Getting Past the Fear of Rejection When Sharing our Faith

Let’s be honest: rejection stings. It can paralyze us from taking risks. It’s far safer to stick to the status quo than step out in faith. Most of us don’t want to be in positions where failure feels more likely than success. We hate being disappointed and getting hurt.

I believe this fear of rejection is one of the biggest barriers keeping Christians from fulfilling God’s commission to share the gospel. It just feels too risky. We don’t want to lose friends or be labeled foolish. We rarely feel “ready” to provide a perfect answer for the hope we have in Christ. So, we say nothing because it’s safer to stay hidden.

But by staying quiet, we miss the chance to participate with God in something that matters eternally by helping find a lost soul who desperately needs grace.

A while back, I came across the story of entrepreneur Jia Jiang. He had a childhood experience with rejection that haunted him, so he did something radical: he spent 100 days purposely trying to get rejected to conquer his fear.

What he learned was eye-opening. Rejection usually has very little to do with you. It’s almost always about not meeting a particular need of the other person in that moment. Fear only takes over when we falsely assume their “no” is a personal attack. Jiang found that simply asking “Why?” often turns a hard “no” into a real conversation.

This completely changes how we should look at evangelism. When we speak the truth in love, a person’s rejection has little to do with us and everything to do with the message.

Jesus warned us this would happen. In the parable of the seeds (Matthew 13), He explains that the gospel often falls on hard, rocky, or thorny soil. Three out of the four scenarios in that story don’t produce a crop. We should not be surprised when people will often reject the message.

When we remember people are pushing back on the message—not the messenger—it takes the pressure off. Recent studies show many unbelievers are willing to talk about faith with Christian friends; they are just waiting to be asked.

Jesus knew rejection intimately, yet he still went to the cross—even for those rejecting him. To proclaim his message, we must pick up our own cross. Prompted by love, we must crucify our egos and self-preservation for the sake of another person’s soul.

As Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

Sharing our faith means dying to the image in the mirror that’s afraid to take a risk. It goes against human nature, but we don’t do it on our own power. With Christ living in us, we find the courage to share the most important message in the world.