This is the Truth Network. They are known in Christian circles as door knocking campaigns. That's right. The couple believers go out in pairs. They knock on the door and they just say hello.
We just want to talk to you about the Lord. They try to find some common ground. And I just sat down to coffee with a pastor. Pastor, now, I almost fell over. You had to almost catch me there.
Did you say your church has been doing a door knocking campaign? We have totally gone retro. Churches used to do this all the time. The churches I grew up in did it all the time, Good Baptist churches, and we called it visitation back in the day. A Monday night visitation or whatever it was.
And I don't know why, Stu, they've stopped doing it. I don't know if it was the church growth movement or if it was the, you know, you're going to grow your church exponentially and it's more attractional. You do things, you draw the people. That is not New Testament. That is not how the early church multiplied.
They went out. You we gather to worship, we go out to witness. And so we've gone old school at our church, the Lamb's Chapel, and we train people. with a program, the Southern Baptists did it years ago, it's called Faith. It's largely defunct, you can't even buy the materials.
We've had to reassemble them on our own, and we've taught people an evangelism outline, and they go out in teams of three. And sometimes it's people who visited our church, sometimes it's newcomers to the community, and oftentimes it's a cold call, and you're knocking on a door and you're looking for an opportunity to share the gospel, and there's all kinds of fears as to why you should not do it. People are going to be offended or whatever. And it's just amazing the feedback that we've gotten and how excited people are to know that we care enough to go knock on their door. But we had one lady that got saved.
As a result. She was a single mom. She started coming. She got baptized. The day she got baptized, her little boy...
uh who's I don't know, maybe six, seven, something like that. He wanted to get baptized, which gave me an opportunity to sit down with him. And I led him to Christ. Her brother started coming. He's gotten saved.
He's getting baptized. Uh her her, I can't remember who else it is, but there's another guy in her family that they all live in her house. And this is how it is, you get one, you get the whole household. But it's a blessing and all glory to God.
So just to give some context and some setting, we are in a coffee shop. Pastor Scott Grimm is the pastor of Lamb's Chapel. Pastor Scott, now, what's the name of this coffee shop? Because we want to be careful not to spill it, spill our coffee here. What's the name of this place?
It's the best name for a coffee shop ever. It's Salvation Coffee.
So if we're really good. Really good coffee. Don't spill your coffee because you lose your salvation right here.
Okay, that's a joke. But it is really a cool place. And he starts telling me this. I had to start this.
Now, I interviewed Jason. Not too long ago at Thomas Road Baptist Church, and they did a little door-knocking campaign. Earlier this year, and he was just kind of blown away by the fact that why are we doing this? In the testimonies, and so thank you for doing that. Just challenge our listeners because your church, you know, you're faithfully teaching the word expositionally, the way God wrote the word.
What's God doing in your church, and how has this little door knocking adventure kind of sparked some growth and whatnot?
Well, we are seeing growth. But the really Whether or not you see the growth right away is not the point. The point is, we're commanded to do it. That's the point. And we're committed to making disciples.
And if we're not making disciples who share their faith, We're not really making disciples. Because a disciple makes disciples. It is a defining characteristic of what a disciple is: they reproduce their faith in others, and that begins with sharing their story, sharing who Christ is and what He's done. On a negative side, you know, I interviewed Fred Hagee, who wrote the book, Give Him Jesus. He's a soul-winning guy, just a great, great, deep southern accent, loves the Lord.
And Fred, in our interview, said that he's heard as high as 95% of believers have never led someone to Christ. And I think, I don't know, Pastor Graham, I want you to step into these kind of choppy waters with me. You could say, you could argue, well, I'm not DL Moody, I'm not Billy Sunday, I'm not Billy Graham, I'm not an evangelist, I'm not Pastor Scott. How am I going to do that? That may be one of the reasons.
What are some other reasons that we posture? As believers, we're not. Intentionally sharing the greatest message of all time with people that need Jesus. It's fear mainly. People don't share because they're afraid that somebody's gonna...
Reject them. And that's just an excuse. It's also, I think, that we've trained people that the church and the staff at the church is going to do everything for them. And we've created a real consumer Mentality among churchgoers: that you come, and at the most, we just want you to invite your friends, which is great. You see that in scripture, too.
You know, Andrew is a disciple that brought. People to Jesus constantly. But There's come and see evangelism and there's go and tell evangelism, and you gotta have them both. That's true. And so, as far as sharing your testimony, sharing the gospel, every believer needs to know how to do that.
It's not about It's not about gifting. It's about calling. and we're all called to do it.
So this is really just about being obedient. And yeah, it is a little scary sometimes, but we just have to step out and understand that our God is not the author of fear.
Well, I think about Ephesians 4:12, which says, you know, you're equipping the saints, and you're a pastor of a church. And you are not able to go be a physical therapist. You're not able to go deliver babies there at the maternity wing at the hospital. You're not, you know, swinging a cranking a wrench at the auto shop over here. You're not.
A coffee person here doing this work, this wonderful work at a coffee shop, or all you're not cutting hair at the barber shop, you're but you have all those people in your church.
So while you're not You're out there in the community, but you're not where the game. You can never go where they go, to the gyms, to the hospitals. To these, you know, to these industrial plants, textile, whatnot, you're equipping them.
So that they can go and be incarnational in that impact. Talk about how important that is and how that even challenges you to more deeper. and more crystal centrically Using a big word there, teach the word of God as God gave us the word to build them up so they can go. Amen. Most evangelism opportunities are not the cold call knocking on doors.
That's just sort of the marine mentality that we're building into our folks. But most of the time, it is through relationship that already exists. And we make a lot of excuses about, well, I don't want to be that abrasive, you know, street preacher guy that annoys everybody.
Well, you don't have to be. You already know. Umpteen different prospects that you could share the gospel with that already know and trust you because you built a relationship with them, and we have let those opportunities go by. Because we've just lulled ourselves into this consumer mentality as believers, that we go to church on the weekends, we get what we need, we live a generally moral life throughout the week. But we never really pick up the mantle and say, I'm going to share Christ, I'm going to share life-changing.
eternity changing information with somebody this week. Give us a starter, someone out there listening. They they want to do it, they want to, you know. They may not be at the knock and door step yet, but they want to be. Even transactionally or just in relationship with their neighbors, even.
You know, who is your neighbor?
Well, here's a great way to start. What's a good way, Pastor Scott, to get someone. thinking In a way, in a great commission mindset, like you're trying to challenge your folks to? If you already have a relationship with him, I don't think it's that difficult. I think they already there's a level of trust that's built up there.
Um you cannot go wrong with that that key question. Which is Either Uh When you die. Do you think you'll go to heaven? Or, if you stood before God and He said, Why should I let you into heaven? What would you say?
I mean, these are kind of the time-tested questions. And I know if you've never busted those out with somebody, you hear that, and you are petrified to do this. But I'm just telling you, try them out. and see what happens. Because they will give you one of three different types of answers.
They'll either give you the right answer, the faith answer, which is um Why should I let you into my heaven?
Well, you shouldn't because I'm a sinner, but I've trusted in Jesus Christ. That's a faith answer. That's the correct answer. They'll give you that answer or they'll give you a works-based answer.
Well, I'm a good person. I'm better than 90% of the people that are out there.
Something that is reflecting their own merit. That's a works answer, that's a wrong answer. Or they'll give you an honest answer and say, you know, I don't know. I have no idea how I'd answer that question.
Well any of those uh There's an open door there. If it's a faith answer, you can celebrate with them on the spot and get to know them, invite them to your church, see what the Lord's doing in their heart right now. If they give you a works answer, then you could say, Well, that's really interesting. Can I just share with you how the Bible would answer that question? And that you can go take them into Romans.
You can say, you know, the Bible says that the wages of sin. Is death, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And in Romans 6, it says the wages of sin is death.
So that presents a problem for us. I mean, the The Romans road is a time-tested, can't go wrong method. There's a lot of different methods out there. I'm not a. I'm not an apologist for any one method.
You can lead people to Christ in a number of different ways as long as you know the gospel, which is that Jesus died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised the third day according to the scriptures. And if you come to him by faith, you can receive grace. Not of works.
Wow, such a good news. A message that we need to get out there. There's a lot of people who've never heard that message, even right across the street, not much less around the world. Pastor Scott Grimm, Lamb's Chapel. Folks, get to a church that teaches the word and that sends people out, even if it means.
Knock, knock, because knock-knock isn't a joke, it's real. And you have an opportunity to go to the doors of folks and share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. And then we have a little website, share the truthnow.com. You can order all your free evangelism cards. It makes it so easy.
Just hand someone a card. QR code takes you to videos by guys like him that will encourage you and show you how to share your faith with the toughest nuts out there to give them the good news, to get them to Jesus. God bless you. Thank you, Pastor Scott, for hanging out with us, man. Amen.
Thanks, Stu. Enjoy your coffee. Yes, sir. Salvation Coffee here in the, I guess we're in Burlington area of North Carolina. True top.
