We have been blessed this year that in the business of the season we were able to have a group of ladies come over one day last week and bring baked goods.  And although we were able to taste test the goodies this was an effort to consider others & reach out to those whom need encouragement and whom need Christ this Christmas Season.

The ladies pre-baked their goodies and brought them over and were able to divvy up all of the cookies to make a combination platter for 5 neighbors each.

The next effort was husband and wife taking these treats to the neighbors, and I can say that we had several neighbors who were seemingly shocked by the gesture.  We pray that this simply had an impact for Christ, that it is out of the overflow of our love for Christ love men and women.  There was no bible verse painted on each cookie, or even a card with a verse yet we had our phone number in hopes that if there is a need that we might be called.  We will follow up as ‘Evangelism’ is in the air for so many in the North East and we are hopeful that these are just relational building blocks for Kingdom conversations in the future.  To give goodies and not give the gospel is not the Great C omission, thus we continue to pray for everyone here and in each of our neighborhoods that they may know Christ, and that we may be used.  We were not the only ones to participate in this and thus the ladies were able to fellowship and have a good time contemplating their neighbors and neighborhoods and how to be intentional about sharing Jesus.  Each one will present these things differently in their own way, yet with the common goal in mind to tell others about the good news.

These are not the only ideas this Christmas, that we’ve discussed either.  There have been discussions of making phone calls to people whom you haven’t had time to communicate with, or people whom you’ve had conflict with in the past for the explicit purpose to share Christ, and seek reconciliation.

One of the discussions we had with our children in regards to Christmas was to encourage them to consider Jesus and what God our father gave by giving His son.   It is from this sense of God’s courageous giving of His own son that we find in Acts 20:35, the verse regarding Jesus saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”   This is a giving we have no context to understand entirely, those closest we get is to imagine giving up our children.  This spectacular giving

Some other ideas were:

• * Sending Individual Christmas Cards with hand written notes telling the other party about God’s grace you see in their life, leaving a door open for prayer if they are ever in need.

• * It sounds old fashioned but consider Christmas Caroling. It only takes three or four people; a bass, tenor, alto, and soprano, to go Christmas caroling, and most carols draw attention to Christ. This can be an outreach in and of itself. Be intentional about who’s homes you go to etc and bring a gift for each house.

• * Write old friends who knew you before you were saved, and write to them your testimony.  Tell them about what Jesus has done, but know that this also needs to ask the question about them, and where they are at spiritually.  It’s not until you go from first person to second person in your testimony, that the Gospel question is being put to them in a personal way.

• * Invite someone who is spending Christmas alone to celebrate it with your family. Include him or her in family traditions and activities centered on Christ.

There are many other things one could do but the objective here more than any other time of year is to combat the inate selfishness which comes with this season of the year, in which our culture has made this about receiving, and replace this me receiving attitude with one of giving to others, and especially giving the gift of the Gospel to others!

Paul Washer Open Air Preaching in Lima (English Subtitles) from I’ll Be Honest on Vimeo.

Jim Bublitz explains the style of “The Way of The Master” evangelism, the pros and the cons of Ray Comforts style. I have always been always a little wary of The Way of the Master stuff because of my fear of it being disingenuous and insincere when sharing Christ.  God’s not a gimmick or even for sale.  However they have some great ways to equip believers in an non rote manner and confront them with the truth of the bible. As always cling to the good and throw out the bad. Here’s the article enjoy!

Mailbag: “The Way of the Master” Evangelism?

Jim: My church is really pushing “The Way of the Master“. I’m having a little trouble with the “confrontational method” utilized by Comfort and Cameron. I’ve never met anyone that will stay in a conversation like some of the people shown in the videos. Most of the people I’ve approached using similar methods tell me to get lost within a minute or two. I have a hard time believing that people are converted on the street with the ease it seems to portray. Do you have any comments or opinions? Am I underestimating God and the power of the Gospel? –Keith

Keith, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve decided to answer your question in a blog post, but I thought others might benefit from this conversation as well. What follows is just my opinion, and I’m sure that others will disagree with what I have to say on this one.

Years ago, I was a huge “Ray Comfort junkie”; everywhere I went I handed out his tracts, and I took people through his evangelism outline. I had all of his videos, and audios, and up until recently – the place where I get my hair cut had one of Ray Comfort’s “million dollar bill tracts” that I gave them, tacked up on their wall

As you know, Ray Comfort (and The Way of the Master) teach you to evangelize using the law (the 10 commandments). That’s the heart of his evangelism method, and that part is really good. I still use this approach when I have an opportunity to share the Lord with someone.

Using the law is old time evangelism, the way it used to be done. Ray Comfort admits to swiping this approach from the great evangelists and preachers of the past. When you read his books, you’ll see him constantly quoting many Calvinist soul winners from past centuries (Spurgeon, Whitefield, Pink, etc). A few weeks ago, I wrote a John Bunyan posting based on The Pilgrim’s Progress, which essentially teaches the same thing Ray Comfort teaches today. Bunyan wrote that way back in the 17th century.

Ray Comfort is correct in asserting that using ‘the law’ is a lost key of evangelism today. Where is that in Evangelism Explosion, or Bill Bright’s 4 spiritual laws? I have a huge box sitting here next to me, filled with many hundreds of sample tracts from various tract publishers; almost none of them mention the 10 commandments. So I’m delighted that Ray has gone back in time and brought forward the use of the law in evangelism, which is biblical. I encourage everyone to check out his website and see how he uses the law.

Now on to the things that I don’t particularly care for, in The Way of The Master. After a while, it started to bother my conscience that I was handing out tracts that employed deception as a means of bait. The idea is, most people won’t take a normal tract when you hand it to them, so if we give them something that looks like ‘money’ or a magic trick or a pamphlet of jokes, then people will take it from you. Somewhere on each of those
tricky tracts, there is a Gospel message hidden, where the reader will find it later (long after you are gone). It’s a bit of a bait and switch, and often with Ray’s tracts – the most important message in the universe is packaged in something wacky, corny, or gimmicky in my opinion. In a different sort of way, it smacks of the pragmatism that the Church Growth Movement uses, when they (for example) put a NASCAR stock car in their church parking lot on a Sunday morning, to get people to come to church, and – oh by the way . . . listen to a sermon too.

Another concern that I have with the way this evangelism method is often implemented, is typical for today. The person you are witnessing to is sometimes encouraged to do something that will cause themselves to become born again. That’s the modern error of Decisional Regeneration (you make a decision for Christ, and then you are saved). There’s a fine line here that we must walk in our evangelism. We want to put the onus on them to come to Christ (believe and repent), but we don’t want to give them the impression that they can decide to “choose Christ” anytime they want (ie: on their death bed) and their salvation will then be triggered by their mere act of ‘decision’.

You can modify (improve) Ray Comfort’s evangelism outline however, by encouraging the unbeliever to come to Christ in a way similar to what Charles Spurgeon did. If you scroll down on this page, you’ll find one of Spurgeon’s invitations to come to Christ. In a nutshell, he gave people the impression that there is nothing they can do to save themselves. That whole page is worth reading, as it deals with this topic of Decisional Regeneration.

Keith, I know that I haven’t answered your question yet, so I’ll try to do that now.

You are asking about whether this evangelism method is too confrontational, and whether the videos make it look too easy. I’m sure that the videos represent the best of their evangelism attempts. One can only imagine the ratio of rejections to successes. But they are just trying to show you how well it can work, since these are training videos after all.

I personally don’t think that anything Ray Comfort does is too confrontational. We live in a world where people are going to hell all around us, and that should cause us to strive in our personal witnessing. 2 Corinthians 5:11 says
“Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others“.
We don’t just talk to them, we don’t just recite a pre-recorded message and then leave, we try to persuade them. So, whereas I don’t think you should be aggressive to the point of being rude or highly disruptive, I do think it would be good for most of us to be more assertive with the greatest message that man can possibly hear.

I think there is some value in “street witnessing”, but we must also remember that we are commanded to make disciples, not do “hit and run evangelism”. Some might say that the book of Acts is filled with street witnessing, but I think Paul was in the habit of staying for a while, in the places that he street witnessed.

There are other issues that I could get into, such as Ray Comfort’s unfortunate decision to participate on TBN, and when (and whether) tracts are a legitimate means of fulfilling the great commission, but I’ll leave those issues up for debate in the comment section below.

I will say this in favor of The Way of The Master, if Christians everywhere switched to this type of evangelism, it would be a huge improvement over what typically takes place today, and there would be far fewer false converts. Ray Comfort is not afraid to talk about sin, God’s wrath, punishment, and even “the H-word”; these are subjects too often avoided in modern churches.

Keith, if I did not adequately address your questions, please let me know, in the comments below.

On a humorous note, I just noticed that Ray Comfort has a new Billion Dollar Bill with Spurgeon on it instead of a president. I may have to get some of those to use as book markers. Also, I can not even begin to tell you how many females that I have scared with this jumping insect that Ray Comfort sells. We have family videos of me terrifying my wife’s friends with it:-)

Today started off innocent enough, we are preparing for our annual BYBC (Back Yard Bible Club) out of our home next week. One of the things I’ve noticed from living in the city for a few years now is the fact that when we moved down here, it was to bring Christ into this place. It was to bring light into darkness.

However one of the things that our flesh automatically does without our taking notice, is it has us in the same routines we used to do when we lived in the suburbs. In other words, we have not been engaged in the city like we should. We would often eat out in restaurants outside of the the North East, and do most of our shopping outside of the north east. I would go to work and come home. This is what most of America does, we live in these compartments of comfort and safety and we have been no different.

My family and I started the day off by considering these things, and making our way to Budd Park city pool not too far from our home, in order to be intentional. We have always managed to find the ability to swim outside of the city because often it’s been outside of what we know and our comfort zone. However today we went there with the intension of passing out flyers for the back yard bible club next week. I was surprised when there were several there who seemed interested especially one Hispanic man and his son.

Budd Park Public Pool

It was a small pool but the whole family enjoyed themselves and well I got a little too much sun. Regardless we were able to pass out several flyers for the BYBC and we are hopeful some might come. May we continue to pray for the families we spoke to as well.

And then if I didn’t have enough I spoke with a friend of mine who’s in our shepherding group and he came over for dinner this evening. Things went very well at the pool so I asked him if he would go down to Independence Avenue with me. Little did I know what we would encounter as we went out to share Christ. We prayed and both of us having a conversation of this to be genuine sharing Christ and we desired that it not be just something wrote or disingenuous, but that the Holy Spirit would empower His people to share His Grace.

The first guy we ran into started speaking about terrestrials, and he was speaking to himself in the air before we got there. He spoke of uncloaking people. We did the best we could to speak to him but he was not receptive, we gave him a book Pursuing God—A Seeker’s Guide and just then another gentleman walked up to us probably late 20′s with a baseball cap, white guy with gold fronts. He was wanting to go “kick it” somewhere and just then Bobby mentioned that we are here to share the gospel with him. We let him speak for quite a while, it was a bi-polar conversation, and just as there was a crack for us to make our way in the bus came and he took off, yes with a book as well.

As we began to walk down the street slowly looking around finally we crossed, and there was a guy who we attempted to speak to, asking him “do you know who Jesus Christ is?” he replied, ” that’s a funny question because I think you know who I am” and then he walked off. We by this time were perplexed about our encounters.

Until we came down the block and as I prayed I was wondering if we’d encounter anyone who’s conscience wasn’t so seared by the things of this world so that they could hear a crying out for them to believe on Jesus Christ that they might be saved.

Right about this time we see this woman sitting right about where the back of this white car is now. We asked her simply, ” Did she know who Jesus was?” Almost in an instant her eyes welled up with tears. This poor haggard woman was probably in her early to mid 40′s. She had kind of colored reddish brown hair. She had one top tooth and her bottom teeth were black and crooked. She looked worn from drugs, abuse, possibly prostitution at some point.

Bobby and I weren’t prepared for the conversation that we had next. She said yes she knows who Jesus is, and she said that she believes in Jesus. I have counseled and spoken to dozens of addicts who say Jesus and then they love the world. This woman was different. I don’t have the conversation verbatim, however one of the first things she said is that, “God chooses people and he hasn’t chosen me.” She said she married a Christian man at the age of 33 and lived as a believer for 5 years, and gave her whole heart to God, but God would never free her from her addictions. She had heard countless stories and seen them of how people came into churches and were saved and then freed from their addiction but she’s cried and pleaded to God to free her, and she said all the immoral things I do, I’ve asked him to take it from me and he just won’t. If you could see the pain and agony in her tears, the worn face, and the tired and probably high countenance.

We had never encountered someone who had in a sense “right” doctrine and saw that in spite of her incessant crying out to God, she could not free herself, and He seemingly to her, would not help her. Bobby comforted her with these words, if you had to live in torment all the days of your life, and in agony, and pain, would your faith be worth it, is God whom you trust in? She insisted that she believes in God and that she will until the day she dies, but He has not chosen her, and so she’s given up. I tried to point her to the fact that as long as she has breath it’s not too late, and that even right now if God’s in control of everything, that us meeting her in that very moment was His purposed plan to call her back out of darkness into light.

Bobby had more words of comfort for her in the sense that he has experience with similar situations and to be truthful we were shown a glimpse of a perspective that we knew was out there but never had anticipated an articulation of theology from an addict on the streets. I pray that God will use this meeting with Donna to bring her to Himself, I’ve never seen anyone so seemingly desperate for God, and honest about it since I’ve been down here.

This was an encounter I will never forget. I’m sure Bobby won’t either, and it’s a wake up call to sitting, living compartmentally, socially detracted, and distracted from the movement of the Gospel to move men and women to engage the people around them.

We pray soon that we’ll make this a regular practice and we’ve picked out a starting point on Independence Avenue. For those of you that don’t know Independence Avenue is one of the most difficult places in Kansas City MO in regards to sin and crime. I’m still processing through everything that happened tonight so please forgive me if I’ve not articulated well, or that I leave any theological cliff hangers dangling because these are things that when they are on paper, and in the pages of books they can seem very comforting, and trustworthy but this increased God’s enormity in my life this evening in the sense that I am nothing before Him but an instrument. I hope an instrument that He might use to people to really engage people who are not like themselves.

For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. -1 Corinthians 9:16-23

If anyone knows me I don’t use this passage to justify being like the world but I view this passage as having to know and be engaged in peoples life, in their context for the genuine purpose, like Paul, to Share Christ with the lost.

So I charge all of you to pray for Donna, the lady we met this evening! And then I challenge all of you to look up, and see what we’re missing when it comes to lost souls!!!

The same savior that saved you desires for others to make disciples as an imperative in Mathew 28, in an authentic genuine way that will bring honor and Glory to His name.

If you’re interested in sharing Christ on Independence Avenue we will be doing it again next week starting here.

Please hit the contact button or reply to the e-mail that’s sent to you!

Now after having watch such a skit the one thing that sticks out in my mind, is that it depicts God as being very weak. He’s tugging on the rope to get you from your sin, as if God is even on the same level as Satan or sin itself, as if he’s not in control. I mourn to some degree because this depicts God, although he wins in the end it seems to point to man’s always continual striving toward God until finally they reach salvation. I suppose in some sense there’s truth in this, that we are always in a struggle against indwelling sin until we meet Christ again but the soteriology of the message is that Man chooses to come to God, at the same time God is tugging on the rope and defeats sin.

The doctrine of regeneration from the old testament is Ezek. 36:26-27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

We are simply out of order in our understanding. THe only reason we do anything other than sin is this;

1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

The bible tell us that unregenerate man is born spiritually stillborn or dead. If salvation were dependent upon him to have a godly repentance and/or a “saving” faith he would be entirely without hope. The unregenerate sinner is not just weak, or sick, or injured, he is totally DEAD! There is no hope for him apart from unconditional divine intervention of the Holy Spirit regenerating His soul.

But see this is God’s Choice, God is sovereign not man as much as we like to believe that it’s our choice and our striving toward Him we must get to the place where we repent not from the sin but from disgracing our Heavenly father. We are not simply escaping hell but we are loving God.

John 5:21
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

But the ultimately this is God’s choice, he is not a weak Jesus tugging a rope trying to get you away from your sin, HE IS GOD and in absolute control. Our God should not be this small or this weak in His will, it wouldn’t be a six minute ordeal as depicted in the video, if God wanted to blast your sin it would be in His will and in His time.

May it never be that we show God’s ability as weak in salvation, although God did come as a man and lowered Himself to be a man among us yes, does that make His sovereignty, in His ability to save us as depicted partially unable? “God struggling to get to us?”

Sin understood is a means by which God uses to point us to the cross, this was not the picture I got of repentance, of Faith….

I do not think so, may God grant us a true revelation of His sovereignty and His power and His ways, may he help us see Him for who He is despite ourselves and our poor understandings of what Grace is in how the God of the universe saves men.