Soul-Winning Marathon

2017-01-15

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be involved in a soul-winning marathon in Jacksonville, Florida. A new church is opening there this August. The future pastor and others from around the country went out preaching the gospel door to door. I was a “silent partner,” while I was with a gentleman who systematically shared from the Bible how people could be saved. He personally led several people to the Lord while I was with him. Being new to soul-winning, I would like to talk about some of what I saw while I was there, and some people for whom you could pray. A total of 122 people was sent out, with 209 saved.

In the morning, we knocked on a door, and a man with young children opened the door. He did not seem too enthusiastic about us being there, and he even mentioned that he was not religious. However, he patiently listened to the evangelist going through how we are all sinners condemned to hell, but Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. Sure enough, he prayed to receive the Lord Jesus right there.

We also saw some children playing in the street, and my friend shared the gospel with them. One of them sort of came and went, but the other intently listened and prayed to receive Christ.

Lastly, in the afternoon, a man who had experienced tragedy in his life, believed on the Lord, and many of the children that were there did as well.

Here are some thoughts that I have from the day:

  1. My friend with whom I went out soul-winning kept the people engaged the whole time. He would ask questions and use illustrations to demonstrate the point, and to make sure they understood each point.
  2. He did not share the gospel differently with the children as he did with the adults. The same method was employed, and it was obvious that the children understood from the questions asked.
  3. The people we spoke with must have had some kind of church background, whatever it may have been. They seem to understand what sin was, had heard of Jesus dying on the cross, and so forth.
  4. People were very friendly and receptive. There was only one time where we knocked, and heard “Nobody’s home!” from inside. No irate people, no threats. Some people were busy, but nobody was angry or violent. I know that those things can happen, but my expectations would have been to receive threats most of the time, which was not what happened at all.
  5. We ran across a man who denied the Trinity and believed other curious doctrines. He seemed to know some Scripture references for various points that we wanted to make. After some discussion, my friend stated that he must move on to other people who might want to hear the gospel. It was not a rude discussion at all, but rather we dismissed ourselves to move on. If someone already has their mind made up, what can you do?
  6. While sharing with a young boy, a car drove by, stopped at the stop sign, and as they looked at us, I heard the two words, “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” It is a shame that publicly sharing the gospel is associated with that false religion, and not with those who preach gospel truth.
  7. People were given the gospel one-on-one. If multiple people were there, multiple evangelists shared with the people one-on-one.

It was a breath of fresh air to see people get saved. I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone get saved. No one gets saved if they do not hear the Word of God. It was the most encouraging time in recent history. I will be doing this on my own soon.