The Christmas season is the time of year when non-Christians are most open to topics of faith. It’s when they’re most open to discussing spiritual beliefs, hearing about Jesus, and hearing about your personal relationship with God. It’s when they’re most open to considering their own beliefs. And it’s when they’re most open to engaging with Christian content or attending a church service.
For that reason, it’s also a major opportunity. Against the backdrop of Mariah Carey songs, decorated trees, and cheesy Christmas-themed romances on Netflix, you have an opportunity to talk about what the holiday is really about, to add some depth and meaning to the nativity scenes and Christmas carols.
But sometimes we can use some help. Just because “O Holy Night” is playing in the office elevator doesn’t mean we feel comfortable launching into a Gospel conversation. Maybe when your aunt asks for you to pass the gravy, you would rather share something of eternal significance with her, but you’re not sure how to get started.
Sometimes you need an icebreaker question, a visual aid, or something you can share on social media. We asked leaders in the global Indigitous network about the resources they’re using to share the Gospel and put Jesus back in the center of the Christmas story. Here are some of their suggestions.
Conversation Icebreakers
GodTools is an app that helps you have conversations about Jesus with the people you care about. It has a number of great tools, from Lessons to Gospel presentations, and more. You can use any of those to share about Jesus during Christmas, but there is one new feature that has been added specifically to help with conversations during this season.
The Openers tool helps you start conversations by providing powerful, fun, and interesting questions. These can be used for one-on-one conversations or group conversations around the dinner table.
The GodTools team just launched a new Holiday category in the Openers tool that has 15 different icebreaker questions. “This new category has questions specifically written to help you get into more conversations about what matters most with the people you most care about during this holiday season,” says Justin, the GodTools product leader. “Whether you’re just making conversation with your family or looking for a good, timely conversation starter question, use this category’s question to help spark your next spiritual conversation.”
Books, Poems, and More
The Bible Society has compiled a number of its best resources for sharing the Gospel with children and families on one page. There are a couple children’s booklets that are also in video form as well as a shareable poem that could be used to prompt conversations. Want to put on a nativity play? There’s a script for that.
Sharing With Short Films
People love to talk about movies and videos. It’s something we do naturally, whether we’re talking about the recent MCU superhero movie, discussing our appreciation of artistic cinema, or laughing at goofy TikToks. That’s why the Jesus Film app is such a powerful tool for starting conversations about Jesus.
If you want to show the life of Christ, the app has the full-length JESUS film both in its entirety and broken up into small segments. You can share the shorter clips to give a glimpse into specific parts of His story, such as the 3-minute clip of the birth of Jesus. “We will be using the short JESUS film in segments for this Christmas,” says Comfort, an Indigitous leader in Ghana.
In addition to that film, the Jesus Film app also has 59 short films in 491 languages. Ranging from one minute to twelve minutes long, these short films are designed to spark conversations around important topics. Each video comes with a set of questions that you can ask to get the conversations going.
Olivier, an Indigitous leader in Côte d’Ivoire, is using two short films during the Christmas season, Marea and L’histoire de Jésus Pour les Enfants.
Boi, an Indigitous leader in Thailand, is taking a similar approach by sharing short clips from the movie The Life of Jesus.
Social Media Assets
There’s an old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” So don’t overlook a good image as a conversation starter. Whether they’re shared broadly on social media, sent to a friend over text, or shown to someone on your own phone, a good image can be a great way to spark a conversation around Jesus this Christmas.
Life.Church has a page of Christmas-themed images that you can use.
Senay, an Indigitous leader in Ethiopia, is using a number of artistic designs, each with a different emotion associated with Christmas.
Travis, an Indigitous leader in East Asia, created a website to wish people a Merry Christmas, show parts of the life of Jesus through a film clip, and explain the Gospel through the birth of Christ.
Find Your Best Way
No single resource is the best way to share Jesus or start a spiritual conversation this Christmas. What works best depends on the person with whom you want to share. And it also depends on you. Depending on your personality and your relationship with that person, choose the best approach and try it! People will get a lot of gifts this Christmas, many of which will be quickly forgotten, but if you have a conversation that the Holy Spirit uses to bring someone to a relationship with God, that’s something that will have an eternal impact.