In this episode of the Witnessing Christ Podcast, Mike sits down with returning Truth in Love Ministry interns Charlie and Calvin after their year serving as vicars in local congregations. After a year of preaching, teaching, meeting new people, and having countless conversations about faith, they reflect on how practical ministry changed the way they think about witnessing.
Although they served in very different places—Calvin in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, and Charlie near Greenville, South Carolina—both discovered something similar: effective witnessing is less about finding the perfect argument and more about listening, loving the person in front of you, sharing Jesus, and trusting God’s Word to work.
Calvin shares the story of a man who unexpectedly walked into his church after beginning discussions with Latter-day Saint missionaries. For several months, Calvin walked alongside him as he simultaneously studied with the missionaries and worked through a Christian Bible information course. Their conversations continually returned to the simple message of what Jesus had already done for him.
Charlie reflects on how his previous work with Truth in Love prepared him to minister to people from many different religious backgrounds. Instead of immediately attacking beliefs he knew were false, he learned to slow down, listen, ask questions, and recognize how deeply personal someone’s faith can be.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How a year of practical ministry shaped Charlie and Calvin as future pastors.
- How Calvin unexpectedly used his TILM training while working with someone studying with LDS missionaries.
- Why the biblical teaching of direct access to God through Christ stood out in those conversations.
- How listening can transform conversations with people from different religious backgrounds.
- Why attacking someone’s beliefs often closes doors rather than opening them.
- What it means to let God’s Word work instead of searching for the perfect “silver bullet.”
- Why Christians don’t have to say everything in a single witnessing conversation.
- How face-to-face ministry taught them to become more comfortable thinking on their feet.
- Why witnessing often means planting and watering seeds whose growth you may never see.
- How simply being present in a community creates natural opportunities to talk about Jesus.
- Why Christians can take risks in witnessing without making the outcome depend on themselves.
One of the biggest lessons from their year of ministry was learning to abandon the “silver bullet” mentality—the idea that if we could just find the perfect verse, argument, or question, everything would suddenly fall into place.
Usually, witnessing doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes you’re simply planting a seed. Sometimes you’re watering one somebody else planted years ago. And sometimes you may never see what God eventually does through a conversation. Especially when witnessing to Latter-day Saints, spiritual change can take years. Our responsibility isn’t to manufacture that change. We share God’s Word and trust Him to work through it.
That truth also takes enormous pressure off the witness. You aren’t the most important person in someone’s story—God is. You don’t have to know everything, speak perfectly, or win every argument. You get the privilege of sharing the Savior who has already done everything necessary for sinners.
So listen. Ask questions. Be willing to stay in someone’s life for the long haul. Share Jesus. Plant the seed. And then trust God with the growth.
As Charlie puts it, witnessing can feel risky—but sometimes the best thing you can do is simply go try something risky and see how the Lord uses it.
Music used in this episode under license. License code: BSIPX0EWJ87RCGZL
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