Witnessing

Every December, churches across the United States prepare for an influx of visitors, but fewer Americans than ever are including church in this year’s Christmas plans. According to a Lifeway Research study, only 47% of U.S. adults say they typically attend church during the holiday season, while 48% admit it’s not on their agenda, and 5% remain undecided. While 9 in 10 Americans do something to celebrate Christmas, less than half typically attend church at Christmastime today.

The study reveals a sharp divide in Christmas church attendance, particularly among the religiously unaffiliated—a group growing fastest among younger demographics. While 71% of this group say they’re unlikely to attend church at Christmas, 40% admit they might consider it if personally invited by someone they trust.

Among those who do attend, the motivations are surprisingly diverse. Sixty percent of Christmas churchgoers say their attendance stems from faith, but others are only doing it to keep up with tradition (16%), appease family and friends (15%), or simply embrace the festive ambiance (8%).

As churches prepare for Christmas Eve services — often the highest-attended service of the year — the message is clear: intentional outreach matters.

A New York Times article called it “The Most Important Conversation to Have Before You Die.” The article opens by stating:

“Instead of talking about politics around the Thanksgiving table this year, consider a less fraught topic: death. It’s something few of us want to think about, but death is a fact of life that we will all encounter, often first as a caregiver and then, inevitably, when we reach our own.”

According to the article, what is the most important conversation to have before you die? It’s not about your eternal destiny. It’s not about your relationship with God or how to face final judgment. Instead, “discussing what medical care you want to receive at the end of your life is one of the most loving things you can do for your family.” The article notes, “While death can be a scary subject to broach, you may be surprised by how you feel after.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Death, Preparation for – Granted this is an important conversation to have before you die, but Christians believe that there are conversations that are far more important than that topic. How many of us will leave our comfort zone and talk to family members about eternity and what preparation should be made to face God? By approaching these discussions with love, humility, and a genuine concern for their spiritual well-being, we can plant seeds that may lead to life-changing decisions about faith and salvation.

Harvie Conn was a missionary in Korea. And Harvie was trying to reach prostitutes for Christ. And in the Asian culture, prostitutes had a far lower status than prostitutes do in other societies. And Harvie couldn’t break through, because when he offered the love of Christ, they said, ‘sorry, Christ would never have anything to do with me. You don’t understand. I am an absolute…I’m scum.’ Finally, one day Harvie said, “Let me tell you the doctrine of predestination. Let me tell you the doctrine of election.”

‘Our God doesn’t love you because you’re good…doesn’t love you because you’re moral… doesn’t love you because you’re humbler…doesn’t love you because you’re surrendered. He actually just chooses people and sets His love on you and loves you just because He loves you. That’s how you’re saved.’

And the prostitute said, ‘What?!!

Harvie: ‘Yes!!”

She said, ‘You mean He just loves people like that?’

Harvie: ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, how do I know if He loves me?’

Then Harvie said, ‘When I tell you the story of Jesus dying for you, does that move you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you want Him?’ ‘Yeah!’ ‘You aren’t capable of wanting Him IF He wasn’t wanting you! You aren’t capable of loving Him unless He was loving you.’ And Harvie found that prostitutes started coming to Christ because they got a radical new cultural identity

Editor’s Note: You can access the entire sermon here

As fire threatened people in Jasper National Park, Colleen Knull sprang into action. “I like to be able to help people,” said the 18-year-old. “I like the fact that what I do in my work does good.”

Knull is a volunteer firefighter in North Okanagan in Alberta, Canada. She was working a summer job as part of the kitchen staff at a Jasper lodge when one night an evacuation order was issued for the area. “The smoke was coming up from the mountainside,” said Knull. “It was big.”

Knull quickly spread the word to guests of the lodge and tracked down any other people camping out in the area. In total, she rallied 16 people together for a four-hour hike in treacherous terrain to safety.

Rebecca Tocher, a hiker who was in Knull’s group said, “There was more intense smoke, my eyes were burning, there was ash falling constantly. She was an amazing leader and was just making sure that everyone was working together.”

Knull used her knowledge of the area and tracking skills to navigate in the dark. Knull said:

I had previously ridden a horse up to that lodge on that same trail and throughout the way me and my employer, we had cut logs on the way up," said Knull. "There were 67 logs, so there would be 67 cut logs on the way down…So, I used my tracking skills – following horse tracks, and horse manure.”

“She was just on it and she led it, the whole way,” said David Richmond, another hiker in the group.

“I do it because at the end of the day, I’d want somebody there to help,” said Knull.

During the hike down, the group was able to communicate with search and rescue crews to help with the evacuation. Knull eventually drove all 16 people in her pickup truck out of the evacuation zone. No one was seriously injured.

Knull said the experience reinforced her motivation to become a full-time, professional firefighter.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Rescue; Salvation; Savior, Christ only - Christ, our compassionate Savior, personally leads us through the valley of death, just as He promised, 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me' (Psalm 23:4). His prior experience ensures our safe passage. 2) Evangelism, Witnessing - Christians can show others the way to safety in the Lord since they know the way (John 14:6).

Leader, author, and evangelist Leighton Ford wrote the following as he remembered his wife, Jean Graham Ford, and her brother, Billy.

“Don’t forget the evangelists.” That’s what my Jeanie would say every time we headed off to help young leaders to spread the gospel. “Don’t forget the evangelists.”

She and her brother Billy were two of a kind. Both raised on a red clay dairy farm in North Carolina with a strict mother, who taught them the Bible and a kind father who guided them with his prayers. They both became Christ sharers who felt called to let others know this God who loved and could save them.

He traveled across the world preaching to millions and millions. She stayed close to home for the most part living that good news with her three children and her husband. He raised his powerful and strong voice like a thunder. She spoke like a quiet stream with a voice made quiet by her childhood polio.

He opened his arms wide with an invitation to come to the cross. She held her arms open closely hugging others with a touch that took away tears and fears. He preached about sin and judgment and forgiveness. She showed grace in her face. He used stadiums as his pulpit. She taught in a spacious room in a friend’s home.

Now that they are both with the Lord they loved, I can see them standing side-by-side, and imagine him saying: “You are two of the very best evangelists I’ve ever had.” So – may we never forget the evangelists!

In CT magazine, Brad East reflects on Olympic athletes sharing their Christian testimony:

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics are extravagant celebrations of national glories and global unity. But if you watch past the opener to the 2024 Games themselves, you’ll notice an unusual pattern: Athletes are always talking about God. Athletes of every kind continuously gave God the credit, often in explicitly Christian terms.

For my money, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won. After breaking the world record (again) for women’s 400-meter hurdles, she answered a reporter’s question this way: “Honestly—praise God. I was not expecting that, but he can do anything. Anything is possible in Christ. I’m just amazed, baffled, and in shock.” The reporter laughed nervously and moved on to the next qualifier.

It’s not news that athletes thank the Lord for their success. But watching these public displays of piety made me wonder: Why is this still normal? Unlike other events, like the Oscars, sporting events appear to be the last refuge of “acceptable” public faith in our secular culture. In a time when belief is belittled, ignored, or relegated to one’s private life, athletes are unapologetically faithful in public. But why?

The place to start, I think, is the nature of sports itself. Athletic discipline is rigorously controlled because, when the whistle blows, nothing is under control. It’s chaos, contingency, and chance all the way down. The skies fill with rain clouds; the court is slick with sweat; the track is spongy; your opponents are strategically unpredictable.

With good reason, therefore, athletes turn to God. None but God is sovereign. I can’t control the weather, but he can. I can’t stop my body from failing, but he can. Even the wind and the waves obey him (Matt. 8:27). Shouldn’t footballs and softballs obey him too?

For athletes, God isn’t just in charge of the moment. He’s the governor of history. This is true for all of us, at all times, but elite athletes are viscerally reminded of it with a frequency few of us experience.

It should come as no surprise, then, that a victorious athlete will speak of more than God answering a prayer. Sure, they may be caught up in the moment. Deep down, though, they’re expressing faith in divine providence. It’s one more way to be clear about control. None of us has it, because only God does, and the sooner one recognizes that, the sooner peace is possible when losing and real joy available when winning.

Eric Liddell took his starting spot in the finals for the 400 meters. More than 6,000 paying spectators filled the stadium on that warm Friday night in Paris, a century ago, when the starting pistol fired and the Scottish runner took off from the outside lane.

And 47.6 seconds later, Liddell had set a new world record, leaving his competitors in awe and his fans grasping to make sense of what they had just witnessed.

Liddell’s sprint at the 1924 Paris Olympics is a canon event in the history of Christian athletes, and not just because of what happened on the track. Liddell entered the 400-meter race only after learning that the heats for his best Olympic event, the 100 meters, would fall on a Sunday. He withdrew from that event, holding fast to his Christian convictions about observing the Sabbath.

Some admired his convictions, while others saw him as disloyal and unpatriotic. Many could not comprehend his inflexible stand. It was just one Sunday, and at a time when Sabbath practices in the English-speaking world were rapidly changing. Besides, the event itself would not happen until the afternoon, giving Liddell plenty of time to attend church services in the morning. Why give up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring honor to himself and his country? Liddell recognized that the world was changing. But the Sabbath, as he understood and practiced it, was to be a full day of worship and rest. It was, for him, a matter of personal integrity and Christian obedience.

Liddell’s performance in 1924 lingers because it was caught up in cultural narratives about what it means to be a Christian athlete and, by extension, what it means to be a Christian in a changing world.

His story inspired the 1982 Oscar-winning movie Chariots of Fire, which brought his accomplishments back into the spotlight and led to numerous inspirational biographies focused on his Christian legacy.

News of Liddell’s achievement quickly spread back home through the press and the radio. He arrived in Scotland as a conquering hero; those who had criticized his Sabbath convictions now praised him for his principled stand. He spent the next year traveling throughout Great Britain on an evangelistic campaign, preaching a simple and direct message. “In Jesus Christ you will find a leader worthy of all your devotion and mine,” he told the crowds.

Then, in 1925, he departed for China, spending the rest of his life in missionary service before dying in 1945 of a brain tumor at age 43.

And as the Olympics return to Paris this summer, Liddell’s name is part of the centennial commemorations.

When it comes to fulfilling the Great Commission, how can the “1 percent” of Christians who work in professional ministry help the “99 percent” who don’t?

Consider the difference between how frogs and lizards get their food. The frog just sits and waits, and lets the food come to him, while the lizard cannot afford to sit and wait, but must go out into the world.

Pastors are like the frog. They get trained in ministry, join a church staff, and then everyone knows they work full-time to meet spiritual needs. Ministry opportunities come to them.

In contrast, when it comes to ministry and evangelism, lay people are like the lizard. They must learn to hunt by building bridges at work or in neighborhoods, earning a right to be heard, and then winsomely, creatively, prayerfully, courageously proclaiming Christ.

Unfortunately, there are many sad lizards out there who think that to have a ministry, they must act just like frogs. Many ill-equipped laypeople sit under-deployed. Even as hostility toward Christians grows stronger, Christ’s Great Commission mandate has not changed, and a pathway for spreading the gospel remains wide open—as it has since the days of the early church—through personal relationships between believers and nonbelievers who work together.

Church historian Alan Kreider sums up the strategic advantage of the workplace: “What happened was this. Non-Christians and Christians worked together and lived near each other. They became friends.”

This is what makes the workplace so key to the Great Commission. Here believers have daily opportunities to offer living proof—through their actions, attitudes, and words—that the gospel is indeed good news.

In a 2019 PBS documentary America Lost, filmmaker Christopher Rufo explores the devastating plight of three of America's forgotten cities: Youngstown, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Stockton, California. In a YouTube video, he describes a successful men's ministry in Stockton.

Pastor Jereme of the Men's Recovery Home is shown speaking to a man on the street:

We gotta let go of some of those old ways and those old habits, you know what I mean? I know I was there bro. I ran away from home when I was 15 years old. I was living on the streets. I was gang banging. I was getting high, shooting dope. Doing my thing man, running while carrying a gun. You know I was messed up. I was a hurting man. I didn't know any other way until somebody just like this actually handed me a flyer from Victory Outreach.

I said, “God can change your life” and at that moment I was at a point where I was tired. I was tired of the way I was living. I said “Man what do I have to do?” I was ready to make a change. We got a Christian recovery home for men. It's an intense program to help you get your life together.

Pastor Jereme narrates:

Everybody has a story. Could be through drugs. It could be through abuse. It could be through violence. Our families are broken down, our communities are broken down, people's lives are broken down. They're devastated. That's why this ministry is here. We want to let people know that they're not in a hopeless situation. That as long as they're breathing there's hope.

‘The people that come into our church, they come in hurting. They come in empty. They come in broken. They come in in need of a miracle. In need of a healing. A need of somebody loving them. And that's the beginning of the process. If we can affect a person, we can affect the community. We can affect the city. We can affect the world.’

You can watch the clip here (56 min, 36 sec – 60 min, 31 sec).

When people at Onecho Bible Church talk about “the mission field,” they mean the many places around the world where Christians are sharing the love of Jesus. But sometimes, they’re also talking about a literal field in Eastern Washington, where the congregation grows crops to support the people proclaiming the gospel around the world.

The 74-member church, smack-dab in the middle of a vast expanse of wheat fields, has donated $1.4 million to missions since 1965. They’ve funded wells, campgrounds, and Christian colleges. This year, they want to provide food and shelter to asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. Brian Largent, Onecho’s volunteer farm manager said, “Being as isolated as we are, it’s our missionaries and this mission field that keeps us very focused worldwide. This church is a very mission-oriented church—always has been.”

The church started with Mennonite migrants in the 1890s and Methodist farmers 20 years before that. But the unique fundraising program started in the 1960s. One of the church elders passed away at age 65 and bequeathed 180 acres to the church. He supported missionary work his whole life and considered that his legacy. He asked Onecho to use his land to continue the work of spreading the gospel.

The church decided it wouldn’t sell the field but would farm it with volunteers. The proceeds from the harvest would fund various missions. The first year, the harvest yielded $5,500. Revenue fluctuates, based on the success of the harvest. In 2021, the field earned $39,000. Last year, it was $178,000. “We just put the seed in the ground,” Largent said. “Then . . . it’s all up to the weather and what God’s going to do to produce the money.”

In August 2019, Marnus Labuschagne was drafted into the Australian Cricket Team unexpectedly as the first-ever concussion substitute in the history of international test cricket, replacing the injured Steve Smith. Labuschagne soon showed that he was no stop-gap sportsman as he quickly established his batting skills in international cricket. To date, he has scored 3767 test runs from 42 matches at the exceptional average of 54.59, placing him at number 20 on the all-time test average rankings. At present, he is the number five batsman in test cricket.

In spite of the unprecedented success, Labuschagne has earned a reputation for being a man who takes faith in Christ and prayer seriously. He has a sticker of an eagle on his bat, to highlight his favorite Bible verse, Isaiah 40:31.

In an interview for Season 2 of the documentary “The Test,” Marnus said, "Everyone knows cricket is a major part of my life, but the value of me as a person isn't in cricket - it's in my faith. I grew up with Christianity going back to when I was a kid, laying in my bed, praying every night."

He is also quoted as saying, "When I pray, I don't pray to win, just that I could perform at my best, and that all the glory will go to God, for whatever happens … win or lose." He further adds, "In the big scheme of things, what you're worth ... isn't out there on the pitch; It's internal and in Christ … Cricket is always going to be up and down. If you have (Jesus Christ as) a constant in your life, it makes life a lot easier."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Testimony; Witness - Marnus Labuschagne has clearly built his life and career on the words of Jesus - "But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matt. 6:33).

Dilli Lumjel gave his life to Jesus on May 4, 2011, at 1:33 a.m. Earlier that day, he had performed a Hindu funeral service for his father-in-law in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal, where he lived with more than 12,000 other refugees.

As was the custom, Lumjel spent the night at his wife’s uncle’s house. Both of Lumjel’s parents-in-law had recently converted to Christianity. That night he had a vision: His mother-in-law approached him and shared the gospel, stating, “If you enter this house, you have to believe in Jesus.” Then he saw a flash of lightning from heaven and heard a voice saying, “What you are hearing is true; you have to believe.” In the dream, he knelt down crying and committed his life to Jesus.

When he woke up, his face was wet with tears. Lumjel called a local pastor and told him he had had a dream and was now a Christian. The news shocked his family of devout Hindus. He said, “Every­body—my relatives, my wife, sisters—they all woke up asking, ‘What happened to Dilli? Is he mental? He says he’s a Christian!’”

The next day, the pastor explained the gospel to Lumjel and his wife. The two committed their lives to Jesus. A day later, Lumjel began attending a monthlong Bible school in the refugee camp. Then church leaders sent Lumjel out to preach the gospel to other refugees. Several months later, he became a church deacon, then an elder.

One year later, Lumjel arrived in Columbus, Ohio, as part of a massive resettlement of about 96,000 ethnic Nepalis expelled from their home of Bhutan to the United States. There he joined Yusuf Kadariya in pastoring a group of about 35 Bhutanese Nepali families. As more Bhutanese Nepali refugees settled in Columbus and the group brought more people to Christ, the church continued to grow.

Today, Lumjel is a full-time pastor at Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Columbus. On a wintry Sunday morning in December, about 200 people streamed into the sanctuary, greeting one another with a slight bow and “Jai Masih,” meaning “Victory to Christ.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

God is bringing the nations to our neighborhoods here in America and is bringing many to faith in Christ. We can carry out the Great Commission in part by welcoming them with Christian love and sharing the gospel to those with hungry hearts.

Sociologist Robert Woodberry has identified a robust statistical correlation between “conversionary Protestant” missionary activity and the democratization of a country. His conclusion: Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in non-governmental associations.

This was not a popular finding. Even the head of Woodberry’s dissertation committee warned him of the inevitable backlash: “To suggest that the missionary movement had this strong, positive influence on liberal democratization, you couldn’t think of a more unbelievable and offensive story to tell a lot of secular academics.”

But after years of extensive research, Woodberry nevertheless concluded, “Want a blossoming democracy today? The solution is simple—if you have a time machine: Send a 19th-century missionary.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

While Jesus didn’t tell us to go into all the world and make people literate, rich, and democratic, Woodberry’s findings illustrate the overwhelmingly positive influence of missionaries.

When Aaron Köhler tries to talk to people in Cottbus, Germany, about Jesus, church, and faith, he can’t assume they know what he’s talking about. Many in the city near the Polish border don’t know anything about Christianity. Köhler has had people ask him whether Christmas and Easter are Christian holidays, and if so, what they’re about. One time, he talked to someone at a local market who wasn’t familiar with the name Jesus. The person had never even heard it, that they could recall.

“That was crazy for me. In the ‘land of the Reformation,’ in a supposedly ‘Christian country,’ these people don’t even know the basic basics,” said Köhler, who co-pastors a church plant.

According to the most recent data, more than 60 percent of Germans identify as Christian. A little more than a quarter say they have no religion. Zoom in a little closer, though, and stark regional differences emerge. In the western part of the country—which includes Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt—three-quarters of the population identify as Christian. But in the east, the region that was a Soviet Union satellite state from 1949 to 1990, only a quarter of Germans are Christian, with nearly 70 percent identifying themselves as “nonbelievers.”

Christianity is declining in much of formerly Protestant Europe. But eastern Germany stands out, even compared with other rapidly secularizing nations. Here, large swaths of the population have had no serious contact with Christianity for three generations. Köhler said, “For decades, there was no prayer, no Bible at home, no church attendance. After all these years, people don’t know what they don’t know.”

The regional differences are easily traced to the division of the country after its defeat in World War II. The French, British, and American-controlled sectors in the west merged into the German Federal Republic in 1949. The Soviet-controlled East formed the German Democratic Republic, a socialist state with totalitarian leaders who suppressed religion. The Christian population in East Germany fell from about 90 percent in 1949 to only 30 percent in 1990.

Evangelicalism is now the largest religious demographic in Central America, according to a poll of about 4,000 people in five countries. More than a third of people from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica told researchers that they are evangelical, while another 29 percent said they are “nondenominational believers.”

Only about a third of people in the region said they were Catholic—down from about 60 percent in the 1970s. Some scholars have attributed the shift to internal Catholic conflict and the long fallout from the church’s political affiliations on the extreme right and left, along with the disruptions of urbanization.

Evangelical theologian Samuel Escobar, noting the trend in an interview in 2006, said Catholics who moved to Central American cities found empowerment in their evangelical conversion. He said, “Their decision to accept Christ meant a change in patterns of behavior which helped people to reorient their lives.”

Advertising is big business today. There are over 350,995 billboard signs throughout the US (more than any other country.) Google holds about 28% of the online market share, and Facebook controls 24.5%. Enormous amounts of money are spent annually on advertising, YouTube made over $28.8 billion in revenue in 2021.

In the 1970s, the average American saw anywhere between 500 and 1600 ads per day; by 2017, the number increased to 4000-10000 ads daily. Even though we see thousands of ads daily, we notice less than 100 and only remember a handful of ads. There are a lot of messages that are reaching our attention.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While we don’t “advertise” the gospel, Jesus commissioned us to preach the gospel, the most needed message today! We have been commanded to spread the message (Matt. 28:19-20).

In an interview with Denzel Washington, it noted that the actor has been getting more explicit about his Christian convictions. In 2019 Washington called himself “a vessel of God.” Privately over coffee with the interviewer Washington added:

The enemy is the inner me. The Bible says in the last days — I don’t know if it’s the last days, it’s not my place to know — but it says we’ll be lovers of ourselves. The No. 1 photograph today is a selfie, “Oh, me at the protest.” “Me with the fire.” “Follow me.” “Listen to me.”

We’re living in a time where people are willing to do anything to get followed. What is the long or short-term effect of too much information? It’s going fast and it can be manipulated obviously in a myriad of ways. And people are led like sheep to slaughter.

Don’t play with God. Don’t play with God. You hear what I said? Don’t play with God. You heard what I said? Don’t play with God.

Then the interviewer mentions that Washington urged her to download and use a daily Bible reading app. Washington said. “You have to fill up that bucket every morning. It’s rough out there. You leave the house in the morning. Here they come, chipping away. By the end of the day, you’ve got to refill that bucket.”

Vivian Prodan was born in Communist Romania under the brutal totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceauescu (“Chow-sches-coo”). A place where questioning a government directive could lead to imprisonment, physical torture, and death. The best way to avoid trouble was to remain silent and try to blend in. But Vivian became obsessed with finding the truth. After graduation, she went to law school and became an attorney. Vivian writes:

One evening a client came in to discuss some paperwork. He radiated joy and peace and without thinking, I confessed, “I wish I had your sense of peace and happiness.” He asked, “Do you go to church?” “Yes,” I replied. “On Christmas and Easter. Why?” He said, “Would you like to come with me to my church this Sunday?”

The next Sunday I visited his church. The pastor read John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life.” I could not believe what I heard. Someone was claiming to be the truth? I felt as though the verses he shared were written specifically for me. For the first time in my life, everything made sense. I accepted the pastor’s invitation to trust in Christ as Lord and Savior. From that moment on, I would dedicate my life to pursuing and speaking the truth, no matter the cost.

Vivian began defending fellow Christians facing imprisonment for transporting Bibles across the Romanian border, sharing their faith, or worshiping privately in their own homes. This quickly made her a target. Many days her tires were slashed. She was kidnapped, bullied, pushed into moving traffic, and beaten by the secret police. However, the greatest test was yet to come.

Late at night my legal assistant peeked into my doorway: “A big man in the waiting room says he wants to discuss a case. That’s all he will tell me.” I was taken aback at how enormous he was. As he sat down in front of my desk, a sneer formed at the corner of his mouth. Slowly, he reached into a shoulder holster, drawing a gun.

He aimed his gun at me and said, “You have failed to heed the warnings you’ve been given. I’ve come here to finish the matter once and for all.” I heard a distinctive click. “I am here to kill you.”

I was alone with my killer. And yet, I was not. I began silent, fervent prayers, recalling God’s promises. His Spirit breathed peace into my panicked heart. Then I sensed his message: “Share the gospel.” I knew that behind those hate-filled eyes he had an immortal soul, and he needed to know about the love God has shown in Jesus Christ. At once emboldened, “Have you ever asked yourself: Why do I exist? or What is the meaning of my life?”

He slid his gun back into the holster. Vivian leaned forward. “You are here because God put you here, and he has put you to a test. Will you abide in God or in the will of a man—President Ceauescu?” His eyes softened.

Hebrews 9:27 says, “People are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” But the good news is that God has prepared a way out for every one of us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

As she continued to talk with him, he appeared more peaceful. Finally, he said, “You are right. The people who sent me here are crazy. I do need Christ.” He promised, “I will come to your church as a secret brother in Christ. I will worship your powerful God.”

And with that, my killer walked away saved—a brother in Christ. He went on to enroll in seminary, and we have even kept in touch. He, like me, had found the Truth. And neither of us will be afraid to speak it ever again.

Brazilian soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior is paid hundreds of thousands of euros every month if he avoids statements of “religious propaganda that could damage the image and unity” of the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club. Neymar, popularly known by his first name, is currently one of the highest-paid soccer players in the world and has been quite outspoken about his faith. He once told reporters, “Life only makes sense when our highest ideal is to serve Christ.”

His current contract, however, includes a clause that pays him more than €540,000 (roughly $630,000) per month to avoid declarations of faith.