Glen Scrivener gives Christians eight killer apps for evangelistic conversations in How to Speak Life: Sharing Your Faith in 321. These eight tools make evangelism easier and more natural.
Speak Life is a companion to Scrivener’s extended evangelistic tract How to See Life: A Guide in 321 and mirrors its overall structure. That structure introduces readers to the threeness of God, the twoness of the world, and oneness with Jesus. Through Jesus we meet God, the loving union of three, who made the world very good (p. 70). We experience that goodness today alongside the consequences of human rebellion against God, which is the world’s “twoness”. But there’s an invitation to “oneness”: “you are born one with Adam. Be one with Jesus” (p. 131). Whereas How to See Life uses this structure to present the gospel to non-Christians, How to Speak Life uses this framework to help Christians speak the gospel into everyday conversation.
Reflection questions and QR codes to the relevant parts of the 321 online course are found throughout the book. The QR codes turn the book into the training program for using the online course. The book also includes FAQs, such as “Is it really necessary to discuss the trinity in evangelism?” and “Is every Christian an evangelist?”
How to Speak Life: Sharing Your Faith in 321
Glen Scrivener
This book is about refreshing our faith in the goodness and power of the gospel. I want us to experience afresh the wonder of Jesus, the love of God, the lostness of the world and the hope held out to every soul. I also want to share practical help: eight ‘seeds’ we can all ‘sow’ into conversations with friends and family.
Seeds to Scatter
Evangelism feels like hard graft for most Christians. How does one get to talking about Jesus when people’s lives are full of non-spiritual things? Scrivener’s eight killer apps are not dramatic gimmicks, but rather seeds to scatter into everyday conversation—statements about one’s Christian faith in response to big life questions and events (p.15). These seeds help us by the Spirit to introduce people to God in Christ (threeness), grapple with the world’s twoness, and show how oneness with Jesus is attractive. Rather than giving the game away completely, this review will preview three of these seeds that struck me as fresh and incisive advice.
3: Who Fills our Hearts?
Seed number two is a heartfelt expression of the goodness and beauty of Jesus: “That’s what I love about Jesus” (p. 43). Interjecting the goodness and beauty of Jesus into conversation removes the adversarial nature of evangelistic conversations. Technical questions might come but there is still great power in a heartfelt endorsement of Jesus regardless so that people can meet God through Christ.
Scrivener has posited elsewhere that Christians are often poor at evangelising non-Christians because we are so poor at evangelising each other.[1] After all, the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart (p. 46). Far too often, the church service ends and our conversations are about the latest cultural trends rather than Jesus, to whom we have been pointed to in the Bible talk. The trends of our preferred subcultures are what fill our hearts. Before we speak life to the world, we need our loves transformed. When our love is transformed toward Christ, then we will be ready to “offer Christ” to one another and to others (p. 73). Reflecting with each other on what we love about Jesus will shape our love and ready us to speak life to the world.
2: What Gets You Down?
Seed number five is an invitation for others to open up about what they think is especially wrong with the world. The invitation calls for a personal response, rather than a strictly theoretical one. “What gets you down?” (p. 87). This response provides the opportunity to talk about how Jesus answers that ill. That’s the “way things are—represented in Adam. But it makes us cry out for what should be. In short, it makes us cry out for Jesus” (p. 89). We are all confronted by the reality of war, hardship, sickness, and death. We long for peace, wholeness, health, and life, and only Jesus gives these gifts permanently. But wisdom is required as we seek to apply that truth to people who are battling genuine hardships.
Situational awareness and self-awareness are necessary as we consider which of these seeds to scatter and when. He tells the story of a conversation he had with a recent widower with whom he’d been trying to have evangelistic conversations with for years (pp. 85–7). The two got talking about the support the widower had received from family and friends. Scrivener then asked: “but that’s not enough, is it?” That led to tears, and a gospel conversation. As he reflects on this exchange, Scrivener wonders whether his question was the best strategy at the time, even though the ensuing conversation was fruitful. His example here shows that we can’t get everything right all the time, but God is still at work in our missteps. One must make a judgement in the moment and commit the consequences to God.
1: What Gets You Through?
Seed number seven is also a question: “What gets you through?” (p. 123). Christians can speak about Jesus as the only good shepherd who gets them through and guides them through life (p. 124). One way to do this is to give a testimony. Testimonies are not exclusively conversion stories. They are also expressions of the goodness and faithfulness of Jesus in all of life. Scrivener suggests the phrase: “I couldn’t have got through x without Jesus” (p. 126) as the driving motif for testimonies of this type. As anxiety is more keenly and commonly felt by people in the West, which makes it tough for people to get through, this strategy is simple yet sophisticated.
Motivation for Evangelism
I think these tips are excellent, but there’s often a disconnection between good strategies and our application of them. When church is just the right size for us, evangelism declines. When the families leave and our little church feels like its future is on the ropes, we must do something about evangelism. In other words, our motivation can easily be self-interested. Scrivener encourages us to do the work of evangelism out of our love for God and our love for people. He gives a helpful paradigm: “pastoral care is evangelising Christians; evangelism is pastoring non-Christians” (p. 123). One is essentially asking: How can I build this person up in the gospel? and, How can I love this person well?’ That flips the motivation from fear for my little community to the grand purpose of the great God we serve.
In my review of How to See Life, I said that my preference is for Christians to read a gospel over using an evangelistic book. That’s partly a strategy decision.[2] I believe non-Christians are better served engaging with Jesus directly in Scripture. Regardless of what strategy one favours, every Christian serious about evangelism should read and integrate the tips from How to Speak Life. The seeds are practical and fill a gap in evangelism training by providing strategies for everyday conversation. This book is a great encouragement. As Scrivener says: “you have good seed. There is good soil. Sow” (p. 149).
[1] Glen Scrivener, 6/08/2025, Speaking Life in a Post-Christian World, Perth Gospel Partnership Conference 2025, North Beach Baptist Church.
[2] To be fair, Scrivener states that “if we want our friends and family to encounter Jesus we should encourage our friends to engage with [the biographies of Jesus] in every way possible” (p. 46).
