20 Years Sharing My Faith!

On January 4, 2004, I made a commitment to share my faith everyday after hearing a New Year’s message from my Pastor, Zac Nazarian.

It’s now been 20 years!!!

I don’t even know why I chose to make that commitment on that particular weekend, but I do remember that there were 6 or 7 points to the message. One stuck with me: “In the New Year we should evangelize more.”

How many times have you heard that as a Christian? Easily, a million times. And what did you do about it? Same thing I did: you listened, nodded your head (probably pursed your lips), then you made a half-hearted commitment to start sharing your faith, somehow, somewhere, but ultimately let it pass by the wayside, along with your other vows, like reading through the Bible in a year, or losing twenty pounds. That morning, however, I chose to do something about it. I sat in my chair at church and said to myself, “I’m going to share my faith everyday.”

Mind you, I had no idea how I was going to do it. Like most Christians I only shared my faith when God “opened a door.” Evangelism, of course, was only for those who had the gift. Still, the next day I started my commitment. And wouldn’t you know it? The very first person I talked to—made a profession for Christ!

(There’s a lot more to the story. Click here.)

Flash forward to July 31, 2005. Ray Comfort was invited to speak at our church. I sat in the back of our sanctuary and listened intently to “Hell’s Best Kept Secret”—for about ten minutes.

Eddie Roman’s Podcast Interview With…Me?

Eddie Roman is a producing director and editor at Ray Comfort’s ministry Living Waters. His podcast, “Roman’s Road with Eddie Roman” talks about Christian evangelism and apologetics through everyday conversations. He interviewed me at the 2020 Shepherds’ Conference in L.A. from his car office. I spoke about my days as an active evangelist with The

The Teddy Trillion Six Year Anniversary!

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED on August 25, 2011, so I edited it a little to bring it up to date.

It’s been six years since we introduced these original tracts. (Read to the end for a special free offer.)

No other church has these; you can only get ’em at Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach, CA. (and at Community Church of the Hills): The new Teddy Trillion Gospel tract!

That’s right. Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th President (1901–1909), is the latest famous figure to grace the front side of these wildly popular money tracts. Of course, he’s famous for saying, “Speak softly, and carry a big…TRACT!!!

We ran out of our Million Dollar Bill Gospel tracts (we ordered 2 1/2 million). So, with permission from Living Waters Ministries, and with the skills of our church’s talented graphic artist, Mike Faye (adapting Dale Jackson’s work), we came up with this new one and ordered 2,026,000 of these.

Now here’s the special offer:

The Horrible Incident at Stripes

SOMETHING HORRIBLE happened at our local Stripes convenience store: I gave the Gospel to three teens.

One of the teens went home and told his mom that I said he was going to Hell. This is something I rarely say, and I didn’t say to these teens. 99.9% of the time I ask this question: “If you died today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?”

Here is a similar conversation I had with a gaggle of giggling girls a few years back:

Well, the mom got mad and posted my name on Facebook saying that I told her son that he was going to Hell,  among other untrue things. Locals in our small town read the post and made all sorts of false accusations against me. Here’s a sample:

“He told me the same thing, too.”

“He doesn’t like gays.”

“He hangs out at the high school three or four times a week and evangelizes.”

“He scolded me for wearing my cheerleader outfit, saying that men will lust after me.”

Evangelistic Tipping or Giving Gospel Gratuities

UTI received an email from a University of Texas student who complained about finding a Teddy Trillion Dollar Bill Gospel tract on the ground. Here’s what he wrote:

Subject: Fake Trillion Dollar Bills

Hello! I’m a student at UT Austin, and I was walking around the library when I saw a dollar bill on the ground with Teddy Roosevelt’s face on it (obviously fake, because he’s never been on a bill). Curious, I picked up the bill and saw it was a Trillion Dollar Bill (wahoo, I’m a trillionaire!), with a statement on the back about the trillion dollar question being “Will you go to heaven when you die?”.

If I had not seen a similar thing before this would have just seemed like an odd outreach program by the church to get people’s attention, but sadly I’ve seen bills like these be put in tip jars, used as a tip for waiters, and given to homeless people in lieu of valid tender.
Seeing this, I have to ask, what is the reasoning behind using these bills? It’s definitely not going to get any converts.

trillion

A waiter/waitress whose just spent 30 minute waiting on a table that didn’t even pay for the service definitely isn’t going to appreciate what would seem like a snide comment from a holier-than-thou person.