Mark Mittelberg in his new book tackles the challenges in faith

Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, international speaker, and the Executive Director of The Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. In his recent book, Contagious Faith, he tackles the challenge and calling to communicate faith in this cultural moment and teaches believers to communicate to a world looking for better answers. According to Mittelberg, a big obstacle to overcome is actually believing that Christianity is worth sharing, he said, “I’m reminded of times in my life when I caught something that I couldn’t resist and didn’t really want to. Contagious isn’t always a bad thing. … It describes something irresistible… What if instead of quietly clinging to our relationship with Christ and succumbing to the idea that faith should be private, we realized that faith is for sharing? That Jesus came not just for me and you, but to be the Savior of the world?” While it’s easy to feel intimidated by the thought of sharing Jesus with others, Mark’s approach emphasizes the different gifts and skills within the body of Christ. He describes five of what he called “contagious faith styles” we can learn to practice. Those with the Friendship-Building Style are more like Matthew, the former tax collector-turned-disciple, who held a party in his house to introduce Jesus to his former co-workers. Friends are more likely to listen to friends. Or perhaps you’re more of the Selfless-Serving Style like Tabitha, who is described in Acts 9. She was a kind of first-century Mother Teresa, used by God to point people to Him. The selfless-serving approach is particularly powerful in reaching those who are sometimes jaded toward God and the Church. Most of us should be able to employ the Story-Sharing Style to share our experience with Christ and point others to Him. Think of the blind man described in John 9, who simply talked about his own life. “Though I was blind, now I see,” he said. Mittelberg’s own approach is what he calls the Reason-Giving Style. Paul demonstrates this, as described in Acts 17 when he describes God to a bunch of philosophers in Athens. Though we hear that people are no longer interested in reasons for the Christian faith, they are, not just why Christianity is true but why it matters, and why the Gospel is good. They want to know not only what Christians believe, but how Christianity makes sense of the world. ALSO READ Pastor Giles’s new book help prepare Christians for an uncertain future