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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

May I pose a question? Does acceptance occur before or after change? Consider the truth that is revealed in Ephesians 1:6, Jesus “…made us accepted in the beloved…,” and then began the process of conforming us to His image!

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.

No doubt about it, Resurrection Sunday is a highlight of the year. I thank God for the opportunity it provides many churches for extended outreach and gospel preaching, and I praise Him for every soul saved around the world this weekend.

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.

It was Saturday afternoon, and we had successfully positioned our trailer in the corner of the church parking lot on the south side of Minneapolis, Minnesota. After getting my family settled, I went to the pastor’s office to go over the details of the week of revival and have a time of prayer.

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.”

We recently had our annual Christmas musical at Lancaster Baptist Church. The amount of work put into these productions is staggering—not just in the thousands of hours given by the choir, orchestra, and drama teams, but also the thousands of invitations given out all across our community in the weeks preceding the musical.

One of the reasons I love the Christmas season is that it is such a great time of year for initiating gospel conversations. Between the special church events and the fact that many people still do want to go to church to celebrate Christmas, this is also the easiest time of year to invite people to church.

When Terrie and I moved to Lancaster over thirty years ago, I began an eighteen-month season of intense personal outreach. Every week, I would knock on no less than five hundred doors personally with a church invitation and a purpose to share the gospel at the door.

There is nothing more rewarding than to come alongside a new Christian and help ground him in God’s Word, encourage his faith, and guide him in new patterns of Christian living.

We have all met people who don’t understand God. They blame God for a lot of things He didn’t cause.