Everyday Evangelism- Tracts in High School-Eternal Results

  I was just remembering when I was a senior in high school, I used to take tracts with me wherever I went. I think I had written to every tract company that existed at that time! Each company sent me samples, which I would collect. Some of the tracts were silly, like the one that said on the front page, "To wear or not to wear, the bow tie".
  I would bring them to school with me every day. I had some good tracts though, even though the selection back then was narrow.
  In a class, there was a young man sitting in the desk in front of me, named Ray. I knew Ray from a couple of years before, when I used to go to a place called, 'The Winter Park Youth Center'. Ray had a hard life and I knew he was on drugs. But now I am in a different place and I can give him tracts to read during class.
  He seemed to like the tracts. I would bring an assortment each day. One day, I didn't have tracts with me. He asked me for some, and I told him I didn't have them. He seemed disappointed. I then asked him if he wanted to become a Christian, to which he said, 'no'.
  He did open up to me and told me about his breaking up with his girl friend. He seemed like a nice guy, but I don't know that he was even able to do his school work well. Not sure if he even graduated or not.
  The next year, I got married, and the year after that I was doing something called, "Open Air" work in evangelizing children. I used to go out and tell the Gospel using a plastic nut that had a ribbon inside of it that I would pull out. There were five different colors on it that corresponded with different parts of the Gospel message. At our apartment complex, there was a school behind it. Sometimes, I would go to the school and use my little nut to talk to kids about the Gospel.
    One day I went over there and planned on talking to the children I would find (I don't know that I would recommend people doing this today). As I started going into the school yard, there was a man who was with a group of children. He looked familiar and indicated that he wanted to talk to me. He looked a little bit like Ray, but I was sure it couldn't possibly have been him. He looked too clean cut and organized to be Ray! Nevertheless, I waited and when he got the kids involved in something, he came over. I was shocked as it really was Ray! He looked different. He told me that he was praying that he would be able to see me to tell me that he had become a Christian! He explained that he had a girlfriend (not the same one as mentioned above) and she led him to the Lord. He wanted to make sure I knew. God answered his prayer!
   I saw Ray, maybe a year or so later, in a church band. I am glad that I had some tracts, albeit primitive ones at that, but God used the truth in them to help Ray understand his need for a Savior. One never knows what will be revealed in eternity because of using tracts, until we are in eternity! Sometimes, God will allow us to see something on this side of eternity. And that encourages us all the more to do evangelism.

Everyday Evangelism-Mini Beach Ball - 6 Inch

Mini Beach Ball - 6 Inch

I want to order these and put on one side, "God is uncreated. He never had a beginning and has always been in existence." On the other side I will put "www.thegospelconversation.blogspot.com" If we had enough people interested, we could sign up to be in the parade. We could toss them out as we go down the street.

Everyday Evangelism-The Weapon

I was recalling an event that took place years ago, when we lived in Winter Haven and went out to share the Gospel late one evening. This was a long time ago, and I know we did the best we could with what we have. There was no 'Way of the Master' or Mark Cahill yet to teach us. We stepped out in faith with what we had.
   During the day, the thought came to my mind; What if someone were to pull out a gun or try to kill us tonight? How would I respond? Would I be ok if we got hurt or killed? Could something like this even happen to us?
  Somehow the group we were with got dispersed. We were at the mall and we were still out there even though the mall was closed for the night. It was just my husband and I at this point. We went to some kind of trailer that was on the mall's property and my husband knocked on the door. There were two younger men in that place and one of them was interested in conversing. The other one wasn't. He was walking back and forth and was holding something that looked like a ball attached to a rope. It looked like the ball had spikes on it. I think he made some remarks while my husband was talking with the other man. Meanwhile the man with this 'weapon' just kept going back and forth swinging his weapon around.
  Looking back, I am glad we didn't run away when we saw the guy with the strange looking weapon. We could have been intimidated with him. I hope that other people were able to share the Gospel with these two men, and hope that their hearts were softened as they heard the message over thirty years ago. God protected us from harm, and we are grateful for that. Let's keep preaching the Gospel while there is time.

Everyday Evangelism-Truth and Grace-08/04/2011

Truth without grace= legalism. Grace without truth = lawlessness. Truth and grace together = liberty. When I first heard these words, I was reminded of a home group meeting we had a very long time ago. We were discussing what was taught in the pulpit about grace and truth. Somehow, if I remember correctly, the topic came to a conclusion that we had to balance grace with truth or we would either end up in legalism or lawlessness. Well, the truth of the matter is that it is not a matter of balancing the two. They are two different categories of the same truth that need to work together. If Truth stands alone, it can lead to legalism in our lives. If grace is without truth, it will produce a cheap grace, not a valuable one. So what is the answer? If I look at myself and see which way I am leaning toward, I would lean toward the side of truth alone. I love the Truth and would probably die for the Truth. Whenever I see any kind of truth being violated, something rises in me to protect it and make sure people believe it. Does grace negate truth then? Not at all. The truth of God in our lives needs the grace of God. It would be like trying to make a piece of machinery work without oil. The machine could be perfectly made, but if it doesn't have oil in its parts, it will not work. If we have grace without the truth, it isn't true grace. It would be like oil without the machinery. It wouldn't make sense. 
How does this affect evangelism? Most people I see who participate in evangelism seem to love the truth. They have a handle on preaching the truth, but does it always have grace with it? If it doesn't, it will end up preaching legalism, or that is the way it could be received by the hearers. Some things we have to keep in mind are, we need God's grace in our lives, just as the hearers need God's grace in their lives. We cannot give away what we don't have. The Gospel and its effects should be working in our lives primarily, as we share it with others. We are not saved by obeying God. We have to first recognize our continual need for the grace of God. It was not a one time need being met when we first came to Christ. Although we are forever justified in God's sight, we still need His grace to live out our lives for His glory every day (the process of sanctification). Again it is like the piece of machinery trying to work without being oiled. It just doesn't work. And it involves humility. We don't have the ability to preach the Gospel and teach God's word without God's anointing on us. And we dare not try. The fruit that comes out of our obedience is also an evidence of God's grace. We obey God, but the results are always up to God. He will get the glory. If we take the glory, it will not represent the True and Living God properly. It would be, in a sense, like lying about who God is. Not a good thing to do.
   On the other hand, we could put such an emphasis on grace. There would be a variety of reasons we would be tempted to do this. The main one I think would be because we think that if we talk about sin with people, they will reject us or our message. If they reject us, and that is distressful to us, to a point where we want to change the message of the Gospel, we should ask ourselves if we are dealing with the fear of man. All of us have this to a degree, and it does need to be dealt with as idolatry, but if it affects how or why we share the Gospel, then it is sin. Another reason people do this could be possibly that they really don't understand the Gospel. Perhaps they think because we are saved by grace, that sin isn't involved. After all, Jesus died for our sins, so basically, we are saved, as long as we believe that is true. Well, if that is true, then the devil could be saved because he knows that is true. Yes, Jesus died to pay for our sins, but we must repent and put our trust in Him, or nothing will happen. People tend to go to one extreme or the other. Either they believe God's Word is true, and we must respond by obeying Him, or they think that God's grace is a free ticket for us to stay in our sins and be ok on Judgment Day. We do need to obey Him. But we can't obey Him. We are dead in our sins. But we can trust in Him and He can set us free. It is not about having the truth or having grace, we need both! When we have both of those together, we will be like the piece of machinery that has been oiled. We will work properly and will have the power to obey and love God, something we could not do in ourselves. The grace of God teaches us to say 'no' to sin and 'yes' to righteousness. We need to hear the truth and receive it to be set free. When we have both truth and grace, we have the liberty in Christ that God promises us. See Ephesians 2:8 and 9, Titus 2:11 and John 8:32

Everyday Evangelism-Can Evangelism or 'Heretic Hunting' Be an Idol?

I am writing this article because I am very distressed about some of the activities that are going on in the evangelism circles I am in. This article is for those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ already. If the reader is not yet a believer, I encourage you to go to one of the other blog pages I am doing. You can find them at www.thegospelconversation.blogspot.com or www.thecolorfulstory.blogspot.com
   It is an easy trick of the Enemy to get us distracted and to lose our focus on the Lord. For me, I would have the temptation to take something good, like evangelism, and make that my life goal. I would spend all my strength and energy on it and everything it involves. Evangelism is good. But our focus needs to stay on the Lord.
  I have another concern as well. I am seeing a lot of posts in my evangelism forums and Face Book that are written by people who, I am sure well-meaning, would consider themselves to be 'Heretic Hunters'. Is there anything wrong with exposing false teachers? Absolutely not. The Bible tells us to do so. How much of a priority should this be then, and how can it best be accomplished? Is God glorified in the way it is being handled in the church today?
  Well, before we answer any questions, we always have to look at the motive of our hearts. What is the reason why we would expose false teachers or teachings? The Bible tells us to do so in order to serve the Body of Christ so that those who are weak in faith or new believers won't be sucked into deception. At the same time, the Bible helps us to learn how to be discerning so that we can learn how to detect false teachings. It is part of learning truth. As we grow in our Christian walk, we learn more and more how to separate the Truth from the Lies. If we look around the world right now, we can see how the world is permeated with lies. As we grow in our knowledge of the Scriptures, we see those lies more clearly. Having said this, should we make a big part of our Christian life talking about these lies and those who are teaching them? There may be times and situations that will call for that, but overall we should keep our focus on the Lord and continue to grow in the knowledge of the truth.
  Don't misunderstand. We tend to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are teachers who do a great job of exposing false teachers. Some of the well-known men of God, such as Justin Peters or Al Mohler have done an excellent job of exposing Rob Bell and his erroneous teachings. Can or should we add on to what they have done in this? I think we have to be careful and here's the reason why; something in our sinful flesh loves to talk about other people in a bad way. We love to put others in a bad light. But it looks right when we do this because we are exposing the bad guys right? If the false teachers have been exposed, should we continue to try to make them look worse? How much time should we spend on this anyway?
   I expose false teachers on Face Book. But it doesn't have to take up much of my time (unless someone wants to argue about it). It doesn't require much space either. I repost the works that Al Mohler or Kevin DeYoung have done and leave it at that. Their messages speak for themselves.
 Also, we need to be on the same page when it comes to 'Heretic Hunting' as far as the definition of a heretic. We spend way to much time picking people apart. I'm concerned also that we might hear a bad report about someone, and we might start to believe it ourselves. Then we tell so and so that this person is a heretic without even knowing why we believe it! How easily this leads into slander. Slander is a very serious sin in God's eyes. Let's be careful who we call a false teacher or heretic. If someone disagrees with you on a doctrinal issue, it doesn't necessarily mean he is a heretic. If he is teaching lies about the deity of Christ or about the Gospel message then he is to be confronted. If he doesn't listen, or consider his error or rebellion, and has no desire to change his message, and if he continues to preach the fallacy, then yes, his doctrine needs to be exposed. It needs to be exposed carefully though, because if we are not careful, we will be gloating over someone else because of their sin. That is pride and pride is an abomination to God. We don't have a right to become prideful when someone else is in sin. It doesn't give us a right to slander. There is a difference between exposing false teaching and slandering. We need to know the difference. Remember, the only people that Jesus came down hard on were the Scribes and Pharisees. Other people rejected Him and did things to Him that were awful. He had mercy on them because of their ignorance. There are a lot of Bible teachers that are weak or even in ignorance. They need help. They need someone to come alongside them to help them to see the truth. There are those who are a stiff as a board and will never bend their knee to God until that Day. It takes a skill to see which category people are in sometimes, because it can be hard to see the difference at first. Time usually reveals who a person loves and what they will stand for and ultimately die for. Let us be careful how we judge people in the church. Let us be patient with those who are weak, and let us stand up for the Truth at all times, gracefully and by the grace of God!

Everyday Evangelism-06/23/2011-The Carpeting Guys and the Movers

For the past three days, our house was in turmoil. We have some guys from a moving company move all of our furniture out on Wednesday, then on Thursday we had new carpet put in. The moving guys put the furniture back on Friday, at the same time the carpeting guys were finishing up with the carpeting. Nevertheless, our household was busy. Always wanting to take opportunities to present the Gospel, I started on Wednesday when the moving guys were working. I played the program I had prerecorded called, "The Way of the Master" which is also called, "Kirk Cameron" in the TV guides. It is a show that has the Gospel presentation on it, with quite a few actual dialogs with people doing one-on-one. We had to pay the guys for the work on Wednesday, so while I was writing out the check, the TV was on as loud as it could be, without trying to be obvious. I noticed one of the guys was watching it out of the corner of his eye.
   I decided on Thursday, I would make something delightful for the men to take home to eat when they all finished up on Friday. I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, with an assortment of chips in each cookie. When I finished, I realized the it wasn't quite enough cookies for each guy to have 4 of them to take home, so I made another batch Friday morning.
   The men came on Friday, all five of them! I only planned on four! Good thing I made that extra batch of cookies. I set up five paper plates with four cookies each. Underneath each plate was a Giant Money tract. I also pulled out some beach balls, frisbies, and maracas that have Gospel messages on them, and offered the men to take one for each child they had. So they all went home with their tract, cookies, and toys for their families. One of the men also wanted to take some cookies home to his kids, so I had enough to make another plate for them. I might also add here, that when the movers were finished on Wednesday, somehow a million dollar bill showed up, and the guy showed it to me. I let him keep it.
  One of the guys from the moving company told me that he seems to know me from somewhere. He asked if I were a teacher. We tried to decide where we may have had contact somewhere before. I have a feeling he might have been a person that I gave a tract to one time, or maybe shared the Gospel with him somewhere. I found that interesting. I have had a couple of people say that to me already. They seem to know me from somewhere else, but can't remember where. Anyway, my theory is that if we share the Gospel often with people, I think that will happen more and more to us in later encounters with people. I'm glad that God gave me the opportunity to give tracts out to the men and have a show on TV presenting the Gospel. I will trust the Lord for more opportunities like that, and also times to present the Gospel to people as He leads.

Everyday Evangelism-Saturday Morning Park Ave. 6-11-11

The weather was great today for being outdoors. As I got to Park Avenue, there were a lot of people there. I ended up giving every tract out that I took with me. I saw groups of young men and asked what was going on. They said there was a basketball tournament. Even though there were a lot of people who rejected the tracts, there were some that were open to hearing the Gospel. I know that is the way it is supposed to be anyway, at least it appears that way in the Scriptures. I was able to talk to two different young women and have a decent conversation with both of them about the Gospel. I know if I were to have stayed there longer, I would probably have ended up talking to more people. This is really a good place to go to promote the Gospel message. I would encourage people to come out with me on Saturday mornings. During the week I will prepare the tracts by labeling them with web sites and a phone number to the church I am part of, along with my email address.

   I do find it interesting that many times when I am able to talk about the Gospel with someone, they seem to be very familiar with the Gospel, but sometimes I am concerned that something is missing. I take the person back to the Law and help them to see their sin, then explain the Gospel to them. But their response is kind of like, "I already knew that. You're not telling me anything new." They can answer the questions and seem to understand why Jesus had to die for them, but if they were born again, it seems like something would resonate in their hearts. The first woman I talked to told me thank you for taking the time to talk to her. I have a concern that there are many people who may have a knowledge of God, but are lacking the relationship with Him. So I explained to the woman that people have that knowledge many times, but don't really know God personally. It seemed like the conversation I had with the second woman was very similar to the first one. She knew the answers, but I am not sure she was getting the Gospel. I told both women that my email address was on the back of the tract and if they had any questions to feel free to send me an email. Please pray for both of these women. I believe their names are Trey and the second was Anna. They were very nice to talk to and not defensive like so many people are. Please pray for them.

Then there are also people like a man who was sitting on the bench. I offered him a tract and told him what it was and he explained he didn't need it because he was a Christian. He already knew about God so he wouldn't take a tract. It is true that knowledge can make us stumble, and that is only because we fail to apply the knowledge to our own hearts. The Bible says to be 'doers of the word and not hearers only..', for when we don't apply the Word to our own hearts, we end up in deception. We have to remember that Satan knows the Bible better than we do, and the Truth is working against him. "let the Word of Christ richly dwell in you..." It is of utmost importance....