How Do You… ?

posted by Navigators on February 24th, 2020 in Evangelism | Gospel | Jesus | Missions

With Dan Pass, first published in Compass, Autumn 2020

Q&A with Dan & Beth Pass

From Gingerbread House-making to Ping-Pong-athon … we get the insight on howDan and Beth Pass “do” their engaging and interacting with both Christians and pre-believers, living out their Christian identity within their community. Here’s the conversation.

Compass: Tell us about your mission field or sphere of influence.

Dan: Beth and I live in a cul-de-sac so it is neighbourhood relationships mostly, and then work relationships – staff rooms at school. Beth has been able tohave many faith chats in her work place, which is highly multicultural and so conversations happen naturally.

Our sphere of influence includes our cul-de-sac street and school staffrooms.

C: How do you engage with your community, with both believers and pre-believers?

D: We have hosted a number of parties (house-warming, Christmas, a Ping-Pong-athon!), which have led to the beginning of some great friendships. We seek to include our Christian friends as well as non-Christian friends when we host events, or invite them to events hosted by our church. We also try to attend their events when we can, showing a genuine interest in their lives.

We are continually trying to improve on creating this community; organising bushwalks, outdoor activities, sports. Our friends who are Christians are great at initiating conversations and get to share aspects of their lives and often their faith or the fact that they follow Jesus. The challenge is the clashing schedules of busy people, and finding things which both groups would be keen on (“Spikeball” … movies.)

C: Do you have some examples of bringing in Gospel conversations in your interactions?

D: We always seek to listen well to what they say and earn the right to speak. When we do speak, we feel spiritual conversations come up naturally as we explain how we spend our weekend or what we are passionate about or mention a friend from church who works in a similar field.

We have had the privilege of seeing one family come back to church and for the parents to get baptised. Since then, we have been able to do weekly meals and Bible study with the whole family, a great answer to prayer. We have also attended the “Mark Drama” with a mother and son from our street. They are not Christians yet but we continually seek to include them in our lives – through Gingerbread House nights, Christmas parties, handball competitions and so on.