Bezeugen BLOG

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.

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.

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.

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!

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13 ESV)

What is a key to overcoming the fear of man and sharing the Gospel? How do you grow closer to Christ? The answer is the same. Notice in this verse, the key to Peter and John’s boldness is that they had been with Jesus. As 2010 draws to a close, I’d like to encourage all of us to be with Jesus. That is why we are challenging you to join with us as we read and/or listen to the entire New Testament between November 22 and December 31st. That’s right. In about 30 minutes per day, you can read or listen to the entire New Testament in just 40 days.

Based on the You’ve Got the Time (click link for video testimonials) program from Faith Comes By Hearing we will begin with Day 1 on November 22. With just 30 minutes a day, you’ll go through the entire New Testament with us by the end of the year.

Participation in this program is completely FREE. You can listen to the audio each day online or load the podcast into iTunes or your iPod. Or you can download the Bible.IS app for iPhone or Android from iTunes or the Android Marketplace respectively.

The daily schedule is:

Day 1 (November 22) Matthew 1-7
Day 2 (November 23) Matthew 8-12
Day 3 (November 24) Matthew 13-18
Day 4 (Novmeber 25) Matthew 19-24
Day 5 (November 26) Matthew 25-28
Day 6 (November 27) Mark 1-6
Day 7 (November 28) Mark 7-11
Day 8 (November 29) Mark 12-16
Day 9 (November 30) Luke 1-4
Day 10 (December 1) Luke 5-9
Day 11 (December 2) Luke 10-13
Day 12 (December 3) Luke 14-19
Day 13 (December 4) Luke 20-24
Day 14 (December 5) John 1-5
Day 15 (December 6) John 6-9
Day 16 (December 7) John 10-14
Day 17 (December 8) John 15-19
Day 18 (December 9) John 20-Acts 4
Day 19 (December 10) Acts 5-9
Day 20 (December 11) Acts 10-15
Day 21 (December 12) Acts 16-20
Day 22 (December 13) Acts 21-26
Day 23 (December 14) Acts 27-Romans 4
Day 24 (December 15) Romans 5-10
Day 25 (December 16) Romans 11-1 Corinthians 1
Day 26 (December 17) 1 Corinthians 2-9
Day 27 (December 18) 1 Corinthians 10-15
Day 28 (December 19) 1 Corinthians 16-2 Corinthians 9
Day 29 (December 20) 2 Corinthians 10-Galatians 4
Day 30 (December 21) Galatians 5 – Philippians 1
Day 31 (December 22) Philippians 2 – 1 Thessalonians 2

Day 32 (December 23) 1 Thessalonians 3 – 1 Timothy 5
Day 33 (December 24) 1 Timothy 6 – Hebrews 1
Day 34 (December 25) Hebrews 2-10
Day 35 (December 26) Hebrews 11-James 5
Day 36 (December 27) 1 Peter 1 – 1 John 1
Day 37 (December 28) 1 John 2 – Jude
Day 38 (December 29) Revelation 1-7
Day 39 (December 30) Revelation 8-15
Day 40 (December 31) Revelation 16-22

On Thursday was our latest outreach at Brookhaven College. This is becoming one of our favorite fishing spots. I was joined by Todd, Brian and David. Todd met me at the car and helped me carry the things from the car to the free speech area. I pulled the cooler of water and carried two new “Free Water” signs that I just got from Watchman Gospel Signs. By the way, as an aside, Watchman Gospel Signs does a great job printing signs. You can order from a large selection of inventory or request custom signs. I highly recommend them! Todd pulled the wheeled crate which had an extra case of water, tracts and Bibles in it as well as a box of books and DVD’s stacked on the top. I know you are probably wondering, “Carl why are you giving so much detail as to what was in the cart?” Well it becomes critical.

As we were walking to the free speech area we were discussing an interesting question (that I may blog about later) that I had brought up with Todd. We eventually reach the area and I set up the easel and put one of the free water signs on it and put the other free water sign leaning up against the table. I got out the box of tracts and start putting stacks of tracts on the table. Then I am looking around for the box of books and DVDs. Not finding it, I ask Todd, “where is the box of books?” He’s not sure, but remembers specifically it being on the cart. So he goes to back track our steps. He gets back to the car and calls me on the phone. “Have you found it?” “No”, I respond. So I suggest he come back and I’ll go look.

About the same time he got back, a woman and a police officer come walking up to me. “Is this your box” this police officer asks? “Yes!” Turns out that the box had fallen off the cart. As a security measure they pick up anything unattended and bring it to the woman’s office. She then asks “are you giving those books away?” I told her we were. She asked for a copy of Ray Comfort’s World Religions in a Nutshell that we had to give out. Todd was then able to talk with her for 10-15 minutes. She was a believer in Christ from Europe. It was really amazing because we are really only supposed to talk to people in the free speech area. The fact that the box of books dropped and then delivered to us allowed us to speak with her. Todd says that the conversation was a real encouragement to her.

With that excitement over, we got the books and DVDs set up on the table and got to work handing out bottles of water and tracts to the students as they passed by. The ones that appeared to be in not too big of a hurry we would engage in conversation. All four of us were actively engaged in conversations the entire time we were there.

With two young ladies that I was talking too they agreed that there is a God and a Heaven and a Hell. We discussed how to get to Heaven and they started talking about being good. So I asked if they are good enough to go to heaven? They thought that they were. I then asked,. “can I get my lie detector and check?” They got this funny look on their face and were saying no no. But I turned to the table, opened my camera bag and pulled out my lie detector. The look on their faces was incredible. So I handed the wand to one of them and said, “if you are good enough to go to heaven just point to the yes”. Of course the magnets in it points the wand directly to the NO! Same with the other one. As I was talking with them, a large crowd of 15-20 students gathered. This allowed me to share the Law and the Gospel with the whole group. If you don’t have one of these Lie Detectors, I highly recommend getting one.

One woman came by, saw the sign that quotes John 14:4 and asked “are you giving out water that will make me never thirst again?” I said, “no, this is regular Ozarka bottled water. Would you like some?” I really like the way the sign draws people to us to talk with us. I had a good conversation with her about how Jesus is the Living Water!

One guy who was agnostic picked up one of each tract from the table. He said they were “inspirational” to him. We had seen and talked to him before. He was not really interested in getting into conversation with us. But he sure did like the different tracts. I pray that he reads them and that through reading he is lead to repent and trust Jesus alone to save him.

I had a long conversation withe a Bhuddist name Sonny. Sonny listened intently to the Law and the Gospel and readily admitted his destiny would be Hell. He seemed unconcerned because he said, “I don’t believe that.” We had a great conversation about the difference between what you believe and what is true. So he asked “how do you know the Bible is true?” I gave him some basic proofs. He said he had never read the Bible. So I gave him a copy to read. I encouraged him to start with John. He said he felt bad taking it, but I told him it was my gift to him. I told him if nothing else, it is the most widely distributed book in the history of the world and therefore was worth his time to check out. I also told him that it was a good example of literature and would be good for his literature class and reading skills (since he was a foreign student and had admitted he was trying to learn English and literature).

We handed out all 100 bottles of water in about an hour. Todd had already headed out to get back to work. Brian and David were wrapping up conversations. So I started to put everything away. Even in the midst of putting things away another two young ladies came over to the table and asked what we were doing. I asked if they liked movies. They said yes. So I gave them each a copy of Fly Wheel. As I talked to them, it seemed like one professed to be a Christian and the other was fairly agnostic having had a Christian background. Eventually I asked if they considered themselves to be good and if I could get my Lie Detector to check. They were astonished when I pulled the Lie Detector out of the camera bag. Again a small crowd gathered as I shared the Law and Gospel with them.

David and Brian finished their conversations. We picked the rest of the stuff up and headed out. We handed out 100 bottles of water, a couple hundred tracts, three Bibles, and I am not even sure how many copies of DVD’s (The Board, Why Christianity?) and books (One Thing You Can’t Do in Heaven, One Heartbeat Away, World Religions in a Nutshell). Plus we had countless one on one conversations! Please pray that these students will repent and believe the Gospel. We walked back to the car praising God for a great time of sharing the Gospel!