by Jerry Lovett
Christians everywhere are running around from appointment to appointment, picking up kids, talking on cell phones, and rushing through life. I'm not trying to encourage this behavior or lay a guilt trip on you. The amount of time you spend trying to fulfill The Great Commission is between you and God. However, I do know that in my own life, I have to learn to walk before I can run. What follows are some thoughts on how anyone, with just a few seconds to a few minutes per day, can effectively reach out in Christian love. These are simple techniques that anyone can do. Start small and ask God to open your eyes to know where to begin. Your ministry will grow as you learn to submit your will to His leadership.
The Great Commission |
| Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -- Matthew 28:18-20 |
Don't skip this step. First, you must find some time during the day, preferably in the morning, for a quiet time alone with God to pray and meditate on His Word. Don't just tell God what you need. Listen. "Be still, and know that I am God." -- Psalm 46:10a. Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. -- Proverbs 3:5-6. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105
"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest
field." Anyone can pray. Quit complaining about the way the
world is and do something about it. Pray for anything related to
evangelism. Pray for a lost person. Pray for those that have
influence. Pray for teachers and their students. Pray for world
leaders and missionaries. Pray for the concerns that God lays on your
heart.
You can leave small tracts in lots of places, such as restaurant tables, bathrooms, payphones, waiting areas, benches. Be creative. For example, hand tracts out at Halloween to your trick-or-treaters. The costs are typically only 10 to 15 cents each. Be sure to attach a label. (See Gospel of John Booklets section for information on labels.)
In addition to your local Christian Bookstore, some good places to buy tracts are:
You can use business cards similar to the way you use tracts, but with less pressure. Leave them with your tip or enclose them with a payment. Leave them anywhere. For example, a card might be as simple as:
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This is almost the same price as leaving a tract. Use both. These are perfect to hand out as a free gift if your church has a booth at a local CityFest, Craft Fair, or other event. They are much smaller than New Testaments, so they travel easier. If you happen to go on a church mission trip and the weight of your bags is critical, you can carry many more Gospel of John Booklets than you can carry New Testaments. Your carry on bag on a plane might hold 500 of these instead of 50 New Testaments. This means you can give the Word of God to ten times as many people at your destination. Be sure to put a mailing label on the back. If you plan wisely, you can fit a lot of information on a 1" X 3" mailing label printed on your PC using software, such as Microsoft Publisher:
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Parkway Baptist Church |
Gospel of John booklets are about 25 cents each from:
These might work better in places where magazines are read, such as laundromats, hair salons, and doctor's offices. However, they don’t hold up as well as New Testaments or Gospel of John Booklets. Be sure to attach a label. (See Gospel of John Booklets section for information on labels.) Gospel of John Magazines are available from:
New Testaments are also very effective to leave in locations where magazines are read. The next time you go to the doctor, carry a New Testament with you. You can sit there in the waiting room while reading it until your name is called. Then simply get up, walk over to the magazines, and place it on the stack. Later when you leave, look around and see if anyone is reading it. The first two times I left a New Testament, I was very pleased to see someone reading it as I left the doctor's office. Be sure to put a label on the back. (See Gospel of John Booklets section for information on labels.) New Testaments can be purchased for 50 cents to $1.50 from such places as:
This video is available through the Campus Crusade for Christ and is based on the Gospel of Luke. The Jesus Film has been translated into over 700 languages. Consider ordering copies for internationals in your area or ship a copy to anyone in the world. If your church uses a projector during its Sunday Services, consider showing the Jesus Film at your church in a language that targets a local ethnic community. One of their DVD's includes English, Arabic, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish versions. For more information contact:
Audio tapes of the gospel message are available in thousands of languages. Use just like you would a tract.
If you think about the people that most influenced the direction of your life, for better or for worse, school teachers will probably be near the top. Christians often complain about the influence of the NEA and other groups on the school system. You can either curse the darkness or light a candle. Why not reach out to the teachers in your community? For example, the local high school in Auburn, Alabama has a web site located at:
If you visit that web site, you will see an email directory containing the names of over 100 teachers. Each week, my Sunday School class of only 9 couples, sends cards and emails to 5 Auburn High School teachers letting them know that we appreciate what they are doing, that we are praying for them each day that week, and asking for prayer requests. (DO NOT email large groups of people at once.)
Adopt a school in your area. If you obtain a copy of the school's calendar, you will find that there are days that the teachers work that the students are not present. Contact the school and see if it would be OK to provide homemade cookies on those days. Be sure to take at least 3 cookies per teacher. You can provide a little card that says something like, "Thank you for all you do for our students! Parkway Baptist Church, Seekers Sunday School Class" Perhaps your Sunday School class can host a teacher appreciation party in your church's fellowship hall for the school you have adopted. A small group, or even just one person, reaching out in Christian love to school teachers, can change the world.
Don't limit your prayer ministry to just school teachers. You can reach out to any group of people on the internet and express heartfelt appreciation for their work, offer to pray for them, and reach out to them in Christian love. Consider doctors, nurses, social workers, police officers, firemen, and anyone else that serves the public. Contact someone around the world via email and offer to pray for them. Most everyone would love to know that someone appreciates them enough to offer prayers on their behalf.
The Postal Service goes anywhere. A simple, but very personal note, handwritten if you have the time, along with a gospel tract, contact card, and / or a Gospel of John booklet can be mailed cheaply. The tract costs 10 cents. The note costs 1 cent for plain paper cut in half and then folded in half to fit inside an "invitation" envelope, which costs about 5 cents. The Gospel of John costs 15 cents. The stamp costs 37 cents. The total package is 68 cents. If you mailed 5 per week, you can contact 250 people per year, in a very personal way, for $170. If the tract is part of your note, the price drops to 58 cents each or $145. If you leave out the Gospel of John and use the note as the tract, the cost is only 43 cents each or $107.50 / year. You can experiment to see if the handwritten tract was more or less effective than a preprinted tract.
I print two notes per page on my PC using Microsoft Word. I orient the page as Landscape and have two columns per page. I put one note in the first column and a second note in the second column. In the note, I as, "Do you have a church home?" I then explain where the church is located, the times of the services, the availability of a nursery, etc. I then mention at least 3 events that are coming up at our church in the next few weeks. I try to mention a church-wide event, a ladies ministry event, and a Youth event, but it just depends on what's going on. I give a phone number to reach me with questions and offer to meet them at the church. Finally, I close with, "Come and check us out!!!" Just below my signature I put a Bible verse:
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -- Jeremiah 29:11
This approach will reach people that you don’t have the time to see door-to-door. It might work as well as a cold call. In fact, this will reach people that refuse to answer the door. You can even use this technique to witness to people around the world. Argali.com, InfoSpace.com, etc. offer wonderful services for finding the names and addresses of all the people that live on a certain street by doing a "Reverse Search" on the street name. A city map, or MapQuest, is wonderful for finding out which streets are in close proximity to the church, or any other location for that matter. Perhaps start with all those streets located within a 1/2 mile radius, then 1 mile, etc. I was amazed how many streets are within 1/2 mile of my church. To start with, you might send one letter per street. As new events occur at your church, you can go back and send letters to different people on the same street. Over time, you will have mailed every house on every street. Then you just start over because people move in and out every two or three years.
Also, you can scan the note into a PC and print several copies that look handwritten. This approach combines high-tech tools with the personal touch.
NOTE: I DO NOT recommend bulk email or SPAM. This is the fastest way to destroy your church's reputation by annoying people.
In addition to the traditional ways listed in the Tracts section, you might try being a little more creative. For example, you can put a tract in a small water proof zip lock bag and then attach it to a helium filled balloon and launch it to reach someone many miles away. Children and adults alike enjoy launching balloons. The group, Bread On The Waters, puts tracts in bottles and launches them out to sea. (Before you start throwing bottles in the creek behind your property, just make sure you're not causing a big pile of trash to form just downstream. Again, we need to be conscience that we don't do anything that ruins the reputation of our church.)
Send a Tract and a Gospel of John via mail to another country. With internet web sites, you can find mailing addresses for English speaking people around the world. If you include your email address, you might even get an acknowledgment back and find a new friend. Keep a world map with pins indicating all the places where you have mailed tracts. An airmail letter weighing 1 ounce or less, costs less than $1 to mail to most places in the world. That's a very inexpensive international mission trip.
Do you know for certain that if you died tonight that you would go to heaven? This is the most important question of your life. If you are not absolutely certain, please visit this link.