You want real change? Pass out this change: Ten Commandments pressed pennies. It’s better that you spread the wealth around personally and willingly before the new government makes you do it by force! Also, since the Ten Commandments will be taken down from most public institutions at a greater rate starting next year, you can
From time-to-time, a Christian brother will set me straight about our methods of evangelism. The following email is a response to my story about the Sarah Palin evangelistic effort a couple of weeks ago: Have you ever considered that “an angry mob that hates Christians” coincidentally materializes every time you go out to seek “persecution”?
(This article was written on August 2, 2005, two days after I heard “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” for the first time.)
It’s amazing the flack I’ve received as I’ve tried to witness to people about the love of Christ everyday—the flack that has come from Christians….
I’ve been writing E-vangie Tales for a year now and have received a lot of mostly positive feedback regarding these “evangelistic adventures”. I say “mostly positive” because on occasion, fellow believers tell me that they don’t like what I do or how I do it. They take issue with my “in your face” style, though I don’t think my style is really “in your face.” I really do try to take Peter’s charge seriously: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1Peter 3:15-16)
The problem I suspect is that I don’t wait around to be asked to give an answer. I want to tell about the hope I have now and I do it in many different ways. It’s these different ways that offend other Christians (the people I evangelize are rarely offended).
One pastor accused me of having no follow up. “I don’t see where Jesus just said to preach the Gospel!” he said accusingly.
Does our style of evangelism work? Does using the 10 Commandments, warning of Judgment Day and Hell… then presenting the Gospel make a difference? I met a very nice young man the other night while witnessing on the Redondo Beach Pier where I take a team out every Friday evening for the Hour of Power.
500 Questionaires
“I can’t get Jesus out of my head!”
Those were the words of a very lost, confused and suicidal young man who visited our “Free Intelligence Test” booth at the Fiesta Hermosa street fair last Labor Day weekend.
The conversation started with him coming up to me quite aggressively and stating, “Why are you doing this? No one cares. No one cares about Jesus.” He then proceeded to tell me some truly awful things that happened in his life. The statement that caught my attention was when he said “I can’t get Jesus out of my head.” He made some type of profession of faith years ago, and I believe that God was calling him back through us, here at the fair. The young man then suddenly disappeared into the crowd to get drunk.
And nearly everyone gets the three sentences in the triangles wrong when they read them. (How did you do? See below for the correct readings.)
Then we lead them into another very fun questionaire that gets people laughing, until we transition into the Gospel presentation. Ed Lee, one of our church’s evangelism leaders and an Ambassadors’ Academy mentor, said that at one point people were lined up five deep—and this is to hear the Gospel (of course, they didn’t know that they would hear it)!
We had over seventy-five volunteers man the booth. And to recruit them, I had to use strong arm tactics that the Gambino Family would have admired. Still, I knew that “non-evangelists” would get excited after they took this step of faith. Here’s one quick testimony:
At the end of the 3-day weekend, we had gone through almost 500 questionaires, and about 20,000 tracts. We preached at the bus stops to untold hundreds (see that preaching here), and many novice evangelists found out how rewarding it was to do something for God.
As Ray Comfort likes to say, “You will go out dragging your feet, but you’ll come back clicking your heels.”
Get your free down-loadable I. Q. Test tracts by clicking here.
Einstein I.Q. Test answer: “Bird in the the hand,” etc.
(Read what happened at the Memorial Day Fiesta Hermosa here.)
Here are some of the questions we use for this test (these were formerly carried by Living Waters, but are now discontinued.) Make your own surveys and see how fun it is!:
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