You stop sounding scripted when you stop scripting your first line. Decide the destination ahead of time, which is the gospel. Leave the opening unrehearsed, and let the person in front of you set the route. That is the posture Warner Miller, a professional actor and youth minister, describes for his conversations with other artists. The rest of this guide is one week of practicing it with one real person.
You need one friend who makes things: a musician, actor, painter, designer, or writer you will see this week. By the end you should be able to explain the gospel plainly without notes. You should also be able to tell whether your habits treat people as friends or as targets. You can work alone in about twenty minutes a day, or with a small group that meets before and after the week. Nothing here asks you to share private details about yourself or your friend. Where a prompt invites reflection, you decide how much to say aloud.
Before you start: notice how you already talk about faith
Take an honest look at your habits before you change them. Write down the last two times you brought up your faith with someone who doesn’t share it. For each one, answer these plainly:
- Who started the topic, you or them?
- Did you have a line or a sequence in mind before the conversation began?
- What did you learn about the other person during that conversation?
- How did it end, and who decided when it ended?
Then write the name of your artist friend. Under it, list what you actually know about their work: what they make, what they are working on now, what they find hard about it. If the list is short, that tells you something before the practice begins.
Keep this sheet. You will come back to it on the last day.
Two passages that shape the posture
Read two short passages slowly. Both were written to Christians about talking with people outside the church. Neither one is a script.
The first is 1 Peter 3:15: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” Peter wrote to believers scattered among neighbors who did not share their faith, so the verse addresses ordinary relationships, not a pulpit.
Mark three things in it. First, what comes before the answer? Peter begins with the heart, setting apart Christ as Lord, before he says anything about speaking. Second, who opens the conversation? The phrase is “that asketh you,” so the verse pictures someone else raising the question. Third, how is the answer given? “With meekness and fear.” Meekness means gentleness toward the other person. Fear here most likely means reverence toward God, though some readers take it as respect toward the questioner as well.
The second is Colossians 4:5-6: “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” The KJV’s “alway” is an older spelling of “always.” “Them that are without” means people outside the believing community.
Underline the last phrase: “how ye ought to answer every man.” Paul does not hand the Colossians one answer for everyone. The purpose of gracious speech, in his sentence, is knowing how to answer each person, which assumes the right answer will differ from person to person.
Put the two passages side by side. Write one sentence naming what they share and one naming what each adds that the other lacks. In a group, compare sentences before moving on. Some will notice that both assume a life that prompts questions. Others will see that both care as much about manner as about content.
What Warner Miller adds: an objective, not a script
Miller borrows a tool from acting. In a scene, an actor plays toward an objective, the thing the character wants, no matter what the lines are or where the blocking moves them. He carries that into his conversations about faith: “my objective is always, always, always to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Stop here and try the idea on your own life. Think of a conversation where you wanted one thing badly: making peace with a sibling, asking for a second chance, persuading a friend to see a doctor. Write down what you wanted in a single line. Then write down how many different things you might have said to get there. Most people find the goal stayed fixed while the words changed with every reply. That is the difference between an objective and a script.
Miller’s route bends, but he does not pretend it is accidental: “Now again, sharing the gospel is always in the back of my mind.” What he refuses is the formula, because a formula tells the listener they are only being talked to so someone can convert them. His short version: “we would do right to treat people like they’re people and not projects.” Lisa Fields drew out what this means for much evangelism training, observing that “those step-by-step is sometimes the reason why people won’t convert”. People can tell when they are being processed.
No script does not mean no preparation. Miller compares it to basketball, where the players who improvise well are the ones who drilled the basics. “I believe knowing the gospel is the fundamentals.” Describing how his conversations actually unfold, he says, “The only structure in it is the understanding of what the gospel is.”
This changes what the week asks of you. Most people prepare for a faith conversation by planning what to say first. This approach asks you to prepare the destination and leave the opening alone.
Test the method before you trust it
Take an honest objection seriously first. If you always have the gospel in the back of your mind, isn’t your friend still a project? You have only hidden the agenda better.
Before reading on, write down what, in your own view, separates an objective from a manipulation.
Miller’s account suggests at least two differences. The first is openness. He never claims his faith comes up by chance; it is part of who he is, and the people he talks with know it. A manipulator hides the goal. A friend who follows Jesus has a goal that shows in how they live. The second difference is what happens when the person says no. A project gets dropped when it stops producing results. A person stays a friend.
That second test matters with artists. Miller says he does not want to overgeneralize, but one thing he hears from artists raised in church is the sense that the church valued what they could do over who they were. His summary of their complaint is “they were only interested in my gift”. A Christian who befriends a singer mainly because the church needs a soloist repeats that wound. Before the week begins, ask yourself whether anything about your interest in this friend has to do with what they could do for you or your church. If it does, name it privately and set it down.
A second objection runs the other way. “No script” can turn into “no words.” Some Christians call friendship their witness and never say anything. Miller’s method does not allow that. The objective is to communicate the gospel, and that means words at some point. Living well earns a hearing. It does not replace what you say.
The week
Each day has one task. Do them in order. If a day goes badly or a conversation never happens, keep going.
- Day one: write your objective. In one sentence, write what you hope this friend eventually comes to understand about Jesus. Keep it short enough to remember, and put it where you will see it before you see them. Do not write an opening line.
- Day two: drill the fundamentals. Without notes, explain the gospel out loud in under two minutes, as if to someone who never went to church. Record yourself if that helps. Listen back and circle every word your friend would need translated. Rewrite those parts in plain speech and say it again.
- Day three: learn their work. Watch, read, or listen to something your friend made, or ask what they are working on now. Ask one question about the work itself: the craft, the hard part, the part they are proud of. Do not steer toward church.
- Days four and five: show up and stay available. Spend real time with this person. Miller’s advice is simple: “the point is to always be available, be willing, and know what your objective is.” If faith comes up, answer plainly and briefly, and ask what they think. If it doesn’t, that is not a failure. Of his own conversations, Miller says, “It comes how it comes.”
- Day six: check your love. Read John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Jesus speaks first about how his disciples treat each other, and outsiders are meant to see it. Lisa Fields widened the application, urging Christians to “Love everybody, like Christ loved you and gave himself for you”. Write down one practical way to care for your friend that asks nothing in return, then do it.
- Day seven: return to your first sheet. Answer the same four questions about this week’s conversations, and add to your list of what you know about your friend’s work. Compare the two versions.
Keep your expectations modest. The Christians Miller says carry the strongest witness are often not impressive people. He describes them as “the faithful servant, the one who’s not famous”. He explains why: “Because what all they’re doing is being faithful.”
For groups
Meet once before the week to read the two passages and let each person write an objective sentence. Don’t ask anyone to name their friend aloud; “a friend who paints” is plenty, and silence is fine too. At the second meeting, start with the day-two exercise. Have volunteers give their two-minute gospel explanation and let the group point out phrases an outsider would need translated. This is the most useful thing you can do together, and it keeps the meeting from turning into reports about other people’s private conversations. If someone’s week went nowhere, treat that as normal. The goal is a pattern over time, not a result in seven days.
Questions for after the week
- When you skipped the rehearsed opening, what did you find yourself doing instead, and did it help or get in the way?
- Peter’s verse pictures someone else asking the question. Did your friend ask anything this week that you would have missed if you had been waiting for your turn to talk?
- Look at what you wrote about objectives and manipulation. Would you change your answer now?
- Is there any part of your interest in this friend that still has to do with their talent rather than with them?
- Colossians 4:6 expects the right answer to differ “to every man.” Given what you now know about this person, what would a fitting answer sound like?
- If faith never came up, what kept it from coming up: the setting, your nerves, or a friendship that still needs time?
Keep your objective sentence where you put it on day one. Next week, check whether you still believe it names the right destination, and whether you can still explain the way there without notes. Miller’s whole method rests on those two things.