Outreach & Discipleship

My father was not raised in church. When he was in his early 20’s, someone invited him to a church service. As a result of being invited to church, Jesus changed his life forever. My dad got saved that night, ended up going to a Baptist college and met his wife (my mom). My brothers and sister and I were raised in a Christian home because somebody invited him to church.

Recently, a dear man in the church where I was preaching asked if we could go witnessing together. It was such a privilege to listen to him share Christ with holy enthusiasm. He has been doing it for over half a century.

There is nothing more rewarding than serving the Lord. But sometimes we get into survival mode and we forget to fulfill the Great Commission. The fields are white unto harvest.

Most Christians know that God has called them to be witnesses for Him and to share the gospel with others. But sometimes—perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of preoccupation—we miss opportunities to do so.

I have concluded that it is far easier for God’s people to be different than it is for us to make a difference. In fact, it is often far more comfortable and convenient, even satisfying, to retreat into our minds, our homes, our churches, and celebrate our being different than the world, while smugly thinking ourselves to be a little better. However, that is not what the Lord commanded us to do.

Have you ever heard the saying, “I’m going to squeeze everything out of that turnip?” In essence, the statement refers to making the most out of any given situation. As we think about soulwinning, we should possess the same mentality—I am going to make the most of this visit.

At Christmastime, our church holds many special Christmas services—including “The Journey of Christmas” event with live drama and a gospel message.

In the previous blog, we noted that while it is easy to give lip service to the Great Commission as the mission of the local church, it is also easy to get distracted from it.

he Great Commission of Christ is to share the gospel and make disciples. Sometimes I paraphrase it, “go, win, baptize, teach.”

Discipleship is central to Christianity. In the words of my friend, Dave Hardy, “We are either making disciples, or we are making concessions.”

If you could only remember about six to ten Bible verses, what would you want them to be? What if you could only remember about ten minutes worth of material, what would you want that to be?

When I was sixteen years old, I encountered my first Bible skeptic. As student at Bob Jones Academy, I was passing out tracts and witnessing to people in downtown Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was the last Friday night before Christmas break and unusually cold for South Carolina.

It is no surprise that America has become a post-Christian nation dominated by secularism. The news media, major universities, and elite institutions control the conversation of our culture. Skepticism is growing in power and influence.

Across the nation, pastors and the members of their churches have convinced themselves the reason they are not reaping a spiritual harvest that could be called “plenteous” is that their town is hard, and unusually unresponsive to evangelism. It is as if we think that souls could be won and churches could be built some places, but not in our town.

Someone once shared with me this thought: It is easy to say, “I love you,” but far more difficult to live a life that consistently reveals, “I love you.”

We recently launched our fall soulwinning season for the thirty-second consecutive year at Lancaster Baptist Church. Of all the different types of outreach we do as a church, nothing beats consistently sharing the gospel one person at a time. And biblically, this is a process that is to be taught and replicated one person at a time as well.

We could list many reasons we don’t share the gospel as we should.But I believe that most of the time we don’t share the gospel because we don’t care.

Several weeks ago, our daughter April went to Home Depot to get a couple of keys made. Home Depot is located just a few miles from our home, and the cost of the keys was minimal. But what was intended to be a simple task of relative ease turned into quite a fiasco, a fiasco that was created by the help she encountered.

Everyone appreciates light. It does not matter how small it may be. If it is shinning, it can lead us out of darkness.

In 1954, on Thanksgiving evening, I made my calling to preach known to the Black Oak Baptist Church in Gary, Indiana. I knew I was saved. I knew Heaven was my eternal home. And I knew I had a desire to tell others about Christ. I remember saying to Derwood Humble—the person who prayed with me at the altar that night—“I know that God has called me to preach, but I don’t know how I can do it.”