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Summary

In this lecture, Lance Mosher discusses the importance of personal evangelism, emphasizing the need to meet people where they are both spiritually and geographically. He explores the idea that while the gospel message is universal, the approach to sharing it must be tailored to individual circumstances. Mosher provides practical strategies for engaging with diverse spiritual backgrounds, asking meaningful questions, and utilizing community resources to foster connections. He encourages listeners to be proactive in their evangelistic efforts, highlighting the significance of personal relationships and conversations in spreading the gospel.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Context of the Lesson
01:52 Meeting People Where They Are: Spiritual and Geographical Perspectives
07:36 The One Size Fits All Gospel vs. Individual Approaches
15:06 Understanding Spiritual Backgrounds and Asking the Right Questions
23:12 Geographical Evangelism: Going Where the People Are
26:07 The Call to Evangelism
28:01 Practical Evangelism Strategies
30:53 Engaging the Community
36:24 Utilizing New Movers Program
39:46 Effective Door Knocking Techniques
44:35 Leveraging Online Opportunities
49:52 Being Resourceful in Evangelism

Transcript *This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.*

Lance Mosher (00:00)
Hey everyone, you thought the Florida School of Preaching Lectureship was over already, but wait, there’s more. It’s the lectureship that keeps on giving. I was scheduled to deliver this lesson on Thursday afternoon, but I was unable. I had to leave town early. And I’m so grateful for Brother Zachary who stepped in and filled that slot. And I’m also grateful for Brother Brian’s understanding of the fact that I had to leave early. There was a huge winter storm that was going to hit my hometown and indeed it did.

Plus I had some business I needed to take care of in Northern Florida before I left the state anyway. So I needed to get home as quickly as possible and Brother Brian understood and so he let me go ahead and do that and he said, we’ll figure it out. So thank you for everyone who was able to make that work out, but I still owe this to you. I wanna fulfill my commitment. This was to be my second lesson and my first lesson was flipping the script on personal evangelism on Wednesday.

And this was to be the follow-up lesson where there’s a little bit of review or overlap, but then we get into this question of meeting people where they are. Now this time I’m not gonna have Brother Brian to my right showing up telling me that I got five minutes left, so who knows how long this one’s going to last. But the good news is it’s delivered on YouTube and you can always change the playback speed. Just click that settings button and if you wanna listen to me like a chipmunk on Red Bull, you could do that.

to go ahead and get through this lesson a little bit quicker. So meeting people where they are. When I was thinking about this lesson, I was wondering, well, which direction are we going to take? Are we going to talk about meeting people where they are spiritually or meeting people where they are geographically? Because as evangelists or missionaries or Bible teachers, we kind of have to take care of both of them. And so which direction should we take this lesson? Because both of them are important. Well, speaking of both, I wonder if we could just go ahead and tackle

Both. Why choose one or the other? So that’s what we’re going to do with this lesson, is talk about meeting people where they are spiritually, but also meeting people where they are geographically. When I was in high school, there was a store in my local mall called Lids, and I suppose many of the malls in the United States had similar stores where you can go and buy sports apparel, but especially caps or hats for certain sports teams and so on. I wasn’t a sports fan, but I still went in there to shop.

because there was a rock star that I looked up to that sported the FlexFit hats that were sold at Lids. And I don’t think this is a great way to live your life, but that was me, an impressionable high school student. But one of the things that FlexFit had going for it was that it was one size fits all. And I suppose most generations have their one size fits all product that takes the market by storm.

And so that was mine when I was in high school in the late 90s and the early 2000s. One size fits all. And you know, of course that applies to the gospel. The gospel message is one size fits all. It’s the same message that’s going to save the person in the jungle who’s never had electricity or running water, but also the CEO and the tallest skyscraper in the United States or New York City, right? Every single person

needs to come in contact with the gospel of Jesus Christ to have that saving relationship with their Lord and Savior. The gospel is one size fits all and we don’t have to change it from person to person. Everybody receives the same message. But we also, as evangelists and Bible teachers, know that it’s not one approach fits all. One of the drawbacks of delivering this lesson on YouTube is I don’t get to hear the amens that I very much enjoyed hearing

all week long. And so this, I’m hoping, is where you would say amen if you were with me in person. You can go ahead and say it out loud even though you’re watching YouTube, whether it’s in your bedroom or in your office or in the car. Say amen if you believe that the gospel is one size fits all, but in delivery it’s not one approach fits all. Yet how many of us are guilty of trying to turn the gospel into one approach fits all? For the past hundred or so years we’ve been

kind of approaching evangelism as this idea that if we can simply get people to the building, we would reach them. And we communicate that to our members or to our fellow ⁓ citizens of the kingdom of God when we simply say, have you invited them to church? Now, as we discussed last week, that can be a wonderful tool in evangelism. And I don’t discourage people from inviting their friends and their families and their neighbors to the church building for special events or even just a…

normal Sunday, but gospel meetings, VBSs, friends and family days, those can be great opportunities to expose our friends to the gospel. But if we depend on this as the status quo of evangelism, I don’t think the church is going to grow ⁓ very quickly and we’re going to be inflated because the population of the world is definitely growing at a higher percentage than the church because we’ve been depending on this for a number of years, maybe a hundred years or so.

that this has been the status quo. But it breaks down on three fundamental levels. Number one, it’s really difficult in 2026 to get visitors to the building these days. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. But I also don’t blame the person who is not interested in coming to a strange building to be among strangers who are saying and doing some strange things. We’ve got every reason not to go out of our houses these days or to go to gatherings like this.

And I’m not saying that we should allow people to make excuses for not gathering with the church, but you gotta think about it from the outsider’s perspective at this point. A hundred years ago, if you wanted to be educated or entertained, you had to leave your house. But today we’ve got all these devices that we can be educated and entertained by 24-7. And so I don’t have to leave the house. And we’re now competing with YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, video games. And so it’s really difficult to get people

to the building relatively speaking to a hundred years ago these days, right? But we’re still going to try. Second of all, just because we get them to the building doesn’t mean we’re going to reach them. Perhaps you are really preaching a gospel meeting and they come to every single one and they hear the council of God that they need to know and eventually the full council of God. But in most cases we understand that they need more than simply sitting in a pew. They need connection. They need friendship.

They need somebody to invite them into a fellowship opportunity outside of normal church hours, if you will. We need to spend time with them and develop relationships and then eventually get to personal Bible studies. That’s what we need is one-on-one or two-on-two with an open Bible in between them at a kitchen table or at a cafe or in a park or at the library where we are studying the scriptures. And the third fundamental way that this breaks down, I think, is that, and I…

Guess I could have begun with this one. This isn’t the biblical model for evangelism. Enough said, right? I know of visitors to the assembly being mentioned two times in the New Testament and neither one is in the context of personal evangelism. Yet we’re still going to use this as a tool, but it just can’t be the status quo of personal evangelism. Now going back to the idea that one approach doesn’t fit all, Jesus is the perfect example.

In Matthew 23, you remember he was approaching the scribes, the Pharisees, the hypocrites. And what did he say to them? He said, woe to you. I mean, he came out there guns blazing, turning scripture into a two by four, as we said last week, and beating them over the head. Why? Because they were the religious elite who had put themselves in an upper position over the vulnerable. And unfortunately, they were using that status not to lead them closer to God,

But Jesus said that you travel land and sea to make a single proselyte, and when you do, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Whoa. Okay, that’s a different version of the word whoa, and we’re going to talk about that. Man, that is a scathing rebuke. These people should have known better. Unfortunately, perhaps you’ve done this or you’ve witnessed it yourself, where there are those who shouldn’t.

know better at this point because they haven’t been taught yet. And yet a lot of people who put themselves out there to teach the Bible use this approach for everybody. It’s the machine gun approach. I’m just going to blast them. And if they don’t accept the truth, well, I guess that’s on them. And Brother James did a great job kind of discussing that and how there certain people who are vulnerable and who are in a position they can’t hear this woe at this point. For example, in John chapter eight, when these

people, ⁓ I guess they honed in on this sin of this woman who was caught in adultery and they weren’t interested in her soul and apparently they weren’t interested in the other guy’s soul as well. They were just interested in trapping Jesus. You remember in John chapter 8, if you don’t remember just read the passage of first several verses of John chapter 8, they lay this woman before Jesus. She was caught in adultery. Did she sin? Yes. Yes, she did. But how did Jesus respond to her?

Did he say, woe to you, woman? Now first, he talked to the accusers and he made sure that he put them where they needed to be and it wasn’t in the middle of this private discussion he was about to have with this woman. So he dealt with them and then they left. And then when he had the opportunity to address her and her sin, what did he say? He said, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. He did not ignore.

her spiritual state, her sin, but he had a totally different approach with the same message. Repentance was needed for both the Pharisees and the scribes and the hypocrites and this woman, but the approach was different. Similarly, in Acts chapter eight, Philip has the opportunity to teach the Ethiopian man the gospel.

And what does it say in that passage? He was reading from Isaiah 53 and beginning with this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. Acts chapter 17, when Paul is spending time with the people of Athens at the Areopagus, he wasn’t able to begin with this scripture because these people weren’t reading their Old Testament. Most of them had probably never read any of the Old Testament. So he had to begin in a different place spiritually.

had to talk to them about their current idol worship. You see, the Ethiopian and the Athenians, needed the same message, but the approach had to be different. So you and I today in the 21st century, in 2026, we’re going to come across people of all kinds of different spiritual backgrounds and statuses. There are those who we might consider our religious neighbors. I don’t know if you like that phrase, but the idea of someone who would believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

Kind of like the Ethiopian. With them, you can begin from this scripture and preach to them Jesus. Because you already have the hard work done for you. They believe that God exists. Perhaps they believe even that Jesus is the son of God and that the scriptures are inspired by him so you could just begin with the scriptures. How beautiful that opportunity is. You have those in all kinds of different religions who are primarily emotionally driven.

They make their decisions based on how they feel. And then there are those who are primarily logically driven. They make their decisions after thinking long and hard and trying to forget their emotions. And what’s interesting to me is these two people, the emotional leader and the logical leader, they end up marrying each other at some point. And so a lot of marriages are made up of people of these two kind of categories, if you will. And neither one is necessarily wrong.

so long as you’ve got, I suppose, a balanced way to look at life. Emotional, that’s important. Logical, that’s important. Let’s not neglect either one, but there are those who lean one way or the other a little bit more. Then you have, of course, the atheist, the person who says, there is no God, or I believe that there is no God. But even in this category, you have different, let’s call them denominations of atheism. Of course, a lot of us, when we think of atheists, we think of Stephen Hawking,

or Sam Harris, or Richard Dawkins, or for those of us who have been paying attention to pop culture lately, or the social media era, we’ve got the Alex O’Connor. And these people are studied and they are prepared to have deep conversations with theists. But not every atheist would be up there with Alex O’Connor or Richard Dawkins. Your neighbor might say, I’m an atheist. And then once you start to learn a little bit more about him,

Maybe he’s not prepared to say, I believe there is no God. He’s just perhaps been burned by religion or a religious person in the past, and he’s just tired of thinking of religion, so it’s a lot easier, more convenient for him to say that there is no God because he just doesn’t want to think about it. And so he calls himself an atheist, but he’s not in the same category as Alex O’Connor. And then there are the agnostics, the people who say, I just don’t know. I’ve looked at…

it a little bit. just haven’t come to a solid conclusion whether there is a God or not. And then within other religions you have Buddhists, you’ve got Hindus, Muslims, ⁓ even Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. You’ve got a lot of different religions out there and depending on where you live you’ll come across different ones. Here in West Tennessee I don’t come across a lot of Buddhists or Hindus.

But when I lived in Wellington, New Zealand for nine years, I came across them all of the time. And then probably the fastest growing group here, at least in the United States, would be considered apotheists. Those are people, if you talk to them about God and you say, you believe in God, they at least give the attitude of, I don’t know and I don’t care. They really think it’s a waste of time to think about these things because they just want to live their life, go to work, provide for their family, have a good time.

eat, sleep, repeat, you know, they’re not thinking about these things at all. And among all of these, and this is not an exhaustive list, these locations of where people can be spiritually, we ask the question, how do I find out where somebody is? I perceive that they’re religious by the way they talk, but I want to find out specifically where they are. Or I’ve just met this person and I have no idea where they are, but I’d like to know, how do I find out where people are spiritually?

I’m about to show you the answer to this big question. And the answer to this big question is gigantic. It’ll probably take you the rest of your life to try to comprehend and digest what this slide is about to reveal to you. You might even want to take a screenshot or a photo of your screen right now, and then just slowly digest it. Maybe once a week, look at it, and then look away. Because it’s so complicated, it’ll blow your mind if you try to understand it all in one sitting.

No, it’s gonna take you the rest of your life. How do I find out where people are spiritually? Are you prepared? To ask them. Okay, big buildup, small delivery, because it’s so easy. If you didn’t catch it, all of that was hype for nothing. It’s as simple as this. How do I find out where someone is spiritually? You need to ask them. You need to have a conversation. And as we discussed last Wednesday, how do I do that?

This simple question is a tool that you need to have in your pocket at all times that you could pull out and ask at any time. May I ask you a question? You can ask your Aunt Sally this question even though you feel like you burned the final bridge this past Thanksgiving and you want to approach her in a little bit different way now. You can text this to her. You can call her up and say, I ask you a question? Or if you’re getting together this weekend, you can say,

May I ask you a question? Or if you’re meeting somebody for the very first time at a park or at the Dollar Tree, may I ask you a question? At this point, 99 % of the world is going to give you some kind of positive response to this. Yes. Or as we said on Wednesday, your uncle’s going to say, well, you just did, but eventually you’re going to get to the point where you have permission. Permission to do what? To ask them a question. What question? Any question at all.

Why is the sky blue? And yes, it is blue today, even though there’s icicles hanging all over my porch and those trees over there. Why is the sky blue? What’s the square root of 242? And may I ask you a question? Sure. Well, what are your thoughts about Jesus? Whoa, it’s really that simple. And look, if someone’s going to be offended at this question, well, they’re not really going to be offended at you because all you have simply asked is what they think.

about Jesus. You have not provided any information about yourself or what you believe or what the Bible says. You simply ask the question, what do you think about Jesus? What are your thoughts about Jesus? And very quickly you’re going to find out where they are spiritually. And on Wednesday I gave you a couple of other options as well. May I ask you a question? How are you and the Lord doing? Or may I ask you a question? If you could ask God one question.

What would it be? May I ask you a question? Why do you think there are so many different churches in this city? May I ask you a question? How are you doing on your faith journey? Or how’s your faith journey going so far? Simply ask a question and they will hopefully be prepared to talk a little bit about how things are going spiritually for them. And you’ll very quickly find out where they are spiritually. But here’s the question of our lesson. How do I meet them?

where they are spiritually. All right, I’m not gonna do the huge buildup, but imagine I did, and then I say, you simply ask him, how do I meet somebody where they are spiritually? You simply ask them. Now, I am assuming here that you are serving them in other areas that are needed. If they are having a relationship, financial or medical crisis right now, you’re not ignoring those things, leapfrogging over them just to get to this conversation.

But if they are going through that crisis, this is a perfect opportunity to bring up this subject of spiritual reality and where they are spiritually, by the way. But anyway, you want to ask them. And remember that as you’re having a conversation, and this is one of the things that causes a lot of people to hesitate to bring up spiritual things or have a religious conversation, is that, well, what do I do when they want to heat things up and they want to bring up some objection?

or they want to challenge me or they want to say something that they know I don’t believe in, and they want to stir the pot a little bit, simply continue to ask them questions about what they think. Because we’re trying to disarm people, make them relax and let them know that a religious conversation with you, even if it has in the past this time, is not going to result in a debate. You just want to have a conversation. And although all other religious conversations they’ve had in the past,

has been uncomfortable, this time you’re gonna make things very comfortable. And so they bring up some objection or they try to make a claim that isn’t true. What do you do with that? Keep with the questions and you simply ask, well, what do you mean by that? And how did you come to that conclusion? All right, and this is partially a review. You can go view the lesson on flipping the script on personal evangelism. Last week it’s on Florida School of Preachings.

lectureship YouTube channel, I think it’s called FSOP Classroom, or you can go to the Facebook page and that lesson is there. And then don’t be surprised, by the way, if you have a really good conversation with this person and they remember that you started the conversation by asking, what are your thoughts about Jesus? They might ask you. If they don’t know yet, what do you think about Jesus? I was talking to Josh the other day as I was about to leave and we were talking about the lesson that I delivered on Wednesday and

and we were kind of guiding our conversation. Like, how are we going to be the most effective we can be in these conversations? And one of the things that I like to do is get to the point where I’m asking the question, what do you think Jesus or Moses or the New Testament or Paul? What do you think Paul says about that or said about that? And so imagine you’re having a conversation and you get on one topic and then another topic and then they bring up something like communion.

or the Eucharist, they might use that word. And you say something like, well, that’s really interesting. You might ask the question, what do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion? And at some point, you can simply slip in this question. Well, what do you think Paul said about that? And you word that question specifically that way. Not what did Paul say about that, but what do you think Paul said about that? You’re inviting them to have a conversation, not a pop quiz.

If you don’t use the word think, it’s like, I’ve got to get this right or else I’m wrong and then I’m going to look silly. No. What do you think? You’re inviting them to have this conversation and even guess, but ultimately you’re inviting them to say this. I don’t know. And it’s okay to admit that you don’t know and you’re letting them know that. So you ask them, what do you think Paul said about that? Regardless of the subject that you’re talking about. And they say, well, you know, I really don’t know. Well, how do you follow up with that? You simply say,

would you like to know? And they’re the ones who brought this up. And so it would be dishonest of them to say, no, I don’t think I want to know about that. They’re going to say, sure. And then, of course, how do you follow up? I would love to study the Bible with you. Now, this is the second one. would say you remember this and you stick it in your other pocket. The first one is, may I ask you a question? When they give you permission, ask them a question. See where the conversation goes.

Regardless of how that conversation goes or wherever you go in this conversation, you can pull out this last statement and it’s not a question this time. It’s the first time that you’re saying something, you’re declaring something rather than asking. And you simply say, would love to study the Bible with you. You say this perhaps after you say, would you like to know? Or you say this when you feel like you’re stumped. You really don’t know. Okay, it’s gotten in the lull of the conversation. I don’t know what I’m going to say next. So just pull this out and say, I…

I would love to study the Bible with you and see what they say because hopefully at this point they’ve realized that this conversation with you is not uncomfortable the way other religious conversations might have been, but it’s very pleasant and I’m enjoying this conversation. And so let’s continue. I would love to study the Bible with you. All right, shift gears. We’ve talked about where we can meet people where they are spiritually. Let’s talk geographically now. You remember in Acts chapter 16, how the apostle Paul was taken the gospel wherever he went.

Matthew 28, a lot of people have looked at verse 19 that says go and make disciples and some people understand that to mean as you go be making disciples. And that’s what the apostle Paul was doing. But he wanted to go to a certain area but the Holy Spirit forbade him and he received a vision from the Lord of a man from Macedonia saying come and help us and they concluded that the Lord was calling them to Macedonia. Now I’m not saying that you’re going to receive a vision like Paul.

but there might be certain places in the world where God specifically wants you. And you might be considering full-time mission work and packing your bags and going to another part of the world. Great, I would encourage that. We need more and more and more missionaries doing exactly that. But don’t forget that other part, that you’re gonna be going somewhere. You might not be going to the Philippines, but you’re gonna be going to work, you’re gonna be going to the supermarket, you’re gonna be going to

Wherever you go the skating rink or the bowling alley or the video game store wherever you’re going What does Jesus say as you go? So how do I meet people where they are geographically simply be in a geographic? Location and you’re going to meet people because they are everywhere. They’re in there eight more than eight billion I don’t know how close we are to nine billion But it’ll happen probably within my lifetime if the Lord wills that will reach nine billion

There are nine billion people in this world. You’re gonna meet somebody wherever you are geographically. Now I got ⁓ into fishing as a kid, but then I kind of left it behind as I grew up. And then I had my own kids and my oldest son, when we moved to Louisiana a few years ago, he got interested in fishing. So I had to learn some of the fishing rules, including buying my fishing license. And I learned that as a recreational fisher, there was a limit on how many hooks I can have in the water at a time. And I think it goes back to this idea.

that fishermen and farmers, people who really work with their hands to make a living, they’re very resourceful people and they want to, ⁓ I suppose, make the biggest impact they can with their hands and the limited amount of time that they have. And a fisherman realizes that if I could put one hook in the water and catch a fish, then maybe if I put two hooks in the water, I can catch two fish and so on. Well, they’ve prevented recreational fishers from outfishing the waters.

But when Jesus compared evangelism to fishing, what kind of limit did he put on how many hooks you could have in the water at a time? Of course, he didn’t put any limit. And so I think about being resourceful as evangelists. In Acts chapter eight, as a result of the persecution of Saul of Tarsus, the men and women who were scattered, they went everywhere preaching the word. Now, this word preaching is where we get our word.

evangelize, you want to lead so it’s not the idea of Caruso or Kerygma, but it’s evangelism. weren’t donning suits and ties and erecting pulpits, but they were simply taking the good news with them as they went where? Everywhere. And so you as you go everywhere, do not miss the opportunities that are right in front of you because evangelism isn’t a switch that you turn on and off. It’s

I’m gonna turn it on when I get on the plane and I’m heading to another location, but as I’m coming home, I’ll turn it off or something like that. No, as you go, make sure that you are like these men and women. You are preaching the word wherever you go. But also let’s remember, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 5 and so on talks about Christians as members of the body of Christ and how we are members with different functions or different roles.

and we also have different gifts according to the gifts or the grace God has given us. And so my evangelism isn’t going to look just like yours and yours isn’t going to look just like mine. There might be some things that a certain preacher or evangelist does that you might want to imitate and that’s okay. But the idea of trying to be another person, that doesn’t work in the body of Christ. We are all individually members and God has given us different roles and different gifts. So what I’d like to share with you for the next few minutes,

are some practical ways that you as an individual or even as a congregation can make some kind of impact for the Lord as you go. But don’t forget the impact. And this has probably been the most impactful part of my personal evangelism is just everywhere you go, just know that there’s an opportunity. Striking up conversations with strangers and friends, asking them questions and setting personal Bible studies. That is going to make the biggest impact, I think, if every Christian goes around doing that.

This is where you say amen. That’s going to make the biggest impact in world evangelism is that if the world of the church were equipped and just went out preaching. That being said, what are some things that you could do to make another impact as well? One of the things that I’ve done before is I’ve gone to coffee shops and libraries in order to do my personal study. And if you don’t mind the distraction a little bit that this invites, then what you could do is just what you see on the screen here.

is ⁓ fold over a little piece of paper and hang it over your laptop. What Bible questions do you have? Or you can put it on the table or have an open Bible right there. You’re reading one Bible and the other Bible is just open right there and letting people know that you are inviting them to sit across from you and ask Bible questions or have a Bible conversation. I’ve known many preachers who have done that and it has been very successful and it’s turned into, and I wish Brother Brian would have elaborated a little bit,

on his weekly Bible study at the local cafe. Some preachers have this little thing has turned into a weekly Bible study where the community comes out and participates. All right, how many of your congregations participate in like a fair, festival or a parade where you take out a booth or like an eight foot table and you have an awning over it and you’re able to just evangelize anybody who comes to this event?

Many churches participate in things like that. Now from my experience, how a lot of people have gone about doing this is they’ll take an eight foot table, they might put a tablecloth over it and then raid their tract rack, the one that hasn’t been touched in years. And they’ll just lay out all these tracks, maybe copies of house to house, heart to heart, and their latest bulletin and just kind of put it out there on the table, letting people know, maybe a few Bibles as well. We’ve got free material. If you want it, come and take it.

And then that might develop a few conversations and a lot of invitations to the building. That’s fine, but it can be a little bit more effective. One of the things that we did in Pāriroa, New Zealand is that we did Bible trivia. We had previously tried at this festival that whole model of an eight-foot table with tracks and Bible study materials just trying to hand them out, but we went home with most of it at the end. Most of it was not picked up. And we wanted

a greater rate of engagement with the average goer to this festival and not only that, but multiple points of contact and the opportunity to set a Bible study with them. So we needed conversations with these people. So what we did was we created 40 Bible trivia questions, many of them being very interest developing or curiosity increasing. And then many of them as well.

quite easy because we did not want to make these people feel silly or foolish because they can’t get a Bible question right. And we also created this wheel that you see, we made it ourselves and it had this very satisfying click. And a lot of us we’ve seen Wheel of Fortune or the prices, right? We want to spin those wheels because of how satisfying that must feel. Well, we made this where it was very enticing. It made a loud noise that you could hear from like 10 booths over.

And finally people start to see what has been making all this racket this whole time as they’ve been walking toward our booth. And we just call out Bible trivia. If you get one question, right, you get to spin the wheel and every spin is a win. Are you willing to test your Bible knowledge? And a lot of people took us up on this. I would guess that about 90 % who heard that challenge took us up on that. Now we created 40 questions because we knew that we would develop a line and we did. There was a queue leading up to

Todd here who was going to ask them these Bible questions and we didn’t want the second, third, fourth person in line to hear any of the questions we were going to ask them. That’s why we had so many. But we only asked them three. We said, look, we’re going to give you three Bible trivia questions. If you get one of them right, you get to spin the wheel. And so we would ask questions like, ⁓ Anna and I has told Saul, what are you waiting for? Arise and do what to have your sins washed away? And a lot of people didn’t know the answer to that. And so we would give them the scripture.

and then ask them, what’s the answer? And they would be able to answer the question. All right, that’s all right. You didn’t get that one. Here’s the second question. We would make sure we would ask them a question as simple as the Bible says, the beginning, who created the heavens and the earth? Or who was Jesus’ mother? Just to make sure they got it right, because we wanted them to spin that wheel and win. And depending on the color that they landed on gave a different category of winning. But ultimately, we wanted them to have a chance to win a book.

or some kind of study material. And often we would say, hey, you landed on this color, that means you get to choose your prize. And so we would hand them this form and say, hey, fill out this form and put it in the box over there. And we would not hover over them as they were filling out that form. That way they felt completely free to put whatever they wanted on this form. But we would tell them, look, here are the three books that are available or the four books or whatever you want to put.

And, but these are only the display copies. We didn’t bring boxes of these things. So just give us your name and your address and we’ll drop off your gift later on today after the festival is over. And so they would fill out what they wanted. But then of course you see here that they had the opportunity to choose free Bible study opportunities, more information about the church or prayer support. And they would check whatever box and they would fold it up and put it in that box. And then after the event, we had dozens and dozens of people.

who have won a book, plus they’ve given us their contact information, and some of them have requested further contact as well. And so at the end of the event, because the event was over at 1 p.m., then we divvied up all of these among the church members and say, you know what to do, because we had already prepared them on what to do. And so, personally call and say, hey, Sally, I’ve got your book here, ⁓ you met me at the festival.

and I’ve got your book, Searching for Brandon Basin or whatever it was, and ⁓ I’m in your area. Are you home now where I could deliver this? And ⁓ then you go home, or you go to her home and you give her some cookies that you’ve baked and say, hey, here’s your book. Now I see on here that ⁓ you requested prayer support. What’s going on? What can we be praying for? Well, my cousin Devin just had emergency surgery and I’m really concerned about him. tell me a little bit about that.

Okay, we will certainly be praying for Devin. You mind if we pray for him right now and you pray with Sally on her doorstep and say, hey, could I share Devin’s name with the congregation, the whole church so that they could be praying for him too? And you do that and you make sure you follow up with that to make sure that the church is praying for Devin. And then you say, also, I noticed you didn’t mark this, but I still wanted to explain it to you. This free Bible study opportunity. I want you to know what that is so you know that it’s available and you explain how simple

personal Bible study is. And then you see how she responds. You might even say, I would love to study the Bible with you. But if she’s not interested, that’s fine. Say, hey, we’re gonna continue praying for Devin. And you let us know if you need anything else. All right, so you talk to her at the booth. You’ve called her on the phone. You’ve talked to her and prayed with her on the doorstep. And then a week later,

You call her again and you say, the entire church has been praying for Devin. I need to know, how is he doing? And then you carry on the conversation. You’ve had four points of contact. And I think every single time will increase her interest in spiritual matters and the willingness to study the Bible. Not only that, depending on the gift you gave her, maybe that gift itself is also going to teach her the gospel or increase her curiosity and so on.

And this has been the most effective way that we as a congregation have run one of these booths where almost every single person who walked by our booth had an opportunity to study the Bible. All right, you might be aware of house to house, heart to heart, and a program that you and the congregation can enroll in, and that’s called the New Movers Program. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, is that if you are enrolled in house to house, heart to heart, you ask them to also enroll you in the New Movers Program

And every single month you’ll receive a spreadsheet from them for all the names and addresses of people who have moved into your zip code in the past 30 days. And that spreadsheet is gold. You might have heard before that transitional times in life are the best opportunities to talk to people about studying the Bible. If someone’s going through a relationship change or they’ve just had a child or a job change, or if they’re moving to a new address,

What an opportunity that is, because they’re already going through change and you invite them to study the Bible and they’re already primed to say yes. And so house to house, heart to heart can give you a list of people who have moved into your community for the past 30 days. And look, you could make it as simple as, hey, ⁓ you knock on their door and you say, hey, Alan, I heard that you recently moved in. I just live over there and I’m with the local church of Christ and we would love to see you. Here are our meeting times. That’s fine.

but you could take it further. Show up with some cookies and say, hey, I know it’s weird for some stranger showing up, but I heard that you’re new to the community. Is that true? Well, where did you come from? All right, well, I want to let you know that my name’s Lance. Here are some cookies that my wife baked for you. I hope that you feel welcome in this community. I’ve lived here for X number of years, and I know what it’s like to move into a new community. Do you have questions about school zones or trash pickup or the best grocery store to get fried chicken?

how can we help you? And since you just moved, perhaps you have some boxes that you need help unloading or a truck that’s pulling in in a couple of days that you need help unloading. Can we do that for you? Or would you rather us like watch your pets or mow your grass while you’re taking care of some more important things? We’re just here to help. And they say we, who’s we? Well, my family. But also I want to let you know that I meet with the Church of Christ just at this address over here. And we are here for you. You know,

I don’t know if you’ve recently moved to a new location, but anybody can get ahold of this information. And what’s going to happen is that they’re receiving all of these things in their mail or people knocking on their door saying, Hey, you’re new to the community. Sign up to my internet service. Sign up for my new telephone program. Sign up for this and pay this and buy this. But that’s not you. What you’re doing is you’re saying, Hey, how can I help? By the way, I’m a local member of the church and we are here to help you.

And here are some of the things that we offer for free and we just want to give, give, give. That can be a great breath of fresh air for these people. And then of course you give them the opportunity to study the Bible. Speaking of going door to door, I know a lot of people these days are saying that door knocking doesn’t work anymore. I say hogwash. The last four campaigns that I’ve led, two out of the country and two in the country, I have had to ask the door knockers to stop knocking doors a few days.

before the campaign was over because we had set so many Bible studies that I was afraid that the local workers would be overwhelmed and would not be able to follow up with this. This is not bragging on our ability, but I do think that there are certain ways that are more effective than others in door knocking. Now, one of the easy ways to go door knocking is saying, hey, we’ve got a gospel meeting coming up. It starts tomorrow night. We would love to see you there. Have a great day. But that is leading.

with the invitation. It’s fine if you want to schedule a door knocking campaign around a special event that gives people good reason to go out into their community. But when I lead door knocking campaigns in that way, I don’t lead with the invitation, I leave people with an invitation. You can try this this week even if there isn’t a special event coming up. You might just have information about the meeting times for your church, but don’t lead with the invitation, leave with the invitation. What you lead with is a conversation. Brother Kerry talked about this.

I think it was Monday when he talked about having a conversation with somebody at the door. But I know a lot of people aren’t prepared to just strike up a conversation. They don’t know what to say and it’s a bit awkward. Of course you can always say, hey, my name is Lance, may I ask you a question? And that would be bit awkward, but that would work. A stranger at the door saying that. But here’s what we do is I’ll say, hey, my name is Lance and this is John. We are conducting a community survey. Could we borrow a couple seconds of your time to ask you just a few questions?

And most people say, yeah, because, and you might even say, hey, we’re not selling anything, we’re just asking a couple of questions, an anonymous survey. And then most people will give you permission. And they might even ask though, you what kind of survey? Hey, I’ll just give you the first question, that’ll give it away, and you let me know if you want to proceed. And the first question on the survey is, how many Bibles do you have in this home, including installed on electronic devices? And they might give you a number, hopefully they will.

And then at that point, you actually fill in that number because one thing that this is going to benefit you with later on is if you keep track with the area where you’re knocking, you can say, well, this area is very religious. This area is not religious at all. And that can give you a direction to go with your door knocking in the future. But you do write how many Bibles they have. And then the second question on the survey is, in the last year from today, how many times have you personally visited a religious service? They might.

Clarify saying well do weddings and funerals count sure and they give you a number you write that down in the second slot And I’m referencing the the sheet on the left side of the screen right now You see all those little boxes there are three there the two slashes giving you three little slots alright so all of those boxes each box represents ⁓ Represents a home and you’re gonna have three questions for each home alright, and then you say the last question on the survey is

Which of these questions do you find most interesting? A, can we know there is a God? B, will most people go to heaven? C, what’s my purpose in life? And if you need to clarify, you can, let them know you’re not asking them to answer these questions, just choose one as most interesting to them. And then they’ll give you an answer and you write that down and you put your arms to your side to let them know that the rest of the conversation is not on record. It was an anonymous survey.

But then you say, thank you so much for sharing with me. This is very helpful information. Before I leave, I do have one follow-up question. You chose C, what’s my purpose in life, as the most interesting of these questions. Why is that so interesting to you right now in life? And then they might start talking about it and you ask a couple more questions, but eventually you simply say, I would love to study the Bible with you about that topic. They just told you they’re interested in it and now you’re telling them you’ve got

directions on how to find the answer to it, it sets Bible studies better than any other door knocking event or approach that I’ve ever heard. And by the way, I’m a curator. None of this stuff is original to me. I’ve just picked it up along the way and I found this to be very effective. And so if somebody is interested in prayer support or personal Bible study, that’s when the form on the right comes into play. That’s when you fill that out as well so that you make sure you’ve got information on how, when, and where you’re going to conduct this personal Bible study.

All right, perhaps you’ve heard of the little free libraries that are all around communities these days, or sometimes they’re called blessing boxes. That’s a great opportunity for you to leave tracks or books or Bibles or just a little handwritten note saying, you’re seeking blessings, I’m happy to help you find them. If you need anything, let me know, or free personal Bible studies or something like that. And so this is just another opportunity to plant a seed and walk away and see if it takes.

So, going back to Acts chapter 8 verse 4, therefore those who were scattered, they went. Alright, they went where? Everywhere preaching the word. Where are people today? We can say that they are all over the world. They are in all kinds of different countries, almost 200 different countries, and so many different languages and so on. Where are people? You know where else people are? They are on their phones or on the internet. And you know this just as much as I do because you’re part of

this group of people who are on the internet all of the time. So let’s not neglect the opportunity to preach the gospel on the internet. And brother Joey and brother Paul talked about that on Thursday. And they did not exhaust the ways that we can reach people with the internet. But I recommend that you use some of the things that they talked about. One of the things that I’ve done as well is I’m a part of Facebook groups that allow public posting, whether it’s a community group,

or whether it’s an interest group, whether it’s from my local town or whether it’s because I like the Lord of the Rings. But most of you, if you’re on Facebook, you’re part of individual groups that allow you to post publicly. And I’ve done this before. I’ll say, hey, I’m planning on having a Bible study at 7 p.m. Central time. Comment below for the Zoom link. And you might get some individuals who are interested in that, maybe five or six people who are interested in this personal Bible study that you’re setting up on Zoom. How cool is that? And they show up.

And then you just start this Bible study and make it a very generic one on who is Jesus or ⁓ what is the Bible or what’s the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament. And you pay attention to people’s interaction. And by the way, notice this, says comment below or you could say private message me for the Zoom link. And then once the Bible study is over, you take note of the people who actually showed up.

and maybe Jasmine showed up and she was nodding along and asking questions. Well, you know what you do with that from moving forward. Of course, you could schedule another group Bible study like this, but you also reach out to Jasmine and say, hey, thanks so much for your participation tonight. I noticed you had a lot of good questions. And one of my favorite things to do in life ever, ever, ever is to have personal Bible studies with individuals. And if you’re a male and you’re reaching out to a woman, you could say my wife and I love to have personal Bible studies. ⁓

Would you be interested in studying with my wife and me just one on one so that we could ask or you could ask your own personal questions rather than a group setting that is a little bit intimidating and see where that goes and turn that into a personal Bible study. We’re looking for opportunities and being resourceful. Here is my wallet. I don’t know how well you can see that because of the small video, but this is the wallet I keep in my pocket. That’s a little air tag in case I lose my wallet. But one of the things I love about this wallet is I don’t use much cash, so I don’t need a billfold.

but it keeps all my cards, loyalty cards, debit cards, whatever, but it has this little clip and I think that’s meant for money. But I don’t use it for money. I use it for business cards because I have this in my pocket, my left pocket always, and I always have three different business cards in this order. I always have Topical Bible Studies, my YouTube channel, and then my personal card, and then the local church’s card. And I’m no longer part of the Chalmette Church because I’ve moved out of that area.

But it’s now the Estes Church that I’m a part of. And so depending on how I go in a personal conversation, if I’m having a conversation with somebody, I already know, okay, which card am I going to leave them with? And maybe you could do the same thing, even if you don’t have three options, always have some kind of card with you that points to the local church, or at least your personal information that ⁓ gives people the invitation for a personal Bible study. By the way, all right, this video,

is now about 48 minutes long. Thank you for sticking with me. Brother Brian, you’re not over here telling me it’s time, so I’m just gonna keep on going. But by the way, this is a shameless plug for my YouTube channel. It’s called Topical Bible Studies. You see that there on the center where we pursue God’s truth together. And we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of videos that go into deep questions that people ask Google and YouTube about the Bible.

and we’ve recently released videos on what it means to be a lukewarm Christian and what if the wrong person baptizes you and the word homosexual in the Bible or whether or not the Bible’s been corrupted. We’ve got so many different videos on there, check it out. And it might be helpful for you in your personal evangelism as well. And so anyway, this is just me being resourceful. And if I’m not having a conversation with somebody and I go to the gas pump and nobody’s around me, well, you know what I do is I cover up that Pepsi advertisement.

and put a little card there for the next person who shows up to that gas pump. And so I always keep these cards with me and I have extras in my car so that the moment I use one of them, I can replace it because I have no idea who I’m gonna talk to next. So remember that as we go, we are preaching the word of God. We are preaching the gospel and we need to be resourceful. We need to think about where God wants us geographically and how we can meet people.

where they are spiritually. John chapter four, Jesus, he’s talking to his disciples after that interaction with the woman at the well. And he says, do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white for harvest. Here’s one of the things that I hear a lot of Christians say. I don’t hear them say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest, but I hear them say there are yet four months and then comes the

VBS and that’s when we’ll be evangelistic or there yet four months and then I’ll be finished with this school of evangelism and I’ll have that certificate and then I’ll be evangelistic ⁓ as somebody who’s taught at Friedhardeman University’s missions program or somebody who has spent ⁓ Ten years on the mission field on a foreign field people have asked me You know what what can I do to get ready for the mission field and here’s the thing that I would say to them

And even if you are not planning to be a full-time missionary, I would still say it to you, is be evangelistic now. You might be thinking about your future and moving to another country and planting churches where the church is not. That’s fantastic. Again, we need more and more people to do that. But there’s no switch on the airplane. I guess they’ve removed them all because no airplane I’ve ever been in has this switch. Evangelism on. You can’t just turn it on.

when you’re on the airplane. No, you need to be working it now because if you’re not evangelistic now, what makes you think that you’re gonna be evangelistic when you land on the mission field? Well, see how that applies to your personal life, even if you’re not going to be a full-time missionary. All right, I will go ahead and wrap this up and give you no conclusion whatsoever. Just say, hey, that’s the end of the lesson and I hope it’s been helpful to you. Thank you, Florida School of Preaching.

everybody who’s been involved in this lectureship. was absolutely fantastic and I’m looking forward to the future ones. God bless you all and go with the gospel.