A 2008 study released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life notes that the number of people creating their own interpretations of faith and culture is growing. Seems like there are as many different styles of faith as ways to order your latte. How does a Christian have normal conversations about Jesus without accidentally sounding offensive, bigoted or intolerant? You will find the tools you need for meaningful, tolerant, and respectful conversations about your faith with friends who don't share your views. Forget the 'fire and brimstone' approach and the awkward insistence to get other people 'saved.' You will discover how to be yourself without alienating others. You'll learn: How to walk in another person's shoes. Ways to gently invite others to share. The buzz words that will stop a conversation cold. How to navigate today's hot-topics. Tools to recover the true meaning of Scripture often obliterated by spiritual writers. How to talk about Jesus as a unique spiritual leader. You will discover how to invite people to become fully who Jesus wants them to be through this coffee shop approach to friendships in your community.
Coffee Shop Conversations
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'This is helpful, thoughtful, culturally-savvy guidance for spiritual conversations. Read it and learn.' -- John Ortberg, author and pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church <br><br>
From the Back Cover
A 2008 study released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life notes that the number of people creating their own interpretations of faith and culture is growing. Seems like there are as many different styles of faith as ways to order your latte. How does a Christian have normal conversations about Jesus without accidentally sounding offensive, bigoted or intolerant? You will find the tools you need for meaningful, tolerant, and respectful conversations about your faith with friends who don't share your views. Forget the 'fire and brimstone' approach and the awkward insistence to get other people 'saved.' You will discover how to be yourself without alienating others. You'll learn: How to walk in another person's shoes. Ways to gently invite others to share. The buzz words that will stop a conversation cold. How to navigate today's hot-topics. Tools to recover the true meaning of Scripture often obliterated by spiritual writers. How to talk about Jesus as a unique spiritual leader. You will discover how to invite people to become fully who Jesus wants them to be through this coffee shop approach to friendships in your community.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you've ever walked away from a conversation thinking, "What precious time we just wasted in idle chitchat," read this book!
It teaches you how to steer conversations to subjects that MATTER, with truth and gentleness, while avoiding being offensive or bullying or just plain weird.
It will open your eyes to how non-believers think so you can move past barriers that typically keep believers and non-believers from sustaining a religious discussion.
In contrast to the beat-over-the-head-with-a-Bible method too often misused in evangelism, the Finchers suggest using seven specific manners for an effective spiritual conversation, including:
Respect one another
Step into their shoes
Wrestle on your own
Share your personal experience
Allow others to remain unconvinced
You'll end up examining how well YOU know Jesus and what you really believe about the "good news" yourself.
The Finchers tell you to keep it simple so you don't get sidetracked on non-essential issues. Remember you are inviting others to Jesus, not to your denomination or particular church.
They teach you how to be free to be yourself as you talk about Jesus in ordinary conversations with ordinary people. Thanks to this book, I feel more confident that I can do this!
It teaches you how to steer conversations to subjects that MATTER, with truth and gentleness, while avoiding being offensive or bullying or just plain weird.
It will open your eyes to how non-believers think so you can move past barriers that typically keep believers and non-believers from sustaining a religious discussion.
In contrast to the beat-over-the-head-with-a-Bible method too often misused in evangelism, the Finchers suggest using seven specific manners for an effective spiritual conversation, including:
Respect one another
Step into their shoes
Wrestle on your own
Share your personal experience
Allow others to remain unconvinced
You'll end up examining how well YOU know Jesus and what you really believe about the "good news" yourself.
The Finchers tell you to keep it simple so you don't get sidetracked on non-essential issues. Remember you are inviting others to Jesus, not to your denomination or particular church.
They teach you how to be free to be yourself as you talk about Jesus in ordinary conversations with ordinary people. Thanks to this book, I feel more confident that I can do this!
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By Jon Snyder
Format:Paperback
I just finished Coffee Shop Conversations and thought is was outstanding! Much of my family, most of my closest friends, and almost all of my coworkers do not know Jesus. I love them all, and pray for them earnestly that they would accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They are intelligent people with well thought-out spiritual opinions, and they ask tough questions. I have found myself ill-equipped to engage them in meaningful conversations about Jesus and spirituality, especially when I find myself in a situation where I only have a few minutes to speak with them. As a professional engineer with a natural bent for identifiable processes, I found Coffee Shop Conversations to be an excellent how-to manual for engaging in spiritual conversations and addressing challenging social issues in our society. I am now much better prepared for those conversations; and while I read this book in hopes of preparing for those conversations, I found that the greatest insights this book offers were insights into my own spirituality and following Jesus more appropriately.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Susy Flory
Format:Paperback
When it comes to sharing your faith, do you operate chipmunk-style or coffeehouse-style? If you go the way of the chipmunk, you're on a mission to scurry out and spread the Gospel, then hurry back to your hole. It can be scary, tense, performance-driven, and guilt laden. (If I sound like I know this style intimately, I do. And it paralyzed me from talking freely about my faith for a very long time.) The problem? Most of the time you feel like a failure because sharing your faith with someone doesn't often result in an immediate change of heart. Leaving the well-traveled grooves of a life lived without God takes time and the work of the Holy Spirit.
But coffeehouse-style is different. Coffee Shop Conversations, by Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher, brews up a fresh way to share your faith and a key component is something I was never taught to do when I learned the ways of evangelism: listening. "All people are like packages," write the Finchers. "God invites us to look beyond the outside labels and give people our attention. Jesus shows us how to open the envelopes of people's lives and know our neighbors beyond the roles they play. Like the wrapping, our bodies conceal our souls within. Each person holds unknown surprises, unique concerns, interests, and motivations. What's inside the packages we call people?"
So rather than seeing people as a project, a target, or a mission, we need to see them as precious and unique individuals who cannot be approached with a one-size-fits-all memorized technique. We need to be present, awake and aware in the moment, and primed to infuse even the briefest interaction with meaning. Coffee Shop Conversations' challenge to meet people in love, humility, and grace, and to strive to strike up meaningful spiritual conversations reminds me of what a powerful conversational evangelist once told me: "I choose to keep myself open and talk to people. I stop and listen and I care about their problems. Then, when I look in their eyes, sometimes....sometimes I see a spark, something from deep inside that reaches out to something deep inside me. Then I know that they are looking for something more. It might not happen that day, or that week, or even that year, but I know that if we become friends, someday I will get a chance to share the thing that is most important in my life." The FInchers describe this powerful intersection of souls as "looking beyond different beliefs and into people's souls to see our shared struggles." Because whether someone is a Buddhist, Muslim, Wiccan, or doesn't quite know what they believe, they bear the image of God and we need to treat them with value.
Besides challenging us in Part 1: Making Spiritual Small Talk, to look at sharing our faith in a whole new light, Coffee Shop Conversations is an equipping book. Part 2: Restocking Your Tools, includes engaging chapters on How to Read the Bible, Misquoting Jesus, and differentiating between different religious belief systems in One True Religion. The Finchers even unpack popular spiritual books such as The Secret, The Four Agreements, and a popular Oprah pick, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. The last section is Helping Friends Home, and deals with common questions and topics that might arise in spiritual conversations, because, after all, some topics are harder than others. For example, the problem of pain and suffering is one that different religions handle with vastly different ideas on the solution.
Finally, coffee shop conversations are as much about learning as they are about teaching or sharing your faith. "We want this book to serve not merely as a collection of apologetic tools, but as a road map guiding you toward freedom to be yourself as you talk about Jesus. We hope you will customize your conversations to the unique gifts God has forged in your soul. May you develop your own questions and ideas to introduce others to the God of Israel. May you continue to be taught and humbled by the humans God places in your life." Coffee Shop Conversations is a great reminder that it's all about loving your neighbor, and sometimes that's easier, more effective, and a whole lot more fun in a coffee shop. White chocolate mocha, anyone?
But coffeehouse-style is different. Coffee Shop Conversations, by Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher, brews up a fresh way to share your faith and a key component is something I was never taught to do when I learned the ways of evangelism: listening. "All people are like packages," write the Finchers. "God invites us to look beyond the outside labels and give people our attention. Jesus shows us how to open the envelopes of people's lives and know our neighbors beyond the roles they play. Like the wrapping, our bodies conceal our souls within. Each person holds unknown surprises, unique concerns, interests, and motivations. What's inside the packages we call people?"
So rather than seeing people as a project, a target, or a mission, we need to see them as precious and unique individuals who cannot be approached with a one-size-fits-all memorized technique. We need to be present, awake and aware in the moment, and primed to infuse even the briefest interaction with meaning. Coffee Shop Conversations' challenge to meet people in love, humility, and grace, and to strive to strike up meaningful spiritual conversations reminds me of what a powerful conversational evangelist once told me: "I choose to keep myself open and talk to people. I stop and listen and I care about their problems. Then, when I look in their eyes, sometimes....sometimes I see a spark, something from deep inside that reaches out to something deep inside me. Then I know that they are looking for something more. It might not happen that day, or that week, or even that year, but I know that if we become friends, someday I will get a chance to share the thing that is most important in my life." The FInchers describe this powerful intersection of souls as "looking beyond different beliefs and into people's souls to see our shared struggles." Because whether someone is a Buddhist, Muslim, Wiccan, or doesn't quite know what they believe, they bear the image of God and we need to treat them with value.
Besides challenging us in Part 1: Making Spiritual Small Talk, to look at sharing our faith in a whole new light, Coffee Shop Conversations is an equipping book. Part 2: Restocking Your Tools, includes engaging chapters on How to Read the Bible, Misquoting Jesus, and differentiating between different religious belief systems in One True Religion. The Finchers even unpack popular spiritual books such as The Secret, The Four Agreements, and a popular Oprah pick, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. The last section is Helping Friends Home, and deals with common questions and topics that might arise in spiritual conversations, because, after all, some topics are harder than others. For example, the problem of pain and suffering is one that different religions handle with vastly different ideas on the solution.
Finally, coffee shop conversations are as much about learning as they are about teaching or sharing your faith. "We want this book to serve not merely as a collection of apologetic tools, but as a road map guiding you toward freedom to be yourself as you talk about Jesus. We hope you will customize your conversations to the unique gifts God has forged in your soul. May you develop your own questions and ideas to introduce others to the God of Israel. May you continue to be taught and humbled by the humans God places in your life." Coffee Shop Conversations is a great reminder that it's all about loving your neighbor, and sometimes that's easier, more effective, and a whole lot more fun in a coffee shop. White chocolate mocha, anyone?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bit weak on theology for my liking
This is a good conversation starter and definately not just fluff but it seems to sacrifice docturine for "tolerance" and acceptability. Read more
Published 4 months ago by surferdale
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it.
Wonderfully written. So many Christians struggle with talking authentically about their faith, and this book gently leads the reader to understand why it is so hard at times. Read more
Published 9 months ago by V. Stoodley
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to Share Your Faith Casually
This book is a must for anyone serious about evangelism who doesn't really know what to say to the atheist, or the agnostic or the seeker or the secular (half-baked) Christian, who... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mary B. Packard
2.0 out of 5 stars
some good parts, but
Jesus walked in both love and truth perfectly. When truth is given without love, it can do more harm than good (as this book correctly points out). Read more
Published 10 months ago by The Fowlers
2.0 out of 5 stars
I am confused??
The book starts out well. There is a lot of help on not beating people over the head with Christanity. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Binki
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent readinjg
This book is a very readable, entertaining guide of how to not trip ourselves up in our witness to the faith we hold. Insightful and compelling.
Published 13 months ago by Beth Anson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deep, thought provoking material for conversations about Jesus...
Dale and Jonalyn Fincher offer much to think about when having conversations about Jesus with those who are "thin-secularists," "spiritual," agnostics, atheists, etc. Read more
Published 18 months ago by A. Martin
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is definitely worth reading!
I have read this book once, and now I am reading it through again. Jonalyn and Dale do a wonderful job of helping us learn to break the molds of traditional Christianity and be... Read more
Published 18 months ago by K. Sims
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good Premise...Distracting Prose
Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk was a free offering in the Kindle Store for a short time. It was worth every penny I paid for it. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Ron Coia
4.0 out of 5 stars
A kindler, gentler apologetic book
This book offers a refreshing take on how to introduce Jesus in everday conversation. It mentions how Christians ought to be willing to listen to the viewpoints of folks who don't... Read more
Published 22 months ago by J. Easmon
