1. Avoid tangents

Sometimes our friends can’t help to share something themselves.  If you get interrupted in any way do your best to stay on track.  For example, when sharing the story about Abraham some will jump in and say, “His son was Ishmael.”  We can easily get into this with them, but that’s not really an important point when sharing the gospel.  With issues like this I say, “I don’t think the point of the story is which son it was.  The thing we need to look for is what God is trying to teach us through this story.”  Other times you may hear something like “Solomon could talk to animals” or, my personal favorite, “Noah was a Neanderthal” to which I say, “Oh really” and then just keep going.

2. Get through the Good News

As we share the gospel, whether through the timeline or another means, it is important to make it the whole way through.  Our goal is to give our friend a chance to respond, so we need to be careful not to let interruptions get in the way.  On the other hand, we need to be sensitive of natural time constraints and not share for too long.  With this in mind, I try to gauge how long my friend can listen while sharing as completely as possible.  In most cases I try to get through the timeline in five minutes, which can be done with a little practice.  Some Muslims will become uninterested as we share and there is nothing we can do about that, but, if allowed, we should make every effort to get through the whole gospel.  There is no Good News without Jesus, so we need to get to Him!

3. Just the basics

It’s tempting to share far more than we need to in presenting the gospel, but we need to remember to share just what they need to know to be saved.  Topics like explaining the trinity don’t need to be added here.  As important as they are I prefer to explain them after a person comes to faith.  Why?  When a person enters the kingdom they are given the Holy Spirit who is there teacher.  Once this happens we see their minds open and their spiritual understanding skyrockets, so I find some of these difficult issues much easier to handle once the Spirit is living inside of my friend.  Therefore, in sharing the gospel I just stick to the gospel basics and explain the other things after they come to faith.

4. Avoid attacking wrong belief

What our Muslim friends need the most is a clear presentation of the truth, not a presentation of where they are wrong.  The Good News is compelling enough on it’s own, so we don’t need to try to help it by telling our friends where they are wrong on any part of their belief.  As you share just let the light of the gospel do it’s own work.  It is more than capable of dealing with darkness on it’s own.  Your friend will probably have questions after the gospel is shared, so as you answer simply keep pointing to the truth.

5. Just give it your best effort

One of the greatest mistakes people make in sharing with a Muslim is that they don’t want to share until they have a perfect presentation.  To be honest, it’s taken me a long time to learn to share anything with a Muslim without telling myself how terrible it was after.  What I have learned to do is to ask God to help me, do my best in sharing, and then leave the results to God.  Even with this I’m always learning how to do it better, but I’m also not letting the fear of sharing poorly stop me from sharing at all.