If there’s anything Peter Chao has learnt as a teacher of preachers, it is that square one is often where the Master Teacher takes us, again and again.

Chao has been Eagles Communications’ main evangelist for 50 years to date, as well as mentor to scores of people who’ve been through Eagles’ leadership programmes.

His passion for sharing the faith continues to be the fire in his bones.

“My passion is evangelism,” he says, and there is nothing that compels his hands and feet more than the urgent need to point people to Jesus.

But these days, with the benefit of foresight that age and hindsight give, he adds a caveat.

Sharing the faith is much more than raising the issue: Where is Jesus in your life?

The journey into that holy place where you can even pose the question is far more interpersonal than we realise.

Have we earned the right to speak?

“Faith is something very personal and very deep. I think we trivialise it when we approach people without having earned the right to talk about their spiritual life.

“We are imposing. We talk about something that is foreign, that is outside the frame of mind in general.

“It is like asking personal questions about a person’s financial standing, or talking to people about their sexual gratification. That’s very personal. You must have the right – either as a medical doctor or something.

“We think that Christianity is a product that we are pushing, without having earned the right to ask the very deep and relevant question, which is: What about Jesus?

“In Cantonese, the phrase ‘to talk about rubbish’ is to talk about Jesus. That’s exactly where people are at today.”

Where, then, do we go from here?

To quote from his book, Ponderings: En Route, the way forward could well be in presenting options and persuading decisions.

Chao writes: “We need to increase spiritual options from different approaches until God’s love makes sense to people.

“When that epiphany moment is realised, the consequential decision to follow Christ is the most natural response. The urgency in persuading a decision arises from the serious consequences of our choices. We press, gently but firmly, that we have options to blessings or curses, life or death (Deuteronomy 20:15, 19).

“While even leaders in our pulpits and seminaries debate the nature of eternal death, the Gospel is good news only because it is bad news outside the Cross of Christ.”