A warning– when I try and write a blog post, I end up writing a chapter in a book. The following was never intended to be a blog post.  I had wanted to write a short handbook for soulwinning tips to encourage Christians to share their faith.  The following is a rough draft of a future book perhaps.  This means that it will be longer than my usual posts, but a bit shorter than “War and Peace”.  I do pray though that it is a blessing.  I can’t cut and paste yet with just the laptop we have, but once I get a desk top it will be easier to organize my posts and this can be in chapter form.  If this is something you find helpful, my longer posts usually work well printed out.  Good luck!

Here is a blog post mostly on lessons I learned from giving out tracts.   In later posts I can share more witnessing tips.  First, know that I am not writing this to show off but to be a blessing to share what God taught me.  I chicken out or am too busy to witness far too often but it is God who put this desire in me and 500 years from now I want my life to matter. The Bible says for it is God which worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure.  Before I was saved, my Friday night desires were to find a bar or go to a hockey game to watch it or do something wicked.  Now that I am saved, my desire is to go to a Friday night NHL hockey game or rock concert and preach at it.   I want my family to love Jesus and serve him and enjoy God.  Training a family to love God and reaching the lost are 2 ways you will make an eternal impact.  Fall in love with Jesus and grow as you go.

If you are a Christian that is your duty.   Love God and love your neighbor.  Our neighbors are headed for hell if they are not born again, and true love means you want them not to perish in hell.  God made both heaven and hell, as well as this entire universe.  He has thus the power and authority to define the criteria for who enters either place.  Ignoring this fact will not save you on judgment day.  Telling the God of the Universe who is so holy that he cannot be in the presence of sin about our good works is trying to bribe the God of the Universe.  The only hope we have is to have our sins paid for which God did at Calvary 2000 years ago.  Jesus is God, but is he your God?  If he is you will be saved from the wrath to come.  If you are not saved, I urge you not to put it off.  God will begin to draw you and as he woos you he will shed light on your sin.  You need to repent of a sinfull lifestyle and trust Jesus Christ.  He will save you if you come to God HIS WAY.  His way is the narrow way that few find.  His way though is a wonderful way, and it leads to life, it leads to deliverance from sin which really only brings diseases, misery, and hangovers anyway.  Is there any sin worth going to Hell over?  When you get saved, Jesus moves in and changes your direction, desires, and destiny.  You only have to repent, and change your mind about yourself, your sin, and the Savior, and God will change your life from the inside out. Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature promises the Bible.

The Prince of Preachers Charles Spurgeon said “if you don’t care if others be saved, you are not saved yourself, be sure of that.” Atlanta Evangelist Mark Cahill says it is not a gift but a command.  Two people die every second, Christian do you care?  Do you care enough to do something about it?  Because it is a command, and not a gift, the only way to get good at it is to practice.

I likely can share what not to do and save you some time.  The hardest thing I would say is getting started.  We usually are either intimidated, too busy to bother, feel it is a lost cause, or are not prepared with always having tracts on us.  However, everytime I open my mouth and God opens that door it is easy once the ball is rolling.  However in our minds that ball often feel like a 10 ton boulder.   Witnessing makes our Christianity come alive.  The devil makes you think you don’t know enough.  The problem is just sitting and soaking in church will never be enough because if you “don’t use it, you lose it.”  You need to exercise your faith.  There is no greater work out than getting OUT and getting the GOSPEL OUT.  Just going to church will cause you to be what evangelist Bill Fay called “spiritually constipated”!

It is like the bed room my two 4-and-5 year old boys share.  We try and teach them to pick up but once every toy is everywhere except where it belongs, and you can’t see the floor, it is a lost cause.  Not only the floor but the bunk bed is now in the middle of the room and toys baracade it there.  The shelves are bare, the bed is stripped, and they now have to trash the rest of the house because there is no room to play in the room.  While my wife is sick, I am in charge of running the house.  Instead I blog.  Actually with my 4 boys I work from Son up to Son down, but at the end of the day I am not that much ahead of the game.

Their room is where I don’t know where to begin.  It will sit like that for weeks, then my sister in law will come over and sit herself down on the floor and just start putting things back where they go.  An hour later it will be spotless.  Until 2 days later when you can’t see the floor.

That is like that in witnessing.  The hardest part is getting started.  Here are some tips to get that ball rolling.

First, here are some baby steps for beginners.  You can start by concistantly leaving tracts where you go.  I leave tracts in every bathroom stall at stores or whereever.  I leave them usually above the toliet paper holder flat against the wall so they are wedged in there.  I also always put one in the diaper changing station in the tract box they all have on the inside.  Once when I was traveling during a dry spell in my walk with God, I found someone left their testimony tract at a stall at a rest stop.  It was a great encouragement to me.  I leave them at gas pumps wedged in behind the pump.  I put them in bills. I leave one in the shopping cart on the way out and sometimes in some carts on the way in. I have stuffed them in cases of beer and soda.  I have put them in pockets in clothing at stores.  I put them in between the food trays at fast food restaurants.  I put them in newspapers.  When I get a credit card application and a self addressed envelope I kindly put a tract inside and return the envelope minus the application.  There are a lot of fun ways you can just leave tracts. Once my friend Will entered a catholic church and put them in the church bulletins.  My preacher would unroll toilet paper and hide a tract in there.  I did that with the big napkin dispenser at Burger King.  I try and pray for whoever finds it.

Once your feet are wet, it is good to find some ice breakers.   They are like favorite lures regular fishermen just grab by instinct.   Whatever you pick, do them enough until you know which lure for what situation and things will be pretty natural.  I find ice breakers are the easiest thing to get a conversation going.   There are several kinds.  The first is simply handing people tracts and wait for someone to ask about it or stop and pause to read it.  Another is to use a question that gets people to open up.  Another is to use something to make them laugh and then switch gears to the spiritual realm.

Another is to use a gimmick.  I had a lot of fun with the trick Bible I ordered a while back but ended up giving it away to a boy when we were witnessing at Delaware Park.  It was the size of an 8 x 10 notebook and if you flipped through it one way it was blank pages, another black and white pictures, and another full color pictures.  This represented atheism, religion, and Christianity in order.  I also had the red scarf you could make vanish in your thumb to show you can’t trust everything you see.  I was amazed to see my witnessing tool being used in the movie “Night at the Museum” but I don’t think it was for the same reasons.  I had fun regardless, and tricks bring instant attention and could draw a crowd.  I have seen evangelists give out money to answer silly questions.  They will ask silly questions and give dollars to those who give the right answer.  Then they offer $50 to whoever can prove they are a good person.   Good invitation to take someone through the law and prove there is none righteous, no not one.

Mark Cahill said you are not sharing a presentation, but a conversation.  Today we think if we don’t give them a 5 minute plan and they get saved in 2 more minutes we are failures as as evangelists.  We are called to preach the gospel, not lead them in a prayer.  The Sinner’s prayer does not save, but people like it because it gives them numbers so they look spiritual or worse so they get offerings for their amazing conversion percentage.   We are called to confront people with the truth, make them think and plant a seed.  If you take credit for your converts, that is all they are.  Yours.  Not God’s.

Ice breakers are often catch phrases you use at various places and they open the door for you talking to them.  Sometimes it leads no where but usually you will get them to open up.  Picture everyone having this concrete wall up over their heart.  You can not get through it.  You preach to them and it bounces off.  You need to get that wall down.

If I walk into a gas station or at a toll booth, I will at times ask “Are you good at directions?” Then if they say Yes, I will ask “Do you know how to get to heaven?”  That is not an original one, but it leads to an original conversation.  They smile and it gets them to let down their guard.  The ground is now plowed to plant a good seed.  Have some good verses memorized as well, as the Word of God is what needs to take root and is the only thing powerful enough to change our stubborn human thinking.

I don’t really bring up heaven after that, I get right into the law as soon as I can, but that original question 1) Humbles them a bit because they don’t know.  2) peaks their curiosity 3) is something many are interested in 4) gets them to drop their guard.   If I find a group of teenagers I might ask some trivia questions.   These are the kinds of questions you can give out dollar bills for correct answers if trying to gather a crowd on the street.  What is the number one thing people hit and get killed by in cars?  Answer: Trees.  What is the number one food item people choke on in restaurants? Answer: Hard boiled eggs.  How many of each animal did Moses bring on the ark? Answer: it was Noah.  What is the name of the raised print deaf people use? Answer: deaf people don’t need braille.  Imagine you are driving down a mountain and your brakes fail.  Your door won’t open, your seatbelt is stuck.  What do you do?  Answer: Stop imagining.  Final question, what was the number one killer in America in 2012?  Answer: Death.  And it will kill you too.  Do you know why people die?  Answer:  The Bible says because of sin, the soul that sinneth it shall die. Let’s see if you will die too some day. Ever told a lie?

It is a little formulaic, but you never get the same conversation twice, and you never get the same response.  You are asking questions, not going through a 5 point sales pitch and have them repeat a flimsy sinner’s prayer.  I like the law approach. I had first seen it with Way of the Master and Evangelist Ray Comfort.  A word of caution though is it still offers a short cut to salvation. Men in the 1800’s were exposed to week long revival meetings where men prayed for weeks beforehand and men prayed for the week during the service.  There was no invitation often until the last week. I am still studying out these differences, but there seemed to be back then longer exposure to the convicting hand of God.  It seems most of humanity needs to be under a lot heavier conviction than you see today to repent of their ways and turn to Christ. Relgion is men’s attempt to save themselves, and man continually reinvents Biblical Christianity to allow them to still live unregerate and do as they want but still “go to Heaven”.  I say use the law by all means.  The Bible says the Law of the LORD is perfect converting the Soul.  But I think there needs to be radical convincing of the disease, which the Law does, plus REDEFINING their false religious Christ’s they tend to hold on to and look to, plus ROOTING out their false humanistic theories like evolution and their indoctrination that the Bible is just a good book written by man.  If someone has been brought up in the American school system, the Bible and the real Jesus Christ is just as foreign to them as the deepest native of Papau New Guinia.  All I am saying is take your time.  We haven’t sown much in the last 100 years in our evangelism, but we are decision making factories and we think we are doing wonderful because of so many decisions.  The true test of our evangelism is whether our decision affect the moral climate of our community and our country. That is not happening and our country is getting worse while the church is falling into deeper slumber.  The church needs to wake up if the country is to ever turn around.  True Biblical evangelism will wake the sleeping and sluggish saints up first.  If people are sleeping in church, Charles Spurgeon said, wake up the preacher.  Leaders, we set the standard.  We need to look around, turn a deaf ear to our multitudes of decisions, and go back to what brought true revival and dedication.  Not just decisions.

Ask folks what they believe and why they believe it.  Ask if they have a church backgroud or ever read the bible or ever thought they were about to die.  I often tell people there are no coicidences and there is a reason we are talking.  Often there was a lot of events leading up to our meeting.  I have had multiple people tell me they received a tract earlier that day or one that week or a coworker had just been telling him about church or something else that proves it was not a coincidence we met.  Yesterday I went to give a guy a tract at the supermarket on the way inside.  He said, “remember me?”  I often get that, but I usually don’t remember me.  It is a great encouragement they do though.  I had given him the same tract at the Noco gas station a few days ago.  They remember and you can pick up where you left off.  Ask if they read the tract, if they had any questions, if it made sense.  Then try and get another seed in.  I will try to get them to church or to my website or get them something with more meat than one tract.  On the street I usually will have a $5 dollar general King James Bible with me to preach with and then I usually give it away to someone I witnessed to that didn’t have a bible.  Put some follow up information in it.  One afternoon when I was street preaching and passing out tracts near a bus station in Buffalo, NY, a man went up to me and thanks me sincerely.  He said he now knew what bus to take.  The original bus he was going to take was to go somewhere to commit suicide. It only makes me regret even more the ones I chickened out over.  What was their story?  Or the times I was too busy to bother.  Or when I forgot tracts.

In a grocery store, I will go up to a guy sometimes my age or younger and ask if they are good at finding things.  Then I will ask if they can find God.  This usually opens up a conversation and I try to be brief so they don’t get in trouble.  If I go thru a drive-thru I ask them if they ever heard of a Burger King Christian.  I explain that is having it your way and not God’s way.  It is fun to challenge the McDonald’s cashier or Arby’s worker to make sure they especially are not Burger King Christians.  I will also use things like pizzas or submarines to challenge people.  I often have went up to workers at a pizzaria or sub shop and say, “Do you know you can use a piece of pizza (or a sub) to prove God?”  Then I will show them my pizza and ask them to prove someone made it.  I will say Pizzas prove a Pizza Maker.  Your school teaches you that this pizza made it self out of nothing but that defies common sense.  The big question now is who made it?  If you look at the evidence and follow the trail, you will see Papa John’s made this pizza.  Now if the pizza came out burned and had anchiovies instead of pepperoni, you wouldn’t bring it to Pizza Hut to fix it.  You would find the original pizza maker.

That is a lot like God.  Creation proves a Creator.  I will quote Romans 1:20.  The Bible teaches and evidence backs it up that Jesus made us in his image.  We have burned hearts (where I can throw the law in) and we need to be rebaked.  Going to Budda or Mary or a Priest or Allah instead of Jesus is not going to fix it.  Kids today are told from the media, the education system, and the government that evolution has all the facts and they are the smart ones.  You won’t convince a skeptic with evidence, but when I became a Christian I did not have to leave my brain at the door.  You will have to do that to be a Mormon for example, as there is not one shred of archeological evidence for Joseph Smith’s claims about American history or giants on the moon.  You will have to do that with evolution where you simply believe because someone with a degree told you so.  When you become a Christian you merely go with the weight of the evidence and make a small leap of faith in the direction of the evidence.  A thief won’t seek a police man, and if we are speeding we aren’t going to be looking for one either.  Most of the time our love of sin clouds common sense.  But when you know what you are talking about, are prayed up, and pray to care about sinner’s like God cares about sinners your words will open some eyes.  Because they will be God’s words coming through.

Get in the habit of using some ice breakers and see conversations open up.   It is like the Red Sea.  There is nothing going on until you take that first step into the water.  Then the waters part.  Ice breakers get the ball rolling because you are acting on faith but it takes the hardest part away.  The first step into the Red Sea is the hardest step.  Then the waters part and you see God’s hand once you are obedient to do your part.

I tend to now mostly witness on the go, meaning when I am shopping or running errands until my wife gets a bit healthier.  You can find ways to witness even when you aren’t out “witnessing”.  Witness to the telemarketer. You can go thru any drive thru and pay for the car behind you. Make sure and tell cashier why or they will think you just thought the person behind you was cute. You can ask how much the car behind you is first. Better if you pay with cash as you can honestly say all you had on you was $10 if their order turns out to be $56. Usually coffee places are cheap and work well. But if you pray first, you usually are not in front of the family of 12 all getting supersized Double whopper value meals.

However, I strongly recommend to fit in your to do list for the week to get out and witness.  An even better time than just waiting for divine appointments is when you schedule a block of time just to go soulwinning.  Just Go fishing at your favorite fishing spot and make time to fish.

It is funny when we start to go, how unexpected “have to’s” creep up and you have to cancel.  Keep going.  If you can’t go this week, go next week.  If you are out for a season, jump back in as soon as you are freed up.  Have the determination of unsaved men who hunt and it is opening day of deer season.  Nothing will stop them from going.  If there is a funeral, they will go in there camo and fly there after it is over.  Men will spend hours sitting in a boat to catch one fish and throw him back in the water.  It is the nature sport version of the exercies bike.  A lot of energy to go accomplish nothing.   So to go fishing for men when there are potential eternal consequences for going should make this the greatest sport possible.  If someone can spend their entire life training to earn an Olympic medal the size of a donut hole, we should be able to get out to do a true activity that will count 500 years from now.  Who won the Superbowl 10 years ago?  Who knows? Who cares?  Yet how much time to we devote to that?  Think the devil is trying to distract us and steal our time?   Or are we just lazy?  Go fish!

The second greatest reason for this is mostly a guy thing.  Us guys do not multi task really well.  Women can do eight things at once and pay attention to each task and  each kid where I can’t switch gears quickly.  I can be out to dinner with my family and it is a challenge to switch from making sure I have all the kids one second and then how to get a witness in to the waitress.  I can’t stop writing when I am all alone– a 2 sentence blog becomes a 2 part book.  When my wife is in the same room talking on the phone a 2 part book becomes 2 sentences.  I could give out a tract and forget I had 3 kids with me.  Hence, actual scheduled soulwinning is a great idea.  Especially when in our busy day to day, what sometimes keeps me from giving out the gospel is not fear of rejection — it is fear they will entangle me in a conversation for 30 minutes and my wife will wonder where I went.  Right now, having a family and children and demands and every minute accounted for. I think being too busy is the biggest threat to my soulwinning efforts, and perhaps others as well.  Don’t quit, just make sure you keep polishing up on your fishing so you don’t just boast about the good old days.  I find when you start basking in your past accomplisments, you are like the 2nd string quarterback who wasn’t quite ready to retire.  You sit on the bench and feel useless but it has been so long since you called a play deep down you hope you won’t have to risk making a fool of yourself.  You used to before thrive on facing the oppostion.  Now you are finding the bench is conforming to your behind and getting rather comfortable.

How often you can get out will depend on your circumstances and how far sinners are from your home.  You will do better in the city than the suburbs in all situations.  If I knock door to door in an upscale neighborhood they are about to call the police because it looks bad for the community. If I am downtown I get invited inside.  Granted, the challenge in the city today is you tend to see that welfare mentality and that the government owes me something.  This translates to their view of God and they think they are entitled to heaven and God owes them too.  God does not owe us nothing.  Again, the law will help humble the proud and reveals to them that they offended God by their actions.  It should shut the mouth of the proud.

I like the city better because there are more poor people and more black and spanish people!  Yes, I said that.  Us  upper class white crackers who are usually are often a waste of time, sad to say.  You will hear “I’m good” or “I’m all set” a large percentage of the time. We are too self righteouss to need God and too full to want God.   That being said, the LAW will bring out the sin in the richest of folks.  Ask them if they love money more than God.  That is idolatry and no idolator can enter heaven.  Ask if they hated anyone. That is murder by God’s standards.  Ask if they commited adultery or lusted.  The Law is for sinners according to Timothy.   Rich and poor alike.  However, when it comes to giving tracts and getting started, that is not your easiest fish to land.

They would call this racial profiling, but I find a black man my age or younger regardless of how rough he looks is almost always respectful, will listen to me present the law, will often be convicted and honest about their sin, and will have some respect for God and some church background.  I find most black guys trust either their church membership or their baptism to get them to heaven, especially if they attend  a black baptist church.   Spanish are very open to receive tracts, but you need to have spanish tracts on you.  I will give them a tract and ask if they read english or spanish, then I will say “Muy importante. Jesus Christo y la camino, la verdad y la verde.”  Jesus is the way the truth and the life.  That is true no matter the language.

Also, if you go to Chick.com you can order chinese tracts when you go to order some General Tso’s and pork fried rice.  They appreciate your thoughfulness. If you are fishing you would go where the fish are biting.  And use the right lures.  You wouldn’t use a worm to land a whale shark.  The general rule is the older the less interested, and the richer the less interested.  I would also say the “whiter” the less interested.  Look at Europe for example, they are stuck up white European snobs and they rarely want anything to do with God.  I will witness to a black guy over someone white like me anyday.  You also want to be careful in public places to avoid the “red flags”.  Not to be mean, but I usually don’t give tracts to the Muslims dressed all in black like SandTroopers from Star Wars or two guys holding hands or grumpy middle class white folks.  These are more likely to turn you in.  My sons are bolder than I am.  I gave my 3 year old a couple tracts to hand out to customers at Wal Mart.  He immediately went up to a Muslim couple dressed in their black attire with the eye slits.  He was braver than I was!

Kids are a great asset to have when you soulwin.  This is when it is easier to give a Why is Mary Crying to a 65 year old grandma.  45 I also have no complaints giving black children tracts with their parents right there, but the whites will sometimes have a fit you dare to push your religion on their kids.

On a side note, you will often get asked about slavery whenever you get on a college campus and start witnessing.  Note it is usually white folks who ask.  I have never had a black person bring up slavery.  Most of the time it is a defection tactic.  They don’t want God to tell them what to do, so they find excuse after excuse to not obey God.  You will learn over time about the difference between a sincere question and someone who just wants to argue.  I don’t waste time arguing, but I will answer their questions.   Sometimes one question may be pivotal about their belief in the Bible.  Where did Cain get his wife?  may be a hostile argument or an honest objection.  As far as slavary, I too wondered how could there be great revival in America and people loving God yet see slavary still active?  I did some soul searching and research and that is something I would share with someone who had concerns like I did.

I don’t know all the answers, but here are some things to think about.  First, those who came on the Mayflower faced grueling conditions too.  Granted, those coming from Africa weren’t coming by their own free will.  But if you knew the conditions they left in Africa, how many would have voluntarily put up with horrible conditions to get here?  Mostly other Africans sold them to the Europeans.  Other Africans were killing them and EATING them. Once in America, not everyone was cruel and hard taskmasters.  Many slaves loved their masters and the fact so many choose BIBLE names instead of AFRICAN names proves that.  Also, if it was so horrible to be in America why did so many Africans embrace the American Christianity and help form the BIBLE BELT?  The respect for God and the gratitude for finding the true and living God has produced fruit that still impacts blacks today.  If it didn’t I would not be looking for black people to give gospel tracts to and trying to get them to heaven.  Finally, why didn’t they grab the earliest ship back to Africa once Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclaimation?   You had Africans who were enslaved in their country and only knew about their false pagan relgion.  Many were being tortured and killed.  Many made it to America, but were still enslaved.  Yet, many found true freedom in Christ in true Christianity.  And their ancesters were free to enjoy the blessings of America and the God of America.  And 200 years later they embraced being slaves once again, though this time to the government, by someone of the same race to boot.  If it is biblically correct, it will not be policially correct.

If you are not sure how long to go soulwinning, just imagine applying  to your actual fishing.  The key to any fishing is to take your time.  Wait for the fish to come to you.  Find out when they are more likely to bite.  Spend hours getting the boat ready, pack all the fishing gear, drive hours to the lake, get the boat down the ramp and unhitch everything.  Then get the boat to the middle of the lake, hook up the lure, cast the line, and then go home.  You likely didn’t catch anything.  And I am sure that I am not the only one.  Americans are too busy for anything.  You hear of people in NY City who walk by murder scenes and rapes and wonder how someone could be that evil.  I don’t think they were being cold, just too busy to do anything.   We are like levite in the good samaraitin parable.   Too busy to help.    Have to get to church.  My mother in law did that once.  She didn’t know it was another church member, but she passed a lady who flipped her car in the snow. My mother in law is the piano player so she had to get to church on time!

I like this the best but things will come up to keep you from doing this regularlly.  If you can though, schedule in a time once or twice a week to just go somewhere where people are and start by passing out tracts.  We have been to flea markets, college campuses, door to door, downtown, sporting events, street corners, rock concerts, and festivals.   Some places will try to kick you out.  Other places you will have amazing liberty.

Hand them a tract and just say something simple, “here you go” “did you get one of these”, “merry christmas”, “good day”, “good evening,” etc.  I try to be genuine, but it is always better if you can give them some truth with it.  I might say something like, “I wanted to give you something I wrote.  It can change your life if you let it.”  I might challenge them, I might try and just be friendly, I might say here is a gift.  I also might apologize for the fact christians are at home watching TV while the JWs are out knocking doors so I felt I should do something.

You are fishing, just looking for someone to bite.  If they pause, God may be drawing them in.  If they start talking just let them talk.  It is important here to gain experience, to know who is an honest seeker and who just wants to get in an argument.  I walk away from the guy who wants to argue.  You want to win that JW but he will tie up your time for an hour and you are going head to head intellectually here.   Meanwhile, 20 seekers you passed by in that time.  The devil loves to get us on rabbit trails or get us tied up.   Don’t ignore a sincere seekers questions either.  He may be stuck on something that he can’t get past.  Most of the time evolution is a time waster.  But say there is a guy who grew up in church but never was saved and then entered college and heard all the evolution propaganda.  He might sincerely listen when you tell him that dinosaurs and man were on earth at the same time and they find things that evolutionists refuse to look at.  Human footprints fossilized with dinosaurs. Human artifacts below rock layers they claim are billions of years old.  T Rex bones still with blood cells intact.  All over the world are cave drawings of dinosaurs and rock carvings with humans and dinosaurs.  They were on the ark and didn’t survive the post-flood conditions, were hunted, and weren’t as fast after the flood.  Before the flood the earth was mostly land, and had huge trees and plants all over the earth.  A brachiosaurous has the nostrils of a horse.  It could not breath in the reduced oxygen levels of the post flood.  Evolution is not science.  True science is 100% in sync with the Bible.  A sincere seeker will be interested in knowing there is evidence backing him up if he embraces the bible.  A true Christian is not afraid of the truth.  And that makes him dangerous to everyone else because no one else is sure of anything but is so insecure they will defend what they are not sure of to their grave.

What is this? some would ask when you hand them a tract.  And when they say something besides “I’m all set” or “get away from me!” explain what you are giving them. I start simple, and say it is a gospel tract.  Ask questions, don’t just go into shoving a presentation down their throat.  Get them to dig themselves into a hole, ask why do you believe that?   If you ask what they believe first, then you open the door to them letting you talk.  You basically earn the right to tell them the gospel when you get them to empty their resources and realize they don’t have much backing up what they believe.  I am confident in the gospel not only because the truth is on our side and it is the power of God unto salvation, but because the evidence is on our side as well.  It is not a religion where you have to leave your brain at the door and believe things that defy common sense like you would have to do if you were a mormon, or Hindu, for example.

Ask them some interesting questions, such as what do you think happens when you die?   Do you have a christian background?  If you died today where would you go?  If what you believe isn’t true, would you want to know?  That is a very good question and inoffensive one for Catholics, etc.  I have seen some good one one one preachers do simple things to get people to not trust themselves and I will use them from time to time.  One time I was going through the tolls and it was a bad storm.  I asked her if lightening stuck the booth and she died, where she would go?  I find that when someone is confronted with the reality of death, they are open because they are scared.  Fear is a good thing.  Fear is why people agre to chemotherapy. Fear is why poeople put on seatbelts.  Anyway, she said she would be ok because she thought in her heart that God would let her in.  I said you can’t trust ourselves because we can be wrong.  I asked her to spell the word SILK.  She did.  What do cows drink I asked?  MILK she said.  I said, Nope, they drink water.  See you can’t trust yourself. And if you are wrong about eternity you are wrong forever.

I planted a seed, and it made her think.  That is a successful witness.  Now we should pray for God to send someone to water that seed.

Use tracts but be creative, selective, and remember them.  I tend to have some in every jacket.  It is neat when you find Christmas tracts from a year ago when you finally dig out your winter jacket and think you are out of ammo when you reach in your pocket while talking to someone, but then you discover you had the right in season tract.  I usually use my own tracts I write because I find few tracts deal strongly on repentance, and most look boring, and most have some sort of sinner’s prayer to pray.  My take on that is we are born lost and we offended a holy God.  Just as reading a Hallmark card will not forgive a spouse who’s husband committed adultery on her, God is not impressed by a flipant prayer.  Prayer doesn’t save yet that is what these tracts both imply and teach.  The law should bring about conviction, and the law should birth a natural apology that God will hear.  God runs to a repentant sinner, but most soulwinning fall’s on God’s deaf ears because they leave off repentance.

A challenge is when you can’t remember if you gave them a tract already, and worse if they rejected you. Examples are places you frequent, the coffee drive thru, McDonalds down the street, the local pizza joint.   What I will do is ask, “Hey did you get my Christmast tract?”  Or if I just got new Chick tracts or just wrote a new one, I will say, “Here’s something new for you!” If you gave them one already you can follow up but do not put pressure on them.  Did you happen to read the tract I gave you last time?  If they say no, I will try and use the law and explain what it said a bit, and often they will take it the second time.  How many times did God need to get through to you??  Often our flesh says Go to Hell if we know they rejected us the last time.  But we likely did the same thing.  Often God will be working on them or they are in a different place than last time.  Maybe this week they were just at a funeral.