Evangelist Ravi Zacharias and sports star Tim Tebow recently sat down for a “Face to Face” event arranged by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Both Zacharias and Tebow shared their own testimonies before delving into more topical discussions. At one point, Zacharias talked to Tebow about the hostility in Washington, D.C. and politics right now—and says the same root problem affecting politics has also rendered some people’s evangelistic efforts ineffective.
“Look at Jesus,” Zacharias says. “… Conversation with dignity and respect is indispensable to effective evangelism. When people turn against evangelism, often it’s not the message. It’s the messenger that has misused an approach, and the recipient just finds the message unattractive because of the manner in which they delivered.”
Zacharias says it’s indicative of a larger failure to communicate respectfully with one another in today’s culture.
“What’s happening in Washington today?” Zacharias says. “Who sets the tone? What’s happened to the tone? Even if they were to agree on something, they won’t, because they disagree with the person so much, leave alone the ideas. And I think this is the lost art of true dialogue in our time, and we have lost civility because nobody is there to set the tone anymore and say, ‘Let us talk in the terms that I think we need to understand with each other.’ … But here’s what I want to say: The tone is often set by the one who claims to be a follower of Christ. If you start off with a polemical stance and an ‘I know better than you’ stance … then you will get that kind of response from the other person.”
Watch a full video of the Face to Face event here.
