Like Dan said yesterday, making disciples is a relationship-oriented process. So how do you cultivate relationships that are fertile ground for disciple-making?

If not knowing what to say is holding you back from starting conversations with folks that might lead to making disciples of Christ, take heart. Listening is far more important, as Jonathan Dodson writes at TheResurgence:

One of the most effective ways to know our “target audience” was to ask them questions…something that we really aren’t good at in the West. Instead, Christians assume a defensive posture, making conversations doctrinal battles or apologetic arguments. [A better way is] the path of learning from those we hope “to reach.”

By asking questions from concern and genuine interest, we will travel much further and faster in our relationships. But first, we have to be convinced that we have something to learn from others, especially from those who don’t believe as we do. Our biblical anthropology–all men are created in God’s image–should convince us of that, but only the Spirit of God can convict us of subtle self-righteousness in viewing non-Christians as projects to complete, not persons to love.

…Jesus-like church planters and disciples will ask lots of questions and listen to the answers. Francis Schaeffer once said something to the effect of: “Give me an hour with an unbeliever and I will listen for the first 55 minutes and then in the last five minutes I will have something to say.”

See also: Spreading the Fame of God by Disagreeing Well