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Introduction: What
do you do after finishing Thanksgiving dinner? (Nap.) Why? Because
you are full. On the other hand, what do you do on days when you
skipped lunch, worked late, picked up junior at scouts, took him
to baseball, got stuck in traffic and finally got home at 11:30?
(Find something to eat.) Why? Because you are hungry. Satiation
and satisfaction lull us to sleep. But hunger motivates us to move
(Proverbs 16:26). I am
hungry right now. No, I am not looking for food. I am hungry to do
God’s will and save souls (cf.
John 4:34-38). Right now, while we sit in our comfortable
worship hall, lost people abound all over Franklin and middle
Tennessee. We run into them every day, at work, in our
neighborhoods, at the bank and the mall. We must not be satisfied
just to let them stay lost. We must not be lulled to sleep while
another soul still needs saving. I want some baptisms. I want more
growing Christians. Do you want that too? If you do, then allow me
to share with you what we have to do. We will begin by examining
the history of soul saving over the last 100 years. Then we will
note three lessons from that history to help us satisfy our hunger
to save the lost. Discussion: I.
Saving souls between 1900-1960
(Acts 17:21). A.
Because society was more rural and people did not travel as
far to worship with a church, there were more churches. However,
there were fewer preachers. Therefore, many churches made use of
circuit preachers, trying to make the most use out of them for
short intervals. This led to using the Gospel meetings that are so
famous. B.
This form of evangelism was well-suited to the times. After
working all day, most people did not have much to do in the
evenings. People would attend the meetings, no matter how they
felt about the church. C.
The success in this evangelism was due largely to the fact
that even though the preacher might make everyone mad on the first
night, the people would come back. They had nothing “better”
to do. This was much like Paul’s success in Acts
17:21-34. The people had nothing better to do than talk about
new things. Thus, Paul was able to teach and some obeyed. By the
end of a meeting, the guests had heard about Biblical authority,
the one church, worshipping in spirit and in truth, the plan of
salvation, heaven, hell and judgment. It was not unheard of to
have 20 baptisms or more during a Gospel meeting. D.
One major change took place in the 1950’s, bringing
success in soul saving through Gospel meetings to a stumbling
halt. The success of television gave people something to do.
People who were going to be successful soul savers had to learn a
new approach. II.
Saving souls between 1960-1980 (Acts
20:20). A.
In the 1960’s, those who were hungry did what it took to
save souls and discovered another successful method which again
fit the times: cottage meetings or one-on-one home studies. Much
like Paul did in Ephesus according to Acts
20:20, they taught from house to house. B.
According to my friend and student of church growth, Harold
Comer, cold call, door-knocking has never averaged more than about
one convert out of every 1000 visited. However, if the soul saver
had personal contact already and took some time to assess the
level of spiritual need and desire in his contact, then about half
the people he invited to have a home study would agree. C.
At this time, people found great success using film-strips
and 10 lesson plans. Approximately half of those who agreed to
study would complete the series. So, one out of every four offers
to study would result in a person completing the study. Many of
these would not be converted right away. However, of those who
completed the study about 70% would become Christians within five
years due to continued contact with good Christians. Thus, the
soul saver who qualified his contacts well would extend 40
invitations for home studies, 20 would agree, 10 would finish, and
within 5 years, 7 would be converted—many without seeing the
inside of the church building. III.
Saving souls from 1980 to the present (I
Corinthians 14:24; Acts 20:20). A.
However, in the last 23 years, society has changed even
more. First, longer work hours, more social activities and more
time-consuming entertainment venues have made people busier. Most
are unwilling to agree to lengthy series because of time
constraints. Secondly, televangelists and cult groups have made
folks skeptical of those who want to study the Bible. B.
Because of this skepticism and busyness, many Christians
believe people are just not interested in spiritual things.
However, there are people who know they have spiritual needs. We
just have to work harder to find them. Consider how ungodly Rome
was, yet, soul savers had success in Rome. So, now we have to
learn new methods of successful evangelism. C.
Those who are really hungry to save souls will find new
methods. Today, the method which seems to be working the best is
the contact meeting, a combination of the two previous methods.
Meetings and worship services play an important role in evangelism
today. However, people are rarely converted through those
assemblies. Instead, they are contacted through them. They like
what they see, so they return. As trust and relationships are
built through repeated visits, the soul saver invites the prospect
to have a study. Then the teaching house to house begins. D.
Here are the averages, based on church growth and
evangelism studies. Out of every 20 recommendations or
invitations, 1 will accept. That one will likely bring someone
with them. About 2 out of 10 visitors you invite to study will
eventually accept the offer. The ratio I have observed over the
past couple of years is half of those with whom we study will be
converted. That means if we offer 100 recommendations or
invitations, we will get 10 visitors, 1 of which will become a
Christian. IV.
What does this mean for us? A.
We need to be recommending and inviting. 1.
By recommending, I mean following the example of the woman
at the well in John 4:29.
She told people about what Jesus had done, encouraging them to
check it out. By inviting, I mean following the example of Philip
with Nathanael in John 1:46,
saying a simple, “Come and see.” Make your recommendations and
invitations simple. Do not scare your prospects by overwhelming
them. Just let them know they will be missing out on something
exciting and great if they do not check us out. 2.
Harold Comer does workshops on evangelism and church growth
all over the country. Every where he goes, he asks Christians
about how many recommendations they offer in a year. The average
is four or five. Remember it takes 100 invitations to find one
convert. At that rate, it would take a person 20-25 years to find
one person who will be converted. No wonder so few churches are
growing. 3.
Based on the averages, if each of us made just two
recommendations or invitations every week, we would double the
size of this congregation in one year. By the way, because people
learn more in Bible classes, if we make our Bible classes great
and focus our recommendations on them, the conversion ratios
double. B.
We must be more guest-oriented in our assemblies. 1.
Our worship services are not about our guests. They are not
even about us, the members. They are about humbling ourselves
before and worshipping the Almighty God. However, the scriptures
point out our assemblies affect our guests (I
Corinthians 14:23-25). 2.
There are two messages we give every guest. We give them
the explicit message, that is, what is actually taught. We also
give a value message, which is far more subtle. By our actions we
let our guests know how valuable we believe they are and how
valuable we believe what we are doing is. 3.
There are four factors in our value message. a.
The first factor in our
value message is our facilities. Did you know that most
of our guests decide whether or not they are coming back within a
few minutes of arriving on the parking lot? Are our facilities
kept up or run down? Are they orderly or unkempt? How we maintain
the facilities affects our guest’s opinion of us. If we do not
keep the facility in good order, we portray a message saying our
place of worship is not important to us. Therefore, our worship
must not be that important either. This is a lot like visiting a
restaurant. The food may be great but if the restrooms are filthy,
the tables greasy and we see roaches crawling on the walls; we are
not likely to go back. I am not suggesting we must build
cathedrals to draw people to Christ. Rather, I am saying we must
take care of the facilities with which God has blessed us to keep
from killing prospects. b.
The second factor is
friendliness.
i.
How can we convince a visitor
we love them enough to save their souls if we do not love them
enough to speak with them or help them find a class or a seat?
When the congregation is friendly, guests feel more at home. They
see a place they would like to come back to. Think of some time
when you were in a crowd of unfamiliar faces. How did you feel?
What could someone have said or done for you to set you more at
ease? For me, this is like going to a store. In Beaumont, I
frequented the hardware store that was more expensive because I
could always find someone who would help me when I needed it. ii.
Another aspect of this friendliness is working to make the
service itself guest friendly. Our guests have no idea what to
expect during our service. Those involved in leading the worship
need to help guests along. We must be careful of using “code
language.” That is, saying things that we understand, but no one
else does. For instance, preachers should not just extend
invitations for people to “obey the gospel” or just asking if
anyone “needs to respond to the Lord’s invitation.” We need
to explain what obeying the gospel means and what the Lord’s
invitation is. Finally, despite the convenience to us, our worship
services should not be used as the information passing venue it
has often become. We have bulletins, e-mails and phone chains with
which to get information to the congregation. When we spend 5 to
10 minutes of our service talking about insider
information—group meetings, get-togethers, even the sick (whom
few of our guests know), guests get the idea that what we are
doing is not for them at all. How do you react when you are around
a group of people who are all talking and you simply have no clue
what it is all about? Do you listen with interest? Do you look
forward to the next time you will be together? Of course not, it
is like they are some exclusive club and you are on the outside.
We want our guests to feel they are on the inside and welcome to
return. c.
Congregational
participation in worship and Bible class is the third factor. The
way we participate in worship tells our guests the value we place
on worship. If we half-heartedly sing, talk during the sermon and
Lord’s Supper, sleep, come in late, or in any other way show
that what is going on is not important to us, then our guests will
believe our worship is not that important for them either.
Secondly, if we are singing “I’m Happy Today,” but look like
we have been sucking on lemons, our guests will think, “Ya’ll
are liars. Why should I listen to anything you have to say?” Of
course, if we visit, sleep, or anything other than pay attention
to the sermon, our guest will think, “Wow, the members don’t
listen to what is taught, why should I?” However, if we are
excited and participate whole-heartedly, our excitement and high
estimation is passed on to our guests. d.
The fourth factor is the
preparation and excitement of those leading. If
Bible class teachers, song leaders, preachers or men serving the
Lord’s Supper act as if they would rather be anywhere but here,
what will our guests wish? If we who are speaking do not take time
to properly prepare for the sermon or talk, our guests will be
able to tell. If we who are leading the worship do not put much
thought into what is going on, our guests will think, “Why
should I put much thought into this?” Finally, if we do not give
a motivating and convicting message, our guests will never be
motivated or convicted. e.
We need to work on all four of these factors, being more
guest oriented in them. That is not to say that we could not leave
one of the factors out and not retain guests. But it makes it
harder. Consider a guest who parks on our lot and sees an unkempt
yard and building, the first feeling she has about us is negative.
We may be friendly but if it is not enough to overcome the
negative feeling the guest has, it won’t help. But if she comes
in and we are not friendly, her negative feelings grow. Then the
congregational participation must be really strong to make her
think, “Well, even though they don’t think their place of
worship is important and they don’t think I am important enough
to talk to, but they do believe their worship is important, maybe
I should check this out.” But if not, then the preaching and
teaching must be so overwhelmingly powerful and convicting, that
despite the negative feeling our guest has, she cannot help but
think, “I have to get more of that teaching.” We may be able
to just focus on our teaching and our preaching and retain guests.
But it is unlikely. Frankly, I am just not that good. It would be
much easier if our guest drove up, saw our facility and thought,
“Hey, these people care about their place of worship. Wow, they
are so friendly, I feel like I am among friends here. Look at how
important these people feel their worship is, maybe it should be
that important to me. I am really impressed; I have never heard or
learned so much Bible in one sitting as I did from this teacher or
that preacher. And boy was everybody excited. This excites me too.
I think I will be back next week.” C.
We must be more careful in qualifying and developing
contacts and prospects. 1.
We must remember our guests are more skeptical of religion.
They are not sure they can trust us. Why would we expect them to
get baptized just because we said they should? Granted, we showed
them a verse, but the guy at the denomination showed them another
verse and said that meant they did not have to be baptized. How do
they know they should believe us over him? We must take time to
build relationships and trust. Let people see our honesty first.
If they do not trust us, they will not learn from us. 2.
Secondly, we must recognize studying is a developmental
process. It is like climbing a ladder. Nobody goes from the second
rung of a ladder to the twentieth rung. Neither should we expect
someone on the first step in the process to conversion to
immediately jump to the last step and get baptized. We must learn
to first develop a love and respect for God’s word and will in
the prospect. Then, we can teach them about Biblical authority,
the church, and salvation. However, many people have killed a
prospect because they were not patient. They immediately went for
the jugular and told them to be baptized or else they will go to
hell. The prospect was not ready for that and refused to study
anymore. The teacher thinks, “They just don’t care enough
about God’s will. They love their will, family, friends, sins,
or whatever more than God.” Perhaps the teacher is right, but
what do we expect from a non-Christian? Do we expect him to love
the will of God as much as we do? That is why we are teaching him,
to produce love and obedience. 3.
Many people believe this type of approach is simply
cowardice. Some will think I am saying that I am too afraid to say
the hard things to the prospect. That is not the case. The hard
things must be said. You need to have a plan to say them and then
follow the plan. No matter when you say them, the prospect may
turn and run. But the hard things do not have to be the first
things said. Jesus recognized this concept in John
16:12-13. He had other things the disciples needed to know,
but they were unable to bear them at that point. So, Jesus was
patient and waited for a time when they could. Assessing where
your prospect is and developing them gently, is a learned skill.
It will come from failing sometimes and succeeding sometimes. But
with each opportunity to study, with each failure, and each
success, you will learn how to develop your contacts. Then you
will become a more successful soul saver. Conclusion: We live in the 21st century. The saving gospel is the same as it was in the 1st century and in the 20th century. But our method of getting that gospel to the world needs to fit our world while following what is scipturally authorized. Allow me to ask you again; are you hungry to save souls? If so, who are you going to invite to worship with us this week? That is our first step. Then we can help our guests go to heaven with us.
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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