I’d like to tell you about a great time we had today. A few weeks ago, my evangelism study group
decided to get out of the books and hit the streets. We were looking to do some evangelism in ways
that could really benefit our ministries, help hold each other accountable, and
just make sure that we were really getting after it.
So we are making a circuit of our towns—Frenchburg,
Salyersville, Morehead, and Camargo. 7
of us hit Salyersville—me, my son John, Mike Adams, Taylor Wilson, Jacob
Wilson, Matt Ellis, and Andrew Donner, the pastor of Salyersville.
We met for breakfast and then we hit a neighborhood behind
the parsonage. With 7 of us, we really
made short work. Matt Ellis and I worked
a section, and it was a good day, on a bunch of levels. What ends up happening on a weekday is that
you find a lot of people not home, and that’s ok… because part of what you are
doing is getting the word out about your church and its services. You can come back later of an evening or
weekend and catch them at home, and they have already had some contact.
But you also find some people at home. Three visits stick out. We met a woman from the Church of
Christ. She was very happy that we were
out talking to people about Jesus. I
find that happens quite a bit—Christians are happy to bless you in the
work. And I hope they are inspired to
give it a try, to get out there and witness!
We walked up to a guy reading on a porch. We saw pretty quick he had a Bible and a commentary
out. He is a Baptist Sunday School
teacher, very committed to building up a small church in the country. We had a good laugh because he thought we
were Mormons. “Never been so glad to see some Methodists,” he said. He offered us some cold water bottles. It was getting hot. He had a horse in his front yard. It grazes a little in his yard then goes up
to a cousin’s house and then to another house before it goes to the barn to
sleep. Ah, life in a country town.
I have to talk up Matt Ellis a little bit. He took most of the visits and did a great
job. He wasn’t done when we left
Salyersville. He was still witnessing at
a gas station when we stopped for drinks in West Liberty! I have to say that some good ministry
happened there with Matt, too. I was
able to tell him one of the secrets of evangelism. One of my best buds Steve McKinney, if he
hears me whining or complaining asks, “have you told anyone about Jesus today?” It’s good advice, because as soon as my feet
hit the street I’m a brand new man, telling people how good Jesus is to forgive
us. I get to pray for people who have it
worse than me and at any rate I realize the Lord has been pretty good to
me. There will be a lot of hard
fighting, but I’ve read the back of the book and we win. Pretty soon, my
grievances and resentments are gone, and even my real sorrows fade away.
The visit that was the most important: we met a guy who told
us that he had been hurt badly on the
job, showed us some wicked scars from surgery, and told us he lived in constant
pain. I was immediately transported to
India, where I saw so many worn out bodies and heard so many stories of
healings. Why don’t we see it? Probably because we don’t believe it, don’t
know how badly we need it. So we prayed
right there for him fervently. I am
still praying that Andrew may get to visit him and hear a marvelous testimony
of healing and the power of the presence of the Lord in our suffering.
The other two teams have their own stories to tell. I think we are going to see a lot of fruit
from this thing we’re doing. I’m calling
us “The Syndicate.” If I am dreaming, we
will expand this to a big team of other pastors and lay people and we will go
out and hit the streets and country roads and byways. How cool would it be if we prayed each other
up and got together with our teams in each others’ towns and just blitzed it?! If
15 or 20 people handed out 100 flyers, tracts and door hangers, praying for the
needs of people and sharing the Good News of Jesus? I might be getting close to showing a
critical mass of people that door-to-door evangelism is not weird or useless.
