at some of those lunches that we find recorded in the New Testament. 

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Vince Vitale [00:09:33] A few more encouragements. Next one is to be testimony ready. Some of the deepest and most meaningful discussions happen when we relate to what others are saying. And therefore, sharing the faith is very often about understanding our own stories, understanding others stories, and then finding Christ at the intersection. But I've been convinced, especially over the last few years, that one of the reasons we often find sharing the faith so hard is because we don't actually know our own stories very well, and therefore it's no surprise that we have trouble finding those intersections between our stories and others. And one of the reasons that we don't know our stories particularly well is because we tend to tell our own story one way and the same way, regardless of the conversational context and regardless of who we're conversing with. So for many of us, at some point, someone told us to write out our testimony to conform to a framework, maybe sort of life before Christ, your encounter with Christ and your life after Christ. And we told our testimony singular in that same way, that same sort of 2 to 3 minute spiel ever since. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm really thankful for that 2 to 3 minute spiel that I have. It's authentic. It's real. I'm glad someone encouraged me to write it out, and I still share my testimony that way very frequently. But the truth is that each of us has innumerable testimonies of how God has worked in our lives, and one way of gaining a deeper understanding of our own stories that I found extremely useful is to write out your testimony along various themes. So I start by identifying a theme under which it would be important for me to understand my story. And then I pray and reflect about how that theme has played out in my life and how God has been at work through it. And I might ask others how they have seen that theme play out in my life. The more themes that we know our testimonies under, the better, because then the more natural it will be to authentically connect with the stories of others, regardless of which themes are most strongly present in their story at the time that we're talking to them. 

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[00:11:40] So which themes would it be good to understand and be able to articulate our stories through? So many quickly jump to mind. Themes of forgiveness, family, suffering, intellect, relationships, guilt, death, fear, dreams, purpose, loneliness, freedom, pride, worry and anxiety, shame, frustrations with the church. Decisions about the future, image, identity. Most of us probably always tell our testimony along the same theme or two, but the truth is that as you hear that list and you probably have your own list in your head, God has been renewing us in all of these respects. And the more thoroughly we understand our story along a variety of themes, the better we will be able to connect meaningfully with the stories of others. We'll be able to naturally recognize more intersections between other stories and our own, and we'll be able to find Christ at those intersections. I actually do this in three different ways, this type of preparation, and sometimes I've even built it into my quiet times. Sometimes I've done it along themes like I just discussed. Sometimes I've done it along specific ages. I might just spend time with the Lord and say, God, bring to mind things from my ages, say 12 to 15, things that were significant in my life. Maybe things that I've forgotten. Maybe experiences that you were at work through that I haven't identified yet. And when you help me to have a fuller understanding of my story or specific relationships, my relationship with my father, my relationship with my brother, my relationship with a specific friend and I just spend time meditating with the Lord in prayer about that specific relationship and saying, Lord, teach me more about my story and how you've been at work in my life through that relationship. And the other fantastic thing I love about doing this, is that as I come to better understand my own story, it just brings me to a place of greater and deeper worship of God, because it allows me to recognize that what God has done in my life is so much richer and wider and deeper than any one version of my story. 

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Jo Vitale [00:13:49] Yeah, I love that so much. I can still remember the first time it clicked for me that I have multiple testimonies. It was in university when we were under some intense pressure to perform well in our final exams, and a friend came up to me who wasn't a Christian and never asked me about faith, but he just suddenly asked me this really cool question and he said, "I'm feeling so stressed out, but I look at you and you never seem stressed. How do you do that? Why do you never seem stressed?" And I think that was when it hit me for the first time. I have a testimony on this theme. I'm not stressed because my identity is in Jesus, and these exams don't define me. But I think that was the clicking moment for me of like, oh, wow, there was so many ways that God has been at work in my life. And I really need to ruminate on it more, so that when a friend asked me a question like that, I can see it as a doorway to the gospel rather than thinking he's just asking you about stress. Because, no, it was really a question about Jesus in my life. And that was when it hit me. Okay. Number six is be prayer ready. We so vastly underestimate the awesomeness of prayer. I mean, literally, prayer is action at a distance. I can actually affect things for my family in England just by talking to God here in California. How cool is that? It's basically a superpower. And what a blessing that God has given that to us. 

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[00:15:05] But when it comes to the spiritual discipline of conversation, I really want to highlight that there are no conversations you're going to have that are more important than the one that you're already having with God. How can we expect to meaningfully talk to other people about God if we're not already in meaningful conversation with God? And if you're wondering why it feels like your evangelistic conversations are going nowhere, this is always a really good place to start, because there is undoubtedly going to be a direct correlation between the health of your prayer life and the fruitfulness of your evangelism. Imagine being a soldier sent on a mission to recover a hostage from behind enemy lines, but instead of looking for Intel and orders from your commanding officer, you just think to yourself, man, I've got this, and you just go charge again, gung-ho, guns blazing and just kind of hope for the best. And there's just no way that scenario ends well. And, yet, I think Christians do this all the time with respect to prayer and evangelism. We kind of charge ahead without first looking to our commanding office, without listening to God and saying, what do you want to do here, Lord? I mean, honestly, it's so embarrassing to me how many times I've been in the middle of a conversation with someone about God having completely forgotten to pray, and invited the Holy Spirit to direct that conversation. I mean, this is the Holy Spirit, the one who Jesus says convicts the world in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit, who is the great evangelist, the one who Jesus says testifies about him, and the one who guides people into all truth. And the Holy Spirit who's known and loved the person sitting across from me before they even took their first breath, who knows their heart better than they even know it themselves, and certainly better than I know it's right. 

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[00:16:46] And yet somehow I forget to pull up a chair and make sure he has the seat of honor at the table and defer to him to lead the conversation. They've been so many occasions where I've belatedly remembered halfway through to ask the Holy Spirit to be in the conversation and to give me the question to ask. And I can't tell you how much that's transformed those moments from being a dead end conversation going nowhere, to actually a life giving, powerful moment of spiritual insight and connection. But it's just so much better to remember to do that in the first place than belatedly rush to it at the end. Because God is always at work. He's always doing so much more, not less than we think he is. So when we pray, we get out of our own way and instead we align ourselves with what he is already doing. And I think that's when we're useful. Pray all the time. Pray before your conversations, pray during them and pray afterwards as well. So a question for you to write down is, how do you remind yourself to pray for people who are not yet believers? There are so many ways we can do this, but every Christian needs to be able to answer that question. 

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Vince Vitale [00:17:52] Yeah, I'm so thankful to personally be the fruit of evangelistic prayers. I learned even more about this not that long ago. I was speaking at a conference, and I mentioned that I gave my life to Christ in my dorm room, my freshman year. And I didn't normally mention the specific dorm room, but I did. I said 122 Jolene Hall. And after I was speaking, after I was done, a woman came forward and she looked like she had been really moved. She looked emotional and she said, "Did you say 122 Jolene Hall?" And I said, "Yes." And she said, "Well, I'm about 15 years older than you. And I lived in 121 Jolene Hall, just next door, during my years in college." And then she said, "And I spent my four years of college praying for the salvation of the guys in 122 Jolene Hall." And she said, "All these years, I've felt like God didn't hear that prayer, didn't answer that prayer. But as you were speaking and told your story, I knew that he had heard my prayer word for word, and he had literally answered it for the salvation of the guys in 122, Jolene Hall." And I just find that just so overwhelming to think that 15 years before I ever thought to turn my attention in God's direction, He had a woman next door literally praying for the wooden floor on which I dropped to my knees and gave my life to him. So, as Jo's already said, we tend to vastly underestimate how often our prayers are answered. God is always doing more than we can see, nevertheless. 

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Jo Vitale [00:19:25] All right. Two more points for you. The seventh point that I want to share with you is to be good stewards of conversation. If I gave you a $100 bill right now, which, as you know, I would, but we're on a podcast so I can't. 

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Vince Vitale [00:19:36] Go for it, Jo, I'm here. I'm the only one in handing distance.

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Jo Vitale [00:19:40] But if I gave you that $100 bill, I bet there's very low probability you would just leave it lying around somewhere and quickly lose it. Well, when someone entrusts us with something personal and significant about their life, how much is that worth to us? If we've had a good conversation with someone and they've really vulnerably shared information about themselves, like the names of family members, possibly information about struggles they're facing or that a relative is ill, or a hope or a dream or a frustration, those are valuable gifts. And so we need to take care of them and not just kind of toss them in the garbage on our way out the door. Are we trustworthy with the information that has been entrusted to us? Do we care enough about people to remember it, and to reflect on it, and to pray about it so that we can be prepared to take the next step in conversation and relationship the next time we see them, rather than being caught in this awkward spot where you run into them and you're like, oh no, they said something, but I can't remember what it was. Was it about a sibling or a dad? And was his name James or Frank? And then you got to take a stab at it anyway, and you say the wrong thing. And it just has gone horribly wrong. We got to do better here. 

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Vince Vitale [00:20:48] Never been there. Don't know what you're talking about. 

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Jo Vitale [00:20:50] I've definitely been there. But my mind is a sieve. I can't even remember all my computer passwords. I've given up at this point. I just go straight to password recovery every time. So I definitely don't trust myself to remember all of these important things about all the people that I have multiple conversations with. And so, instead, what I've learned today, which I was actually taught by Vince, who has a propensity to enjoy keeping files about everything. 

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Vince Vitale [00:21:12] The only thing I've ever taught Jo. 

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Jo Vitale [00:21:16] Yes. It's been useful, though. Vince has entire Microsoft Word documents on people. I don't go that far. I just have notes on my phone. I don't know if that's better or worse, but there it is. And I'll admit, when I first found that out about Vince that he kept Microsoft Word files on people, I found it a little creepy. I did. But as Vince pointed out at the time, why is it okay for us to do so much research and study and know so much about historical figures or professional athletes or entertainment celebrities, but so little about the people we've actually met? A friend of mine often says that poor administration is poor pastoral care, and I felt absolutely skewered when she said that because, not my greatest strength- administration. But when someone tells you something, they give you permission to remember it. And so I'm being organized enough to do so. As long as you're very careful about issues of confidentiality-- and that is important-- is a way of valuing them. And it means the next time you see them, you can have had a look through your notes and be better prepared for a conversation. And in doing so, you show you care about them by putting in the effort to remember things about them and to pray for specific things going on in their lives. Vince actually had a file on me when we were dating. It was 34 pages long. And he gave it to me before we got married as a gift, which was quite a moment. But I guess that's the test, right? Will the person be encouraged to see their file? Would they be encouraged? And this hit home for me just how useful this was. 

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[00:22:43] A number of years back, when a girl at church came up to me and asked me one Sunday if we could meet for coffee, and once we met, she shared some deeply vulnerable and personal things that she was struggling with, and I was really honored that she trusted me. But I was also confused why she asked me to meet for coffee in particular because she was a new student and we'd only met twice. Then she told me that, well, the reason I asked you is because the second time I saw you, you remembered my name. You know, the only reason I remembered her name was because it had been the first Sunday where all the new students were arriving. And right before they came, Vince reminded me to make a list on my phone of all of their names, and so I'd recheck that list on my way back to church the next week. And it was such a small thing for me to have done, but for her it was really big. It doesn't take much to help people feel seen and loved. And just one more point about being good stewards of conversation. Often, this means looking to extend the conversation. And that's quite simple really. You can just say something like, I really enjoyed talking with you today. Maybe we can talk some more sometime. Do you have an email address I can reach you at or are you on Facebook? As a British person, I think I would never not find this part of the conversation slightly awkward. It always makes me cringe because I've been conditioned to think of it as an invasion of privacy. But if you're British or from a culture where you live in constant fear of causing offense by imposing yourself on somebody else or perhaps breathing in their direction, then the best advice I can give you here is just to embrace that awkwardness and just get over yourself because there's honestly so much more at stake than your social anxiety. 

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[00:24:18] So long as we're worried about appeasing people, we will never truly love them. We call it being polite, but actually it's really just being indifferent. We have to learn to love people more than we fear the social awkwardness of the interaction, or we will spend our lives never talking about anything that actually matters, and we'll go to our graves having never shared the only hope that people actually needed. But I find that if I can get over myself and my social insecurities and just ask those questions, ask for that contact information, the people I'm asking, they actually don't seem to be bothered that I'm asking for it at all. It turns out people are very willing to share you an email address or a social media account, even if they're a bit more hesitant with phone numbers. In fact, after many years of sharing the faith, I don't think I've ever had someone turn down a request for that email address. So once you have that information, you can set up a conversation date. And that actually works really well because the person then already knows that you want to carry on the previous conversation. And so that’ll put some extra thought going into it. So, yeah, I just encourage you keep it going, be good stewards of those conversations, keep the conversation moving. 

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Vince Vitale [00:25:24] One final encouragement for the spiritual discipline of conversation is to be invitational. We always remember one student on a college campus who came to Christ about midway through missions week that we were doing on the campus, and when she did, we remember asking her, she didn't seem to have some specific big obstacle that she had to work through or some really particular objection. And so someone said to her, "Why do you think you didn't become a Christian sooner?" And I remember she was just really thoughtful about it and kind of leaned back in her chair and considered the question. And then she just said, "I think I just needed an invitation." And always remember that line. How many people like that do we walk past every day? How many of our friends and colleagues, how many of our family members invite people to Jesus? That may seem overly simplistic, but it's absolutely crucial. No matter how great a party you are throwing, and no matter how much you tell people how great your party is going to be and how much you are looking forward to your party in general, people are not going to just show up at the party uninvited, and we don't just want to tell people how great the huge banquet that God is throwing is going to be. We want to actually invite them. We want them to actually be there rejoicing with us. Are there people in my life whom I love dearly, who I maybe have told how great God is and I've maybe even shared my testimony with them, maybe I've even answered some of their faith questions, but if I'm honest, I've never actually given them an invitation to become a Christian. Would you like to follow Jesus? Would you like to join me in the Christian life? Is there anything that is keeping you from putting your trust in Jesus? 

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[00:27:21] Why do we so often not make invitations? An invitation should be a gift, even if someone doesn't think they are ready to accept it. If I invite you to my wedding, even if you decide you can't come, I have still honored you and given you a gift by inviting you. So we need to learn how to extend that invitation that makes someone feel honored, even if they're not yet ready to accept it. Why do we so often not make the invitation? I think sometimes it's because I get fooled into thinking God is far from some of the people in my life. I assume they're not ready to respond. They don't know enough. They haven't had enough time to consider it, or they haven't had enough experience of God. I assume that God is far from them. And at the root of this, I think, is really that sometimes I'm deceived into thinking that sharing the faith is about me rather than about God. That evangelism is something that I do for God. It's up to me. He's not really involved. And if were true, then yes, it would be extremely arrogant for me to think that someone could begin a conversation with me as a hardened skeptic and that I, Vince, will have done enough in perhaps less than an hour to have persuaded both this person's mind and their heart to make the most significant, eternal decision that they could ever make. That would be extremely arrogant. But the reality of this situation is so different, because the Bible says that God is not far from any one of us- Acts 17:27. And the Bible says in Romans one that what is known about God is plain to people, speaking even about nonbelievers here, because God has shown it to them. 

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[00:29:08] And the crisis of the church is that many people have stopped believing that, and therefore they've stopped believing in the power of the gospel, and therefore they have stopped inviting people to Jesus. But if you trust God's Word, then you start to believe that in every single conversation God could bring new life, and that's when things get really exciting. Sometimes it is as simple as an invitation. One of my former students, his testimonies are so awesome. He became a Christian because he was invited to church by a Christian friend. The Christian friend overslept. He shows up at the church, nobody there to meet him. He pokes his head in the back, sees a seat right near the back, sits down, hears a sermon from John 15, is pierced to the heart, goes forward at the end, gives his life to Jesus. I mean, can you imagine if you're that friend and you call to apologize later in the day and the guy shares with you that he came to Christ? God will use what you have. If you are willing to step out for him, God will use what you have. Even if sometimes all we have is inviting someone to church and then oversleeping, God can still use it. One last encouragement. A while back-- this was years ago actually-- I met a young man at church. He had grown up in a Christian home, but he came up to me after the sermon, he identified himself as a non-Christian and he asked a tough question. It was about hell, and I answered it the best I could. And as I did, I could see in his eyes that it was making sense, and it seemed like there was some sort of significant shift taking place even in his heart. But I hesitated, and then he said, thanks for my response, and he just walked away. I started talking to someone else, but I thought, man, I should have made the invitation. I took his question seriously, but I didn't make the invitation and I just felt it in my gut. 

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[00:30:55] And so I excused myself from the other conversation. I ran after the guy out the back of church into this dark alley. I think I startled them. I just said, "Look, I'm really sorry. As we were talking, I just sensed that there was some sort of shift taking place. And if there's anything else that you wanted to say to God?" As I'm talking, I'm halfway through my sentence and he just blurts out, "I really want to recommit my life to Jesus." And I just couldn't believe it. It was literally on the tip of his tongue. And I didn't even get to finish my question, but I almost didn't even extend the invitation. I almost didn't even bother asking. Let me encourage you to trust God with those promptings. I called them Holy Spirit U-turns when as you walk away from a conversation, you just know somehow in your gut that God had more work to do, that you had missed it. Here's the best part, you've almost never missed it. God will provide a way back in if you’re willing to be used by him. And the best part is that every time you say yes to God's prompting and God comes through, you build up evidence of God's faithfulness in blessing your invitations. Years ago, I can remember that same exact feeling in my gut being a feeling of nerves and fear. But as I stood there watching this young man walk out the back of church, I felt probably that same biological feeling in my gut. But it wasn't a feeling of nerves or fear. It was the feeling of excitement and expectation. Because time and time again I have seen God come through and now I know what that feeling means. It means God is about to do something incredible. He might even be about to transform a life. 

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Jo Vitale [00:32:37] Amen. 

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Vince Vitale [00:32:37] And so is there someone in your life whom you love dearly, whom, if you're honest, you have never actually invited to Christ? Wouldn't it be a powerful result of this episode if each one of us who believes in Jesus committed right now to extending an invitation to follow Christ to someone in our lives? If we do that, I have no doubt that God's kingdom will grow and eternity will be forever changed. God is near and he is making himself known, and it brings him such delight when you choose to join him in extending the wonderful invitation of the gospel. I hope this week you will find joy in that privilege, and that you will enjoy one meaningful conversation after another. When you do, write in and tell us about it so that we can rejoice with you. And until then, just know that you'll be in our prayers. 

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Jo Vitale We’re so glad you joined us for Ask Away.

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Vince Vitale If you have a question that needs answering, we’d love to hear it.

Send us an email at askawayquestion@gmail.com or call and leave a voicemail at 321-213-9670.

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Jo Vitale Ask Away is hosted by Vince and Jo Vitale, and produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

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Vince Vitale New episodes come out regularly, so make sure to subscribe.

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Jo Vitale The best way you can support Ask Away is to leave a review. All you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone, look for Ask Away, scroll down until you see “Write your review” and tell us what you think.

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Vince Vitale See you next time. And remember, if you have a question, it’s worth asking.

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