The first person who prayed to receive Christ in response to Leighs personal witness was not her best friend, favorite uncle or even a long lost cousin. It was a 16-year-old girl shed met just 30 minutes earlier during a cold call, an anonymous church visitation assignment.

Leigh knew such conversions occurredbut at the invitation of evangelists, pastors, missionaries fanatical Christians so supernaturally infected with boldness that they could unashamedly drop tracts in restaurants, hold up John 3:16 signs at football games and turn a bus ride into an opportunity to present the gospel.

Leigh resisted attempting to witness to strangersuntil she had to abandon the neighbor for whom she secretly harbored hopes and prayers of leading to Christ. Shed occasionally heard this single mother yelling at her children through the walls separating their apartments. She planned to offer support and friendship. Instead, after a couple of casual, tentative over-the-back-fence conversations, an unexpected job offer sent Leighs family packing.

So when the opportunity to knock on a strangers door presented itself, Leigh pushed aside her reservationswith results that both surprised and gratified.

It was really easy, she recalls. We just went to the door, introduced ourselves and shared the gospel. The hardest part was feeling like I didnt have a right to go up to her door.

Beware of strangers?
Many of us experience Leighs hesitation at the thought of sharing our faith with complete strangers. While we acknowledge that the message is for everyone, even people unknown, we also realize that it impacts some at a deep level. So when we ask someone about his or her relationship with God, we do it with the uncomfortable realization that were not just talking about the weather. Were actually asking another to lay bare his or her heart.

We may assume that such probing requires intimacy, as if knowing who wields the tools of surgery will make it a more viable option. Certainly a case can be made for this. My husbands 78-year-old grandmother finally received Christ on the heels of his familiar witness.

But the witness of strangers has won many. Consider the conversion of evangelist Billy Graham. Although he was very familiar with the tenets of Christianity and had practiced them in his home since childhood, it took the witness of a stranger, a visiting evangelist, to get through to the 16-year-old Graham. His words, and his way with words, grabbed my mind, gripped my heart, Graham writes in Just as I Am, his autobiography written with Jerry Jenkins.

Moreover, the scriptures validate the one-stranger-to-another approach. In his parable of the wedding feast, Jesus instructed His disciples to go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find (Matthew 22:9). If you visualize that scene, you may picture yourself in the town square calling out to friends and acquaintances, but you also have to paint in the passersby youve never met.

Plus, there are plenty of biblical examples of how this works. Philip approached the Ethiopian eunuch without so much as a formal introduction (Acts 8:26-40). Peter and John witnessed to the beggar at the temple gate on the strength of little more than eye contact (Acts 3:1-10). Paul preached to Agrippa, who protested Pauls temerity on the basis of their flimsy acquaintance but nevertheless listenedand was almost persuaded (Acts 26:28).

When a stranger talks
When my husband, Barry, and I went on a mission trip to Australia, one of our hostesses, Mary, prepared for our visit by inviting her friend Wilf to dinner with us. Mary hoped our witness would lead to Wilfs salvation.

Unfortunately, Wilf didnt accept Christ that evening. But our discussion of Christianity was long and intense, and Mary was exhilarated at the interest Wilf had shown. Her own words, she felt, had long since fallen on deaf ears, but Wilfs curiosity had been peaked by these strangers from America.

Thats why so many of us invite our friends and neighbors to hear someone else present the gospel, whether at church or in another setting. We recognize that by removing relational tensions and pressures, its no longer about our relationship. The relationship getting all the attention is the one with Christ and Him alone.

Graham, who was first drawn to hear Mordecai Ham because of his colorful preaching and reputation, says he soon forgot about the messenger and concentrated on the message: I have no recollection of what he preached about, but I was spellbound. In some indefinable way, he was getting through to me. I was hearing another voice, as was often said of Dwight L. Moody when he preached: the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Perry Neal, an evangelist based in Montgomery, Alabama, says people attending services in host churches often make appointments to see himbypassing familiar, beloved pastorsso they can explore their relationship with God with a stranger. They sometimes open up more to a stranger like me.

Strangers, all of us
Increased urbanization of North America, hectic lifestyles and a more transient population all mean on mission Christians must expect to witness as strangers. The opportunities to plant seeds, cultivate, nurture and then harvest them, too, are disappearing amid geographic mobility.

As Leigh experienced, the likelihood of a budding friendship becoming interrupted by a move is on the increase. Between March 1998 and March 1999, 15.9 percent of our countrys population moved, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, diminishing our opportunities for building long, deep friendships.

According to researcher George Barna, many of the adult unchurched are in that category in part because they are resistant to forming relationships. So planning a friendship as a vehicle for witnessing may not be everyones best approach.

Not surprisingly then, the Internet, a place where strangers interact regularly, has emerged as a prime location for faith experiences, according to the Barna Research Group.

Gil, a computer network analyst at the University of Arizona, was surfing the Web when he engaged in conversation with a stranger in a Christian chatroom.

Do you know Christ? Gil queried as the other man elaborated on recent problems.

Its much easier to ask that question when they cant see you for some reason, he says. When he got a no answer to his question, Gil sent an invitation into cyberspace: Would you like to receive Christ? He typed a prayer for the person to repeat in his heart.

Finally, a note appeared on screen: I DID IT.

Since then Gil has conducted many Internet conversations about Christ and now has online acquaintances in Pittsburgh and California, for example, who regularly contact him for prayer.

Its a cool way to get the word out, he says, but warns: Even then, the occasional rejection is inevitable.

Intimate strangers
What troubles some would-be witnesses is the absence of a relationship as a context for faith sharing. But on mission Christians can be reminded that, while we may never get the opportunity to build a personal friendship with some of the strangers we meet, we are building relationships when we assure them that God loves and cares for them or when we show interest on behalf of Christ.

John Brackin, director of missions for Palm Lake Association in Palm Beach, Florida, who also has ministered in Tucson, often relies on what he terms kiss and run encounters to penetrate certain cultures for Christ. For example, Brackin helps coordinate a booth at Floridas largest jazz festival, playing games and awarding prizes to those who stop by. What were trying to do is make a quick contact with them at a level theyre interested in.

Talking to a stranger about Christ can actually be a more relaxed way of sharing ones faith, according to Brackin. I think what it does for me is knowing Im not going to destroy a relationship here inadvertently, because I dont have a relationship. So, while finesse is still required, Brackin contends that a quick, positive encounter with an interested Christian can be just what a stranger needs. People will listen to us if we build this temporary relationship.

Brackin sees it more as a seed-planting opportunity but realizes that it also can result in a harvest. In Tucson Brackin gave away bandanas to cowboys at an annual rodeo. One year a cowboy returned and asked for a new one, explaining that his first had gotten worn out from the sun, because hed put in on the dashboard of his truck.

Every time I looked at that bandana I remembered you telling me about Jesus Christ, Brackin recalls the cowboy saying. Hed received Christ in the interim.

But witnessing to a stranger also means that you may never be anything more than an anonymous faith-sharernot the soul winner, friend, discipler or mentorjust a stranger with a message from God. But as the apostle Paul explains, its okayperhaps necessaryto be a stranger for God: I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Kima Jude is a writer and photographer living in Montgomery, Alabama.