Apologetics under pressure

When I was younger, I met an evangelist with a wicked sense of humour. He had an infectious enthusiasm for the gospel and it rubbed off on you the more time you spent with him. Some of the things he did were silly. But they got the message across plainly without playing down its importance. Perhaps that's why I went off to do some odd things to get the message of Jesus over in different ways...

One bizarre exercise still stands in my mind.

He would challenge us with different roleplays. One day, he said, "You have about 30 seconds to tell someone about Jesus. They are about to get on a train and you will never see them again. You could give you testimony, share the basics of the Christian faith, share a few scriptures. It's up to you."

But to time us and concentrate our efforts, he gave each of us a match to hold. We could only talk when we lit the match, and only had until the match stopped burning to share our faith. Some people's fingers got rather hot.

Paul told Timothy to be prepared - in season and out of season. The key for us was to be prepared in advance, in order to make the most of a short opportunity where we have to operate quickly and under pressure, and not to let ourselves be distracted.