“Ok, today we are going to do some door-knocking,” said fearless mission leader Sam this morning.
There was a ripple of excitement around the room. Actually, it may have been a ripple of fear and dread.
I put up my hand. “I don’t think, uh, God has called me to this ministry.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine, Craig.”
And so, with a brief prep, we hit the streets. A few weren’t home, a few said “no thanks” when they saw what we were about. Then we met Carly. She was sitting in front of her house with a couple of small children playing around her feet.
We entered the yard and I said, “Hi, I’m Craig and this is Soph. We’re working with a couple of local churches on the ‘Ultimate Relationship’ week. You may have seen our advertising. Do you have a couple of minutes to discuss the ‘ultimate relationship’?”
To my surprise she said “yes”. This threw me for a moment, then I was back on track. “Great,” I said. “Look, the Bible teaches us that the ultimate relationship we can have is with God. Do you have a relationship with God?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to think so.”
“Can I take a couple of minutes to go through a few diagrams I know that explain what the Bible teaches about God?”
“Sure,” she said. And so I took her through Two Ways to Live on her front lawn. Carly was very positive. She said she wanted Jesus to be her saviour and that she wanted to get involved with a church. I left her with invitations to two of the events we were running this week and she said she would definitely attend. The local churches will also follow her up after the mission team has left.
Now, on this blog I’ve sometimes exaggerated things for comic effect, but that is pretty much exactly the conversation I had with Carly just a few hours ago. Quite amazing. There is a spiritual hunger out there and sometimes we just need to ask.
As we debriefed today, I realised that the conversations we are having door-to-door will be enormously beneficial in terms of my personal witness at home and at work. Confidence and skill have both been greatly enhanced. We have a few more days of door-knocking ahead and I’m sure there will be plenty more good stories.
