The Gospel at Street Level

We often urge others to be evangelists, get out the gospel, be a witness, and so on. Most Christians would agree that our business is the Great Commission, but we often struggle with how to put it into practice. There are various barriers naturally in place that may seem insurmountable. For example, as an employee, I have an obligation to my boss for my time at work. If I use his time for my mission, he could take offense, either at my disrupting his workplace by talking to others who would rather not, or simply by robbing him of his time, when he is paying me to work, not witness. And lately, many workplaces have employed remote workers, where the “team” only gets together in the office occasionally, a bit more often on Zoom (or similar), but there is no real time for casual conversations about anything. I’ve worked various secular jobs over the years, in support of my ministry, and I fully sympathize with those who want to be a witness but find barriers like these.

We used to have “soul-winning night” at our churches, where the most zealous would go out and knock on doors or follow up on visitors cards and the like. Those ministries bore fruit in their time, but our culture increasingly resists any attempts like this. Over twenty years ago I was talking about this with a fellow who later served on the foreign field with Baptist World Mission, the agency I also once served under. At the time, he was in California’s Bay Area and asked me a question I’ve long pondered. “How,” he said, “can we do door to door here where you can’t even get to the door? Most homes have gates and intercoms that keep you many feet from the actual door.” It’s a real problem. In my city, we don’t have the gates and intercoms problem, but we have a lot of “No Soliciting” signs and often hostile receptions at the doors. Though we have done it, very little success is had in the “cold call” approach to evangelism. (And in the post-Covid world, people seem even more suspicious of strangers.)

So how should we go about our business? Several things occur to me that could help us. They come from various sources. The first one I’ll mention comes from a pair of articles and comments on Sharper Iron, “What Makes a Ministry Appealing? (Part 1) | SHARPER IRON” and “What Makes a Ministry Appealing? (Part 2) | SHARPER IRON.”

The articles are geared toward the pastor, but we should also make application to all of us. Paul Scharf urges us to “know your audience” in the sense of where they are in their understanding so you know how to tailor your message for their needs. Next, he says, “know your subject,” where he speaks of knowledge and preparation so you can deliver interesting messages. Years ago, when I was a Realtor, I went to a sales seminar where the topic of “For Sale By Owner” came up. The “FSBO” is a prime target for the Realtor, he is already answering your first question, “do you want to sell your house?” However, most Realtors are afraid to stop and talk to them. The trainer said the reason we don’t stop is because we don’t know what to say. I’m afraid this is true of most of our soul-winning. We don’t know what to say. So, we say nothing. (At least we get the results one should expect from saying nothing.) We really do need to grow in our knowledge of the glorious gospel of Christ, so we know what to say. The more we know to say, the easier it is to say it.

The third thing mentioned here is “know your people.” This is different from “know your audience” – that has to do with gauging their level of understanding. Knowing people simply means, knowing individuals as individuals. Remembering names. Knowing little details of lives. Asking how the kids are doing, or the business, or the hobby, or whatever. The more we get to know people the better we can be at connecting and communicating with them.

One of the commenters mentioned keeping names in a “people file” in his tablet so that he could have warm conversations with others, knowing their names and a bit about them, so he can talk personally with them about what is going on in their lives. This is valuable simply within a church fellowship, but what if you tried to remember the people you run into in your daily life and became a friend to them because you knew a bit about them?

This brings me to another thing. How do we meet people? Well, you have to go where the people are. We will have a podcast in a couple of months where I feature an article by a pastor friend in Utah. He has done everything, and used it to connect with his communities, win souls, plant churches, and disciple Christians. He’s just gotten involved in activities that involve him with people. Sometimes these involve volunteering in the community in various ways, but it makes a way for you to gain the confidence of people you get to know and get involved with.

An elderly man in our church does something like this. He calls it his “Tim Hortons ministry.” (Tim Hortons is the Canadian meeting place. They are everywhere, deeply embedded in our culture.) Fred is in his eighties, but he goes to Tim Hortons and introduces himself to people. He gets to know them and invites them to church, giving the gospel as he can. Of course, many don’t respond, but the last two Sundays saw visitors at our church from Fred’s Tim Hortons ministry. We hope these contacts will come to the Lord and grow.

The last thing I will mention is this: We have to be much more interested in people than we are in getting our gospel presentation across. When I was learning gospel presentations (which have a place in our development) I was so worried about forgetting what I was supposed to say next that I am afraid my gospel presentations made me sound like a “used-car salesman” (no disrespect, I was one of those once, too!). What we need to do is to learn how to talk to people, ask them questions, get them talking about themselves and what interests them, so we can find ways of introducing the gospel to the conversation. Our own life should be so full of the Bible that it spills out in our normal conversations. The gospel will come, perhaps bit by bit, as we try to connect with people where they are.

Much more could be said, and I wonder if I am the person who should say it. I invite readers to share things they have done to reach people in the comments section. In addition, if you have a lot to say on the subject, we could perhaps turn it into a future article here on P&D.

May the Lord make us better evangelists, every one of us, wherever we are.

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Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.