My son handed me a book on sharing my faith. It turned out to be less about technique and more about readiness — and about a God who is already working before we ever open our mouths.
A Smith For Christ Book Review · Gospeler: Turning Darkness into Light One Conversation at a Time by Willie Robertson (Thomas Nelson, 2024)
My son bought me this book, and I am glad he did. It is one of the most practical books on sharing your faith I have read.
Most of us know we are supposed to share the gospel. Most of us also carry a quiet excuse for why we don’t: I don’t know enough. I’m not a preacher. I’d say it wrong. Willie Robertson spends an entire book taking that excuse apart, and he does it with a simple observation. If you can talk to someone about your wife, your kids, your work, or your hobbies, you already know how to talk about what you love. You can talk about Jesus.
That is the thesis of the whole book: sharing the gospel is not preaching. It is a conversation. A “gospeler” is an old word for an ordinary believer known for spreading the good news, and Willie wants every one of us to be one.
The Shape of the Book
The book moves in three parts: My Gospel Story, The Gospel Story, and Response to the Gospel Story.
His story. The Robertson family’s faith traces back to one Arkansas preacher who, in the 1970s, drove across state lines to find Phil Robertson and tell him about Jesus. One man, one conversation, and a whole family line changed. Willie is also honest that his years of television success left him feeling disqualified from sharing the gospel — until he saw that God uses anyone who is willing.
The story. He walks through what the gospel actually is and how Jesus and His disciples shared it. Not with credentials. With conversations. When the council looked at Peter and John, they saw exactly what Willie wants us to see in ourselves:
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13, KJV)
The response. Here the book gets practical. Willie lays out a clear path — confront sin, repent, confess Christ as Lord, be baptized, and keep walking — and he insists on full surrender, not a halfway decision. He also gives wise counsel on posture: don’t push, let them ask, and when they do, don’t argue or judge. Readers from other traditions will notice that his emphasis on Acts 2:38 reflects his Church of Christ roots; that is worth knowing going in, and it does not take away from the heart of the book.
Why It Works
It removes the excuse that you have to know everything first. You don’t need every answer to start a normal conversation. You need a willing heart and a little courage.
And it puts the power where it belongs. Willie leans hard on one verse, and so should we:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. (Romans 1:16, KJV)
The gospel carries the weight. We just carry the message.
Start With Your Story
Notice the order of the book. Willie tells his gospel story before he teaches the gospel story. That is no accident, and it is exactly why the ReGen testimony is so powerful.
The ReGen testimony is a two-minute elevator talk: who I was before God, how God met me, and what He has changed in my life since. Nobody can argue with it. A man can debate your theology all day, but he cannot debate what happened to you. And you don’t need a seminary degree to tell it — you only need to have it ready.
The apostle Paul did exactly this. Standing in chains before King Agrippa in Acts 26, he did not open with an argument. He told his story — the man he had been, the light on the Damascus road, and the life he had lived ever since. Before. Encounter. After.
Peter makes it every believer’s assignment:
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. (1 Peter 3:15, KJV)
God Is Already Working
Peter says always for a reason. God is always working, and He brings people into your life when you least expect it.
One of the best stories in the book proves the point. Willie is asked about the gospel in the middle of the night, in twenty-degree cold, out on a remote cattle farm. By the end of that conversation, the man wants to be baptized. Nobody scheduled that conversation. God did.
It will be the same for you. Maybe a coworker in the break room. Maybe a stranger at the gas station. Maybe the man next to you in the elevator. You will not get time to prepare a sermon. You will get two minutes and a story.
Make sure yours is ready.
Father, make me ready. Thank You for the people who once told me about You, and for the story You have written in my life. Bring me the people You have already prepared, give me the courage to open my mouth, and let the power be Yours and not mine. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Scripture at the heart of this review: 1 Peter 3:15; Romans 1:16; Acts 4:13; Acts 26.
Teaching the Word. Watching the Times.
— SmithForChrist