Faces were smiling and several hands reached out for the pamphlets. I know that they were able to take them instead of retreating in suspicion because they had heard Rose Marie and me confess many of our weaknesses. We have made a conscious effort to move with humility into the lives of other people, to love them from below, rather than from above. Our weaknesses have become our point of contact, and this openness and vulnerability causes people to open up to us in return. Page 124-125
Miller, John C. A Faith Worth Sharing: A Lifetime of Conversations about Christ. R&R
Publishing, 1999. 152 pages. ISBN: 978-0875523910
Anyone aspiring to grow as an evangelist would do well to listen to a great one at the end of his life, as he recounts many significant gospel conversations. In A Faith Worth Sharing, this is what you’ll get to do while John Miller presents to us the last gift of his life, having fallen asleep in the Lord during the writing of the tenth chapter.
You’ll learn from his early attempts at sharing the gospel as a young Christian. How he learns the power of God who overrules the mistakes of imperfect witnesses and blesses the witness of a loving community of believers. How he learns to make use of his weaknesses as a point of effective contact both with his self-righteous family and with strangers. How he learns, through the rigors of fighting the good fight of faith in the academy, that God is sovereign over who does and who does not come to faith. How he learns to love more deeply the sovereign God who prepares people, sometimes for years prior to time of sharing, finally to speak and to hear the gospel truth at their own level.
You’ll also get a glimpse inside the heart of a ‘successful pastor and seminary professor’ who comes to a crisis in his faith, having failed as an agent of change.
In his pride and unbelief, he feared man’s rejection and doubted God’s willingness and power to change people. Then we see God restore, and empower him who humbly cries out for the promised living water of Christ. This humility, which was so necessary when sharing with strangers and in his parent’s house and in the academy, was just as necessary some time later when he had to call his estranged daughter home.
This encouraging and very quick read are rounded out by an account of his final days, a look at the gospel tract he wrote, and a brief bio of the two major works of his life: New Life Presbyterian Churches, and World Harvest Mission.
