PERSONAL

Back in the late 1990s I was a member of a large Baptist church. I took the evangelism training that they offered. I highly recommend Evangelism Explosion http://www.eeinternational.org/

There was lots of reading, discussion, prayer and memorizing verses. An important part of the training was application. While taking that course and after graduating I went out of the church’s weekly visitation. We went in teams of three with not all the same gender. One or more on the team was experienced.

We were given contact information of those who had visited the church and requested a visit. Or when those were in short supply we went to Laundromats or similar places to share the gospel. About half the time that the team had traveled many miles and found the person’s residence they were not home. So we left literature in a bag hanging on the door knob. All the people that went on visitation met at the beginning and end in the fellowship hall. There was a report of how many were contacted, prayer requests and those who were led to the Lord. This was a good system that had been used for many years.

After several months of this is struck me that many hours were invested to have a few minutes of conversation. Most of the conversations that I was involved with were pleasant but not very spiritual. I had far more to offer and so did my team mates than these people wanted to talk about in such a setting. Now hopefully some became members of Sunday school classes or developed long term relationship with believers.

By contrast I have spent a much shorter time reading and posting to Christian forums. For that I had a wide range of options in terms of how to engage. I have found that some time invested on Sunday afternoons allowed me to relate with people from all over the globe. Some have challenged my assumptions. Others have expressed appreciation for my contributions.