Tag: evangelism

Posted in encouragement, faith

Preaching to a busy intersection

Posted on by William Douthwaite

It’s a little hard to see from these pictures, but I believe this guy was preaching at a busy intersection in my community. I believe the book balanced on the pedals of his bike is a bible, that he had just been holding in the air.

This is an intersection with a McDonalds, gas station, supermarket, and bank on the four corners. It’s busy and noisy, and the preacher didn’t have a P.A., so I doubt that anyone could hear him other than that one person stopped there with the window open. Since we all have AC, few windows are open. There are no signs about repentance or contributions, so it’s just him, his voice, and the word competing with busy afternoon traffic.

I’ve heard street corner preachers before. They had a microphone and a portable amp, lots of signs about repentance, and of course, a container for contributions. Many stopped to watch the spectacle, but I seriously doubt that anyone was converted.

I think the best evangelism happens when we get to know someone, care about someone, and make them curious about your life and faith. Once they start asking questions, you’ve got a wonderful opportunity to talk about the Lord.

Posted in faith

Relationships instead of pamphlets

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Out of the corner of my eye I see what looks like a stack of Benjamins. That can’t be legit. Not out in the middle of my driveway.

Sure enough, it’s a marketing trick. Small books with hundred dollar bill covers are in every driveway on our street. And it’s not just a wrapped stack of hundreds. It’s a $1,000,000 bill. Pretty clever. Gets your attention for sure.

The book? A King James Version of the Gospel of John. It’s an evangelistic effort by a group who wanted to get God’s word into every driveway in town. I can’t help but wonder: Is this what Jesus wanted his followers and his church to do?

A small shopping newspaper hits my driveway each weekend. I doubt that anyone reads them. They sit in driveways, week after week, simply disintegrating in the sun, rain, and traffic. Ironically, a cleaning company advertises their services by littering yards with zip lock bags of small stones and business cards. Few are opened, most end up in the trash.

So, lets add another small bag of trash to the landscape. Someone will open it, read it, and their life will be changed. If that happens, the verdict will be, “It was worth it.”

Really? Is that the best the church can do? Rather than engaging people in conversation, getting to know them, and talking about faith, we’ll trash up the neighborhood and hope that it makes a difference.

That’s not what the apostles did. They talked to people, helped them, and personally shared their faith with those who didn’t know about Jesus. They put themselves out there, like Jesus did, to disseminate good news.

I will never discount the power of God’s Word. But if you aren’t willing to get to know someone, care about them, and show them what love looks like, throwing a bunch of bibles at the world won’t do much good. The word of God became flesh for a reason. We need relationships much more than we need another book on the shelf or pamphlet on the street.

By the way, that weekly shopping newspaper finally went out of business. Thirty years ago, it was the place to learn about garage sales and contractors. In the last few years, it shrunk in size to just a few pages. Last week’s edition came with the announcement of it’s final printing. From now on, you could read it digitally. It also came with an envelope just in case you wanted to send money to the now unemployed delivery people.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

We’re just doing some evangelism

Posted on by William Douthwaite

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 2.

A few years back, a couple of older men in my congregation – Phil and Gene – would always go to a barbershop on Main Street in Daytona Beach. In those days, Main Street was ground zero for Bike Week and Biketoberfest activities. The street was lined with bars, tattoo parlors, souvenir shops, and from time to time, some “working” ladies. Neither gentleman had a lot of hair, and all the magazines were really old, but they enjoyed the sights and sounds of that part of town. They justified their presence by claiming they were doing “evangelism.”

I’ve always found it entertaining that the first thing Joshua’s two spies do is go to a prostitute in Jericho.

“Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, ‘Go, view the land, especially Jericho.’ So they went and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and rested there” (Joshua 2:1).

It’s also entertaining to read uncomfortable commentators insist that the spies never engaged Rahab’s services. So what if they had? Would it be all that surprising if they acted like sailors on shore leave in an exotic port?

Ironically, their mission does include some evangelism. Rahab hides them, lies for them, and confesses the Lord to be God in heaven above and on earth below (2:11).

A lot of people got upset when Jesus spent time with sinners and tax collectors. So what if he did? They probably had better parties anyway.

Posted in Gospel, Life

Yard sign evangelism?

Posted on by William Douthwaite

On a recent dog-walk around the block, a couple of yard signs caught my eye. A homeowner displayed two familiar (at least to me) scripture verses in front of his or her house.

“Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

“Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die'” (John 11:25).

Classic words filled with gospel truth. As I walked by and got a picture, I wondered, “Who will those signs affect?”

Well, for one, it affected me. That good news certainly resonates with me, a follower of Jesus Christ.

But what if you aren’t a believer? Would a typical non-Christian even know the meaning of the words repent, resurrection, and gospel?

This neighbor’s intentions were good. God’s Word is powerful, creating, saving, and changing people’s lives.

But Jesus never delivered that good news in sound bites. These sentences are part of a relationship Jesus had with people. These words are part of a longer conversation Jesus had with people who were questioning, grieving, struggling, and searching for hope. When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor,” he didn’t mean hand out a brochure, tweet a bible verse, or put up a billboard. He meant get to know them, find out what they need, and then help them with that need. Let them experience the gospel before you talk about it.

Scripture verse signs simply blend in with the For Sale signs, contractor signs, clean-up-after-your-dog signs, political signs, security system signs, no soliciting signs, and yard sale signs scattered throughout the neighborhood.

Let’s honor Jesus with something a little more substantial. God sent the good news in the form of a person. He still does. It’s you.

Posted in faith, Ministry, pastor

“I know Clara Reuben!”

Posted on by William Douthwaite

At last summer’s synodical convention in Tampa, the exhibitor hall was a great place to escape some of the long business sessions and presentations when my brain and bottom just couldn’t endure any more. Every Concordia was represented along with every shape and size of ministry at home and abroad.

One morning I stopped by a booth promoting a ministry to Jewish people. I don’t remember the name of the ministry or the person I spoke with, but I do remember speaking about the time Steve Cohen came to my congregation to do the presentation Christ in the Passover. I then shared how years later I had met Clara Reuben, who did some amazing Jewish outreach on Long Island and in South Florida.

At the mention of her name, his face lit up and he exclaimed, “I know Clara Reuben!”

What a small world! Clara was the great-grandmother of one of my confirmation students. I visited Clara a number of times during the last year of her life when she lived in my town. I was privileged to be one of the few Clara never expelled from her home. Clara began every visit by asking, “Do you love Jesus?” She would always tell me, “I kicked the last minister out. He didn’t love Jesus!” And then she would double-check, “Do you love Jesus?”

Of course I do. But more importantly, she did. No nonsense here. No political correctness or cultural sensitivity. You either love the Lord or not. No pussy-footing around. Just cut to the chase. Either he’s Lord, or he’s not. Got a problem with that? Get out!

We could all learn a lot from Clara Reuben about outreach, evangelism and faith. I know I did.

Posted in Ministry

Everclear margaritas

Posted on by William Douthwaite

yuanbin-du-87642It was the spring of 1982, a significant year for me. I had quit my job at Bell Labs in New Jersey and moved to Austin, TX to begin a new job with a friend of mine who was helping to start a new company. They were going to make deep oil well probes to check the pressure far below the surface. I would be the programmer, working alongside some engineers who would design the hardware. Coding is a hot topic now. Back then I was doing assembly language programming on 8086 Intel chips.

Within two months, the company dissolved and I found another job with Bausch and Lomb, a division of Houston Instrument, just before the advent of CAD/CAM. My division programmed these massive tabletop printers for architectural drawings. It was really cool to see the pens whip around a huge sheet of paper to render a drawing.

Anyway, it was during this time that I realized I enjoyed everything I was doing with the church more than anything I ever did with my job. The pastor who confirmed me told me I should become a pastor, but I never gave that any more thought. Till now, when a vicar at my Texas church said the same thing nine years later. Hmm. Is that even a possibility? After all, I didn’t study any theology as an undergraduate. Could I really do that? My vicar and pastor assured me I could. In fact, lots of seminary students were second career.

So I applied. I sent off my application to Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN, where there were more second career guys than system guys. “System” guys went to a Concordia undergraduate school and majored in pre-seminary studies. I wasn’t a “system” guy. I had a liberal arts degree in Math.

Well, if I was going to go to the seminary and study to become a pastor, I wanted to start doing things that pastors did. What could I do? I could go out and make evangelism visits. In the context of my south Austin church, this meant following up on Sunday morning visitors to worship. The evangelism committee consisted of the vicar and his wife, a couple of young women, another guy and me. I think we got together on a Tuesday night, divided up some index cards with contact information on them, and went out to knock on doors and thank them for worshiping at our church. Hopefully, this would lead to further conversation.

My memories are a bit hazy (and you’ll learn why in just a bit), but I think we had some good visits and good conversations. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was just willing to learn. After we attempted our visits, we reconvened at a certain time and place to debrief. On some nights we would meet at a little Mexican cantina that served Everclear margaritas.

Some of you are thinking, “What’s that?” Others are thinking, “Whoa!” Everclear is 190 proof grain alcohol. (In college, I learned that grain alcohol was an ingredient in Purple Jesus punch.) As you can imagine, throw a shot of that into a margarita and it is definitely party time. I was told, you can only have one. Halfway through my drink, I knew they were right. No one needs more than one of those. Not even on evangelism night!

Few know it, but this is one of the factors that contributed to my deciding to pursue studying for the pastoral ministry. After knocking on a few doors and taking a few sips, I thought, “You know, I think I can do this.” Of course I had no idea all that would be involved in being a pastor, but this was certainly a plus.

I never got to be a part of an evangelism team like this again. I’ve gone out on plenty of visits with plenty of other people, but we never took the time to share our experiences over a delicious and potent beverage. Since I’ve been in Florida, I’ve had some fascinating theological discussions at Tiki bars and beachside wineries, but none of them were quite like my experiences in Austin. If you were to ask me who was most influential in my decision to become a pastor, these dear friends just might be at the top of my list!