On Friday night, Ann, Ellen, Wayne and I went to Arlington to witness at the Cotton Bowl. This was a great opportunity to reach people, many who had come from out of town, with the message of salvation through Christ alone! It also served a dual purpose in that it was one last chance to attend an event at the Cowboys Stadium prior to next months Super Bowl Outreach.
Ellen, Ann, Wayne and Carl witnessing at the Cotton Bowl
When we arrived in Arlington, I dropped off Ann, Ellen and Wayne as close to the stadium as I could before getting caught up in the traffic. I then went to park the car. Amazingly, I was able to park the car a mile from the stadium for only $10! That is pretty good pricing in these parts! I saw spots across the street from the stadium later in the evening were going for $60.
When I paid for parking I gave a tract to the parking attendant. She was reading it as I came walking past leaving the game. She was a professed believer in Jesus. She said she would give my contact information to the pastor of her church. So, I went back to my car and got a packet of information about the ministry and gave it to her to give to her pastor.
With that, I was off to meet up with the rest of the group. I was walking briskly and passing people as I went. So I handed each one that I passed a tract. I was mainly handing out New Year Resolution tracts. They went easily by simply wishing people “Happy New year” and handing them a tract. I walked through the edges of the parking lots giving tracts to all of the people that were tail gating in the parking lots. Most people took tracts from me.
Sun setting behind Cowboys Stadium.
I reached the corner where the rest of the group was and we waiting in line to cross at the cross walk. As we waited I got out tracts to most of the people there waiting to cross. At this point we saw one other guy witnessing who was doing some stop light preaching. A couple of the people in our group got a chance to say “hi” to him later on.
We handed out tracts for awhile and I selected a corner where I was planning to preach from. I got set up only to find that my amplifier no longer works. That was disappointing. But that corner was too loud with cars to be heard without an amp. Instead we walked up to the east end of the stadium. I put my stool down and preached “a la whitfield” for a time!
Wayne and I made a lap around the stadium to check out the possible logistics for next months Super Bowl. While walking we handed out a number of tracts. We had some great one on one conversations with a couple of city traffic workers as well as some of the chauffeurs waiting by their limos.
When the game started, we headed back to the car praising God for the opportunity we had had to share the Gospel with so many people. Then we enjoyed some fellowship while we had dinner.
On Thursday, December 30th we went to the Dallas Mavericks game for the purpose of sharing the Gospel. I had over 1,000 New Year Resolution tracts that we wanted to get out. We also brought a long a couple thousand other tracts. Thanks to the city of Dallas, the DART Green Line train now extends from downtown Dallas all the way north to Carrollton where I live. We met at the train station and took the train in to Dallas. The train stops at Victory Plaza which is a couple of hundred yards from the American Airlines Center where the games are played.
Even if we had never made it to the game, the night was complete in fellowship and sharing the Gospel right from the train ride in. We boarded the train and sat down. Since North Carrollton is the end (and beginning) of the line, there were only a couple of people on the train. The guy sitting one row behind me looked pretty bored. So I asked him where he was going. He spoke mostly Spanish, but some broken English. Basically he said “I am just riding around.” We talked a little, but he was not too interested in talking. At the next stop a woman got on with her two kids. One of the kids sat next to the man and the other sat with her mom across the aisle. Those two were directly behind Ann. Ann reached in her bag and handed each of the three Good Person comic tracts and million dollar bill tracts. They started looking at them. At this, the man behind me peaked up his curiosity. As we asked the kids if they were “good” he suddenly said something to the effect of “you can’t be good.”
Ann also had Spanish versions of the same tracts. So she gave him one of each of the tracts in Spanish. This started a long dialog with him as he tried to practice his English by translating the tract back to me asking me the questions. He was a firm believer in Christ. It was great meeting him. While he and I were talking, I asked the kids if they had been good. This lead Ann into a conversation with the mom.
As we continued towards downtown, the train continued to fill up. Eventually another guy ended up sitting next to me. He explained that he and a friend had come to Dallas to look for jobs. After spending the afternoon entertaining themselves at “some of Dallas’s finer places” he said his friend was pulled over while driving and it turned out there was a warrant out for his arrest. His friend is now spending 30 days as a guest of the City of Dallas! Anyway, this man had just admitted to me that he had been lusting after women all afternoon and was asking for money to get a bus ride back to Arkansas. As we arrived at Victory Plaza, I handed him a few bucks, gave him directions to the Bus Station in Dallas and then got a Good Person comic tract from Ann to give him. I asked him to read it and he said that he would.
As God would have it, he was not done with the woman who Ann was talking to. As I got up from the train and told Ann this was our stop, the woman and her kids also exited the train. Ann was able to spend another 15-20 minutes at the station, during which time she was able to completely share the Law and the Gospel.
Ellen had missed the train that we had caught. So we hung around the train station until her train arrived. During that time several other trains arrived and I handed out a number of tracts to people as they left the train going up to the game. The station is set up such that there is basically one way out. So with a couple people it is pretty easy to cover all of the people coming off of the train and give them tracts.
One note about tracts. While handing out the New Year Resolution tract, I was simply say “Happy New Year” and hand them the tract. Most people would take it. I find this to be the case with most of the seasonal tracts. Last week, “Merry Christmas” and hand them a tract. Or having a tract that fits the event. Like at the Dallas Cowboys game to hand out Cowboys and NFL Trivia. This has prompted me to create a Dallas Mavericks Trivia tract that we will bring to a game next month.
Of course, the “did you get one of these” still works well to hand out these tracts and others. But, I am finding that the more the tracts fit the environment the easier they are taken.
We walked over to the stadium and were handing out a few tracts. Neither Ann nor Ellen had done witnessing at the American Airlines Center so I was pointing out some areas and experiences that we’ve had there in the past. The game was 90 minutes from starting. The crowds were a little light where we were so I suggested walking around the building to see if there were more people in other areas. When we walked around to the South end where Victory Plaza is, we found the people!! Now, in the past we have been told not to hand out material in Victory Plaza so we just cut through and went to the sidewalk on the south end of the stadium. By this time, the crowds were picking up and people were coming from the South East corner. We started handing out tracts. Ann had a short conversation with a pastor and gave him a copy of Ray’s God has a Wonderful Plan for your life book. Remember him!
I pointed out that the people pass us so quickly on this side of the street that it is hard to get tracts to all of them. So I pointed out where we have stood on the opposite street corner in the past and handed out lots of tracts. So, Ann and Ellen took some tracts to the far side of the intersection. As people were held up by the police waiting to cross the street they were able to give tracts to most of the people coming from that direction.
I remained on the side of the street nearer to the stadium. As the police sent people across I could still hand tracts to those coming from the other corners from where Ann and Ellen were and also get tracts to any of the people they had missed.
I find that handing out tracts like this leads to many one on one conversations. We see all four types of soil as people pass by. Some ignore us. Some take the tract, look at it and then toss it on the ground. I probably picked up 25 or more tracts during the evening. Most of those got handed out again. A few were too messed up to hand to someone else. Then we see people who will take the tract, look at it and then put it in their tract. But the last type of soil is the one that asks “what is it?”
“A Gospel tract?”
And then they say “are you going to tell me about it?”
At that I can take them through the Law. I ask a few question about whether they have kept the Ten Commandments, ever lied, stolen, hated or lusted? Most will admit that they have. They see they are guilty before God and deserve nothing but eternal Hell.
However, this gives the chance to share with them that God does not want them to go to Hell. He sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ to live on the earth. Jesus being fully God and fully man paid the price for their sin. And then I talk to them about the cross, Jesus death, and his resurrection. Finally, I share that God commands them to repent and trust in Jesus alone to save them.
While I was having a number of conversations and handing out many tracts, the pastor was watching. I had a few short conversations with him. Eventually he said, “can I help you pass those out?” WOW! I was so encouraged. So of course, I handed him a stack of tracts and he started handing them out! Eventually he went into the game and he said he would call me to discuss the Super Bowl Outreach.
There were many other one on ones. Eventually the crowd thinned as the game was starting. So we headed back to the train. Had a nice time of fellowship on the train ride back to Carrollton. We handed Bibles and tracts to several people as they left the train. A lot happened that night. I have not even touched on helping the guy up who slipped while riding his bike, or my conversation with the Bhuddist at the train station! But, I’ll leave it here.
If you have never been to a witnessing event, I’d encourage you to go. If you live in the Dallas area, subscribe to our Bezeugen Blast and the witnessing events mailing list and check our witnessing calendar. We’d love to have you join us. If you live elsewhere around the country, check the local events calendar of your sporting arenas, get a group from your church and some tracts and go share the Gospel. We know many people around the country who are doing these types of outreaches. If you are unsure if there are folks in your area that you could hook up with, then post a comment below and I’ll see if I can connect you with someone in your area to go Evangelize with.
One thing I’ve found over the years is that by sharing the Gospel at events like this, it makes it that much more on my mind to share the Gospel every day “As I Go!” If you are not already enrolled in the Bezeugen Tract Club, you might like to enroll to have tracts to hand out each day!
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At the end of the year it is nice to look back and see all that God did during the year and then also look forward to see where God is leading. Many people do this with annual Christmas letters. We wrote them for our families. But, here we’d like to share what God is doing in and through Bezeugen Ministries.
Bezeugen Tract Club
During the year we saw the tract club grow from 150 members to nearly 750 members. Prior to this extreme growth we never thought we could even package 300 envelopes a month. However, we have streamlined our processes, got help counting tracts into stacks before the packing nights and even have one faithful helper who folds all the letters in advance. These volunteers make the growth of the tract club possible! We also expanded in Canada thanks to a couple there who receive the tracts from us, packages them and mail them to our Canadian members. This reduces our shipping from the US to Canada and also saves us completing nearly 75 customs forms each month.
This year, the Lord gave us the vision for a number of new tracts. I believe that we had at least one new Gospel tract in each monthly tract club mailing. Through some amazing circumstances, we were able to translate tracts into Spanish, French, Swahili and Portuguese. These tracts were then sent to various locations in Africa, Europe and South America and around the United States for distribution!
We also launched a new web site just for the Bezeugen Tract Club. This site provides an inventory of the tracts we have produced as well as a story behind each tract. Thanks to Marv at One Million Tracts, each of our tracts are also available for purchase at amazing prices that he has offered starting in quantities of just 250 tracts!
Door to door
The ministry has continued to be involved in door to door evangelism. We have several teams around North Texas that are regularly on the streets in Carrollton, Frisco and Kruegerville. We developed a door hanger to be used in the door to door ministry. Nearly 7,500 of these have been distributed throughout North Texas and around the country. Approximately 40 people kicked off door to door ministries in their community using the door hangers that we provided.
Training
We continued hosting our monthly Basic Evangelism Training Seminar. In October and November we hosted our 33rd and 34th sessions respectively. We are thankful for those that have hosted us. We are thankful for those that have attended. In the spring, the Lord gave us a vision to be able to do the training one on one in coffee shops, restaurants or malls. About a week later, as we were praying about it, I got a call from someone who said, “my friends and I were wondering if we could get some training over lunch time?” WOW! Does God answer prayer. Using an old laptop, we put on the training in the food court in a nearby mall. Those guys have become a regular part of our witnessing team and are also training other people to evangelize now. This fall I bought a netbook computer and can completely present the seminar one on one or to a group (using a project) from the netbook! We had the privilege to lead a training with about 25 adults at a local church, speak to about 40 members of a youth group at another church and speak on a Sunday morning at yet another church. We had several pastors attend our training sessions. We thank God for opening these doors and for people that are eager to learn to share the Gospel.
Events
Bezeugen Ministries organized and participated in a number of witnessing events during the year. These included concerts, sporting events, witnessing in Dallas at the DART station and campus outreaches. The West End DART station has become a favorite fishing hole where we can share the Gospel. We have made several visits per semester to the campus of Brookhaven College. We spent many Sunday mornings reading the Bible and open air preaching at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano as part of Project Ezra. Carl had the opportunity to participate in the Super Bowl Outreach in Miami. We also lead a group to the West End in Dallas for the 500 following the Psalm 119 conference.
Online
Bezeugen has also grown it’s online presence. The As you go BLOG was started to encourage people with simple ways to share the Gospel daily – as they go. Updates to the tract club web site were already mentioned. A new domain was secured for the Door to Door ministry. Look for that to be expanded in 2011. The AfterLifeCatalog site underwent a number of updates including material in French, Spanish and Portuguese. We also incorporated a new video version of the good person tract and will be pointing people to that area of the site with a new tract that is coming out in the spring!
Looking ahead to 2011
2011 is already shaping up to be an exciting year. We will hit the ground running with an evangelism event at the Cotton Bowl game (in Arlington) on January 7th. Less than a month later, the NFL brings its stage to North Texas for the Super Bowl. Bezeugen is a partner of this years Super Bowl Outreach. We expect around 100 evangelists to join us on the streets. One of our tract club members provided us the art work for a tract that he designed. Look for it in the tract club mailing in March. We also have new tracts coming out for the tract club that should provide new and interesting ways to transition conversations to the Gospel. There are a number of things that we are still praying about. The possibility of a country wide outreach and also an event in Dallas where we might be able to distribute 50,000 Gospel tracts in just a few hours! We are also considering the logistics and financial needs for the continued steady growth of the tract club. We recorded a couple of the training sessions. In 2011, we may put these recordings online or make them available on a DVD. It’s going to be an exciting year! God is at work! We are along for the ride!
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Christmas is next week. Have you finished your Christmas shopping? If not, let me make some suggestions for the Evangelist on your list:
Registration to the Super Bowl Outreach – What could be a better gift for the Evangelist on your list than the opportunity to spend four days in Dallas with other Evangelist having fellowship, enjoying Biblical teaching and witnessing on the streets around the Super Bowl. The outreach is February 3-6, 2011. Ask you a registration for Christmas! You can register online.
A box of tracts – You can order any of the tracts from the Bezeugen Tract Club in bulk. Quantities range from 250 tracts up to 5,000! Help the Evangelist on your list prepare for that next outreach or just stock them up on their favorite tract. You can request bulk orders on the Bezeugen Tract Club site. Don’t forget the One Million Tracts Christmas special is still in effect with 2,500 tracts for just $59 and 5,000 tracts for $89!
An Amp – Maybe your favorite Evangelist does not have an amplifier to do street preaching with. We use the Behringer EPA40 portable PA system. It works well, has a rechargable battery and is very affordable. The size works well to fit into a back pack or directly in your preaching box.
Preaching Box – Speaking of a preaching box, that might make a good gift too. You can pick up some nice options at Sears or Home Depot.
Additional Resources – You might consider stocking them up on Books, Bibles, DVD’s and other resources that they can hand out while witnessing. There is a list of suggested resources on our web site. Whether it is give away Bibles, thought provoking books like One Heartbeat Away or DVDs like the Big Question, these resources are bound to be a hit with the Evangelist on your list. Buy in bulk, so they have plenty of copies to give away.
Headset – Maybe they already have an amp and a preaching box. Maybe they are looking for a solution to holding the microphone while they preach. Radio Shack has a nice solution. You can read about it in this BLOG post.
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Back around 1982 or 1983 while I was a junior or senior in high school, I got this crazy idea to run a marathon. Back then I was on the cross country team and as I started training I remember being up to about 10-12 miles a day in my training. I had my sights set on running the Dallas White Rock Marathon. However, as time passed, I lost interest in running the longer distances and gave up training.
Now consider my “giving up” compared to Brock’s deathcrawl in the movie Facing the Giants!
In May 2009, I had the opportunity to go to Living Waters Ambassadors Academy #10. This is an intensive four day evangelism training camp. One of the messages during the Thursday training is called “Don’t Quit” by Tony Miano. (If you have never heard the complete message, I encourage you to check it out. On sale now at Living Waters for just $1.50 on CD.) This message is inspiring. The main point is to not quit sharing the Gospel. Read on. But first, have a listen to this poem written by Arica Wade-Gonzalez who I met at AA #10.
Last year, my doctor suggested to me that the best way to loose weight is to train for a marathon. “A marathon?” I asked. He said, “it’s not like you actually have to run a marathon, just train for it to loose weight.” I thought about it but did nothing about it.
This spring a friend and I were discussing an idea for a “Bucket List” Gospel tract. I wrote the text for the back that includes nine suggestions for a persons bucket list. After the tracts were printed and I started handing them to people, I’d ask “do you have a bucket list?” and then follow it with “do you think you will ever do the things on your bucket list?” This got me to thinking, “will I do the things on my bucket list.”
As I continued to pray about all of this, I realized the desire from my youth to run a marathon was still there.
So one day in June, I looked up online “training for a marathon” and found a number of sites. When I looked at the training plan it looked good to do a half marathon first and then the full marathon afterward. I had already been running for a couple months and had gotten to where I could run three miles at a time. While looking at a ten week training plan to run a half marathon I noticed that there was a half marathon exactly 10 weeks from the day I was checking it out. I also found that there was a full marathon exactly 16 weeks after that and that there was a sixteen week training plan for the full marathon.
Putting all of this together, I decided to make running the Dallas White Rock Marathon my goal. I set out to follow the 10 week half marathon training plan. During that training, I ran a 10K the weekend of the Fourth of July, I ran in the beach in California and around Travis Lake in Austin, TX. During that training run in Austin, my iPod got so much sweat in/on it that it no longer functions. The half marathon came on August 15th. I completed it in 2 hours and 49 minutes.
Following the half marathon, I took two days to rest. Then I started on the 16 week marathon training plan. I replaced my iPod with an inexpensive mp3 player. I was enjoying listening to praise and worship songs while I ran and I even made some devotional time with the lyrics after my runs. But, that mp3 player suffered the same fate as the iPod – but my son later fixed it. I ran seven miles in Norman, OK one weekend while visiting my mom. A business travel took me to NY so I had the opportunity to run across the Brooklyn Bridge as well as along the Hudson river. Fitting in training with my sons band contest meant that one day I ran from Arlington to Bedford, TX. I also ran some hills in San Antonio while we were there on a band weekend. But, mostly my mileage was run right around my house. A week ago I was discussing with my family how many miles I’d run and determined where I could have run too if it were all run in one direction.
During my training, I ran 195.1 to run the half marathon and 399.2 to run the marathon. This is a total of 594.3 miles! Amazingly, if I had run south or west, I would not have even made it out of Texas! Here is where I could have run to if I'd run all these miles in one direction...
Going south from my house in Carrollton, TX that would take me to South Padre Island
Going west out I-10 it takes you past Allamore, TX which is nearly to El Paso
Going North West towards Amarillo you can catch 40 West to Santa Rosa, NM nearly to Albuquerque.
Going north through OKC on I-35 I’d pass Kansas City to Cameron, MO
Going North East towards Sherman (US 75) to Tulsa and then up I44 to St Cloud, MO which is almost to St Louis
Going East on I-30 I’d cross Arkansas and reach Jackson, TN
Going East on I-20 I’d cross Louisiana and Mississippi and nearly make it to Tuscalusa, AL
Going Southeast I’d make it to New Orleans with with 30 miles left to make it to Mississippi
Many of my training runs were long hours spent running by myself. Having done in two MP3 plays, I took to prayer. I found that this time was a great way to talk to God. I wrote prayer lists on my hand and then would pray for each person for one mile (a suggestion I got from my Pastor)!
As I prayed, God gave me ideas for new Gospel tracts, messages for the newsletter and BLOG and time to just reflect.
Often as the miles added up and I was tired and wanted to quit, I'd hear Tony Miano's voice in my head:
Don’t Quit
I think the first time that happened was when I was just getting to where I could run 3 miles without stopping. I could see my house coming up down the street:
Don’t Quit!
Later into my training, I would hit a hill and be ready to give up. Then I’d hear in my head
Don’t Quit!
While running the marathon yesterday, my wife, my sons and my mother and father in law cheered me on. At mile 23 I turned a corner to go up a slight hill. I stopped running and started walking. Then I saw my mother-in-law at the top of the hill and started running again. As I passed by my father-in-law reminded me I only had a 5K left to go.
Don’t Quit
Folks, in April, I could not run to the end of my block without being out of breath. I had a goal to run a 5K without stopping. But yesterday, I ran a marathon – and basically without stopping.
Don’t Quit!
Yes, this BLOG really is about evangelism. I layered shirts to keep warm during the race and had my AfterLifeCatalog t-shirt at the bottom of the layers. It showed for the last six miles!
Don’t Quit
As you go about your day, don’t quit share the Gospel. If you need some ideas check out the As You Go BLOG.
Don’t Quit
If you need Gospel tracts to hand out then enroll in the Bezeugen Tract Club and we will send you 30 per month – for FREE!
Don’t Quit!
If you live in Dallas, join us for our Basic Evangelism Training Seminar. The next seminar should be the second or third week in January. Send me a note, or follow the Bezeuegn Blast to get the dates.
Don’t Quit!
At the end of the Ambassadors Academy, Tony preaches another version of the Don’t Quit message. He reminds everyone that they have to go home now. Back to their home town where they might be the only one engaged in Biblical Evangelism. I invite you to watch as he addresses Academy #15. Many thanks to Ben Adams for responding to my request for this video and posting it for me. It is really interesting that in the midst of encouraging the attendees, a man comes and Tony witnesses to him.
So whether it is running a marathon, parenting your children, loving your husband or wife or sharing the Gospel, may I encourage you:
Don’t Quit!
Only final video for you. Six months of training paid off. On December 5th, I ran the Dallas White Rock Marathon. Here I am crossing the finish line!
This was the fourth year that I attended the Dallas Children’s Parade to hand out tracts. I handed out about 1,000 tracts before the parade. Since I am running the Dallas White Rock Marathon tomorrow, I did not organize a larger outreach or spend much time on my feet to hand out tracts, but instead stopped by on my way to get my race packet.
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On December 2nd we held our First Thursday Day of Prayer meetings in Carrollton and Dallas.
In Carrollton, three of us joined in prayer. We prayed for the mayor and the nation and leaders. We used the Faith Comes By Hearing Proclaimer that is destined for Cameroon to listen to Luke 11 in the open air.
In Dallas, Craig had more than FIFTY people join him in prayer. Many prayer requests were received during the month and at the meeting.
Please consider joining us next month at one of our two locations, or start your own location. Post a comment here to let us know you will be participating.
Our next First Thursday Day of Prayer will be held on Thursday, January 6th.
On Monday we had our last outreach of the semester at Brookhaven College. It was an amazing time. I brought two cases of water to give out along with a box of One Thing You Can’t Do in Heaven books. As I walked from my car to the free speech area, I had the box of books stacked on top of the cases of water in my cart. The box feel off twice. The second time it spilled the books all over the sidewalk. Right then a student bent down and started picking up the books for me. When he saw the title he asked if I was with a ministry. I said yes and that we were there to give the books away and talk to people. He said he was a Christian and offered to help me carry things to the table. I gave him a book to thank him for his help.
When I got to the table three other students were standing by the table having a conversation. I walked right up to them as if I was expecting them and said, “I’m glad you were able to make it.” They kinda looked at me weird, but I started right off telling them I was there to hand out these books and gave them each one. They gladly accepted them. I then asked what they thought happened when they die? I got various answers from the group. The first guy who said he was a Christian offered answers to many questions like “follow the Bible” and such. So finally I asked if they were good enough to go to Heaven.
Thinking they were, they said yes. So I pulled out my Lie Detector and tested them. They were all amazed that the lie detector said “no” they would not go to heaven. So I started to explain why it would say that because each person had lied, stolen and lusted. Finally I asked, “if you died today and stood before God and he asked you why he should let you into Heaven, what would you say?”
At that, the first guy who said he was a Christian said, “honestly, I have no idea how to answer that question.” WOW! He went from being a professed Christian to having no idea how to get to Heaven in a matter of ten minutes.
The other guy who remained with me during this entire conversation answered the question the same way. He said that he attends a Catholic church down the street.
At that, I had the priviledge of sharing the Gospel with both of them. I told them about Jesus, the God-man, who lived a perfect life, fulfilled the Law and willingly became the perfect sacrifice for their sin. I explained how Jesus had died on the cross and rose from the dead. Then I told them that God commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel. Neither was ready to repent. But they were thankful for our time of conversation.
Craig, Todd and Arnold joined me at the college. We witnessed to the kids for a little over an hour. During that time we gave out 100 water bottles, 200-300 Gospel tracts, 20 copies of One Thing You Can’t Do in Heaven and a number of other resources. We had dozens of one on one conversations. Two kids that Todd talked to put their trust in Jesus Christ for the first time! Praise God!
We will be looking forward to the Spring semester starting so we can go back out.
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I have done a lot of witnessing in shopping malls over the past few years. Normally in the mall we have one eye out for the lost and the other for the security guards. We’ve had run ins with security, but typically we have been able to witness at the malls and talk to lots of people without any issues. We thank God, prayers and experience in doing this.
On Saturday, my wife, youngest son and I met up with Darrel Rundus who started the Prayer Stop and did some witnessing with the Denton Golden Triangle Mall. Darrel’s church is located in the mall and they set up the prayer stop right in front of the church “store front”. We stood in front of the church store front and handed out tracts and candy canes. Then we told people that we were offering the gift of prayer and asked how we could pray for them. A number of people gave us prayer requests.
I prayed for one man to lose weight. A group of college students asked for prayer for their friend who needs healing of his sight and new glasses. We prayed together with a couple of sisters who their other sister is going through a divorce. Gathering prayer requests also enabled us to share the Gospel with people one on one. We simply would say, “we are going to conclude the prayer in Jesus’ name. Do you know why we do that?” This would allow us to see where they stand with Jesus and then share the Gospel with them before we pray.
On other occassions we would ask, “can we pray for you?” and they might respond, “no, I’m good.” Using a play on words, we could then ask if we could give a quick test to see if that is true. This lead directly to the good test.
I was only there for a couple of hours. I must have given out over 100 tracts and candy canes and prayed with five or six people and had several short conversations with several others. At one point a security guard came by who was looking for a handicapped boy who had been separated from his party. Darrel stepped up and asked if we could pray for him to find the boy. The security guard agreed and Darrel prayed. Other security guards got candy canes. I believe Darrel has shared the Gospel with them already. We were free to roam around in front of the store front and hand out tracts and security did not bother us at all.
A really nice feature of the Prayer Stop ministry is that they gather the prayer request on “prayscription” cards. These cards allow capturing data like name and prayer request. And also have a place to write some notes to the person giving the prayer request. With the guy who asked for pray to lose weight I was able to refer him to a web site and some scripture and then give him that part of the prayer card. The top portion of the prayer card was collected at the Prayer Stop. These will be entered into the online database of prayer requests that Prayer Stop Counselors can continue to pray for these peoples needs.
Darrel’s group prayed with over 50 people over two days this weekend. They saw at least three people come to salvation! I was glad to be able to be a part of the Prayer Stop and look forward to participating again soon at the mall or any other event. Please check out the video montage below that Darrel put together with pictures from the two day outreach. If you live in North Texas you might like to join Darrel on Friday evenings and Saturdays witnessing at the Denton Golden Triangle Mall from now until Christmas.
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There is a great debate in the evangelism circles over whether witnessing should be primarily within the context of relationship to family and friends or to strangers. Jon Speed does an excellent job in his book, Evangelism in the New Testament, of discussing the Biblical view from the Gospels and Acts about so called friendship evangelism and confrontational evangelism with strangers. It is not my intention to rehash that here. Rather, the point is that no matter which group is the primary target of your evangelistic efforts, eventually the other group will cross your path. Recently, I was asked about witnessing to family members by several different people. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to address that here.
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.” (Matthew 13:57)
Even Jesus recognized that witnessing to family and friends is hard. Outside of his own town and home the prophet is given honor. But, inside, he is not. This shows up as being hard to witness to these types of people.
A number of years ago, I was very new to the Way of the Master method of Biblical Evangelism. I was helping a friend train some college students on how to use the method. We reviewed the concepts with them in the parking lot and then went into the mall to eat dinner and practice. While walking to the food court, one of the young ladies in my group said, “wouldn’t it be better to witness to people we know?” Being new to this myself, I took the question to my friend. His response was two fold. First, we can know someone for a short time (30 seconds to a couple minutes) and then witness to them. Second, he looked at her and said, “is your grandmother saved?” “NO”, came the response. So he said, “let’s call her on the phone and you can witness to her.” At that, the young college student, with a look of fear in her eyes said, “that’s ok. witnessing to strangers will be ok!”
The point is, witnessing to mom, dad, sister, brother, grandmother and your best friend can be scary. And it can be difficult. Yet, there may come a time when it is necessary. Probably the best resource I can recommend on this subject is Program #22 of Way of the Master titled How to witness to a loved one. This can be purchased from Living Waters as part of Way of the Master Season 2 or the Intermediate Training Course.
What I’d like to do is present some ways that you might share the Gospel with your family. Some of these come from the Way of the Master episode referenced above.
Write a letter One way to witness to family and friends is to write them a letter. I’ve done this on several occasions. Some of the letters are just a letter in their own right. Others were letters that were included with a gift. In either case, the letter can explain the Gospel to them.
Ask their opinion on a new tract Here is an interesting idea. Take a new tract and ask them to read it and give their opinion. I know someone who does this all the time both with strangers and family members and friends. He will look at them and say, “a friend gave me this new tract, I am not so sure about it, can you read it and let me know what you think?” Often they will take it and read it and give their opinion. At a minimum they have read the Gospel.
Share a DVD or book with them There are many wonderful resources to share with the lost. Books like God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life by Ray Comfort and One Heartbeat Away by Mark Cahill are a couple of my favorites. Some favorite DVD resources are Why Christianity, Joe Average and the Big Question. Pointers to many of these resources are available on the additional resources page of the Bezeugen Tract Club site. There are other books like Ray Comforts What Hollywood Believes which make nice gifts for family and friends. With each resource you can ask them to read it or watch it and then ask their opinion.
Tell them in third person about your evangelism activities This is a great way to witness to family and friends. It even works well with co-workers. You can explain to them about your weekend fishing expedition going door to door or at the rock concert. At work, I’ll bring it up by going to lunch with people and then asking them “what did you do this weekend?” People love to talk about themselves. So asking this questions gets them started. Most of the time after they tell about their weekend the next thing they say is, “so what did you do this weekend?” Bingo. Now you have the perfect chance to share the Gospel with them by explaining about your outreach. You can say something like, “I went with a group of folks to the art festival. We handed out Gospel tracts and had a conversation that went kind of like this. We would ask the person if they were good enough to go to heaven. Most people would say yes. So we then asked some follow up questions. Most people measure goodness based on measuring against other people. The Bible says that the standard of goodness is perfection through the Ten Commandments. We would then ask if they had lied, stolen, or even lusted after somone. When they admitted to breaking these commandments we would ask if they would be innocent or guilty before God and if he would send them to heaven or hell. At this point people would realize that they were not as good as they thought they were. When they said they would go to Hell we asked if that concerned them. When they said it did, we could share the good news with them. We would tell them that God does not want them to go to Hell and that 2,000 years ago he sent his son to make a payment for their sin. We explained how Jesus was fully God and fully man and was able to live a perfect life. He fulfilled the law then died on the cross. His shed blood paid for their sin. But Jesus did not stay dead. On the third day he rose from the dead defeating sin and death. We explained that the Bible commands them to repent of their sin and trust Jesus alone for eternal life. It was an amazing time. We must have handed out 500 tracts and talked to 50 people.” You might get through some or all of this and hopefully it becomes a dialog. But you can easily see how you can tell them what you did, lead them through the Law in third person.
Tell them your testimony You can say something like, “you know I used to think like that before I got saved. Then I realized that my lying, stealing and lust separated me from God.” At that point you can share how you were saved and how your life is changed because of Jesus.
Have your friend witness to them You can have a friend talk to them. Friends may not have the same barriers that we have with our family. Recently a friend of mine went on a trip to Kenya. In Kenya he met up with a group and was doing some evangelism. One of the guys on the team had a mom who was not saved. When the guy introduced my friend to her they talked for a bit. Then the guy asked my friend, “do you have any questions for my mom?” Unbeknonst to my friend, this guy had introduced him to his mom so that he could witness to her. He did!
I pray that these ideas will be helpful as you share the Gospel with your family and friends. Remember, it can be difficult to do. But, you love them enough to tell them the truth because you want them to be in Heaven with you for all eternity!
