A First For Me In Evangelism

When we went to the mall on Thursday for outreach, we walked by a store, and a young man inside was highlighted to me. It is somewhat hard to say what it means for someone to be "highlighted," but basically, when I see the person I start to feel a bit excited that if we talk to him or her, something will happen.

We went into the store and began talking to the guy, but the conversation was bland at best. We shared the love of Christ with him, and I gave him a card for the church. Then two ladies walked by the front of the store, and they were highlighted to me as well, so we chased them down and began talking to them… And the conversation was even MORE bland than the first. As we were leaving that second encounter, I told the people I was with that that was two swings and two misses for me. Usually, when someone is highlighted, something noteworthy happens. However, I don’t get too discouraged by things like that. You just have to take chances.

Once we had gotten a pretty good distance from the first store, something happened that has never happened before in evangelism for me. A young man basically chased us down and asked us to talk to him! He worked at the first store where we had given that first young man a business card for the church. He said he wanted a card also. He said he was trying to turn his life around and trying to come to God but he didn’t know how. He said he didn’t know how to pray, but he wanted to learn how.  Talk about easy gospel-sharing at that point. That’s about as easy of a set up as you can get!

We got to share the good news of Jesus with him and pray with him to give his life to Jesus. We invited him to come be baptized at church and begin a life of being a disciple. We also had to tell him what a disciple was because he'd never heard the word. It’s a good thing we’ve been focusing on discipleship so much. He didn’t have his own Bible, but fortunately, I had a really nice one on me that I could give away. I gave him the Bible and gave him a quick crash course in what the Bible is and where to start reading. 

Here is our new friend with his brand new Bible. Hopefully he shows up on Sunday.

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The other team that was with us doing evangelism, also had some great encounters with people. One young lady said that she was interested in getting to know God more, and she said she wanted to come to church. Here’s the catch, she is in a relationship with another woman. Hopefully she comes to church this Sunday. I would be totally fine if she and her partner came to church together. 

The front door to MEMBERSHIP of the church is a high bar because it requires giving your life to Jesus and turning away from sin, including relationships like that. However, ATTENDING church and getting to know people, hearing the gospel, and being loved by the church is a very low bar. Anyone can enter. 

Remember, just a year ago a young man came to our prayer meeting wearing drag-show-level I make up. And a year later, he has now turned away from all of that sin and is following the Lord with fire in his heart! Anything is possible with our God!