A Worthy challenge

[evetsegap]

I attend a small house church in Clinton, Tn. We feel the desire to tell the world about Jesus, but, that seems like a tall order for a house church with about 15 memebers. So we started praying for ideas. I've pasted below what we are going to do. Please pray for us and give us your ideas. God is good.

We are getting ink pens printed with

"Excuse me please. Are you saved?

If you die tomorrow will you go to heaven?

?????.com" (we don't have a domain name secured yet)

Every week the people who go to our church will take five pens with them and will leave them places. For instance write the bank deposit and leave the pen on the counter. Leave the pen on the table at your favorite restaraunt. Drop one in somebody's purse. Leave them lying all over the UT campus. We feel the Holy Spirit will do the bulk of our work, such as leading us to where we should leave the pens. As the pens pens travel from hand to hand as these pens will, the Spirit will make certain that short message makes it to the right persons.

Where we need help is wording our web page and most importantly prayer for wisdom and guidance? We want a simple explanation of the "why and how" of salvation without using any Church lingo. Something short, true and to the point? Something that a person with no church background and a short attention span can read and believe. We'll will have a link where they can find a Christian church in their area. Hopefully we can help expand the Kingdom of God. The Spirit will lead somebody here or somewhere to write the perfect paragraph. Once we get our webpage up and running we hope Christ followers all over the world will get a few pens printed and that they'll feel welcome to use our page. Thank you in advance for your prayers and ideas. May His will be done, He is worthy of all honor and praise.

[kat8585]

I think it's a unique, great idea, that should see results, tho you may not see what they are this side of heaven.

[Marnie]

Well, I'm the wet blanket again.

In our last church, we tried things like that...pens, calendars, ball caps, radio spots, you name it and we tried it. What we found was that no advertising scheme could do better than word of mouth; the saints doing what the saints are supposed to do. Now, having said that, in our new church, our mid-week congregation (we have a bunch of people that come Wed. nights who can't come Sunday mornings) has been studying a series called "Chasing Daylight." All on their own they decided they wanted T-shirts with the name of the church on the front left, and the phrase, "I'm a daylight chaser. What are you chasing?" on the back. They feel, and I think they are right, that that's a cool conversation opener. So, you have something that may pique the interest of a person combined with the testimony of a believer. Just my penny's worth, since you asked.

Another thought I just had is this website:

http://www.mercydrop.com

I got to know this gentleman, and I travel a lot with my work, and leave the "Mercy Drops" all over in my travels; in hotels, restaurants, conference halls, etc. You may be able to morph his ideas. His "mercy drop," though, is copyrighted.

[evetsegap]

I think it's a unique, great idea, that should see results, tho you may not see what they are this side of heaven.

That will work for us.

[Leonard]

May the Lord bless and reward your efforts. +

[evetsegap]

Well, I'm the wet blanket again.

In our last church, we tried things like that...pens, calendars, ball caps, radio spots, you name it and we tried it. What we found was that no advertising scheme could do better than word of mouth; the saints doing what the saints are supposed to do. Now, having said that, in our new church, our mid-week congregation (we have a bunch of people that come Wed. nights who can't come Sunday mornings) has been studying a series called "Chasing Daylight." All on their own they decided they wanted T-shirts with the name of the church on the front left, and the phrase, "I'm a daylight chaser. What are you chasing?" on the back. They feel, and I think they are right, that that's a cool conversation opener. So, you have something that may pique the interest of a person combined with the testimony of a believer. Just my penny's worth, since you asked.

Another thought I just had is this website:

http://www.mercydrop.com

I got to know this gentleman, and I travel a lot with my work, and leave the "Mercy Drops" all over in my travels; in hotels, restaurants, conference halls, etc. You may be able to morph his ideas. His "mercy drop," though, is copyrighted.

Thanks for your comments and the link. I guess I should have said that we are not interested in building our church membership, only His Kingdom. We'll never know who our pens have reached until, as Kat8585 said we are in Heaven.

[EricH]

Moved from General Discussion to Looking for Advise

[Marnie]

Thanks for your comments and the link. I guess I should have said that we are not interested in building our church membership, only His Kingdom. We'll never know who our pens have reached until, as Kat8585 said we are in Heaven.

I believe that was my point. A pen, a t-shirt, a marble, these are all incapable of witnessing for Christ, but it can be a conversation starter. There is no short cut to one-on-one witnessing. Dispensing pens and such may make you feel as though you have done something, when in fact, all you've done is drop a pen.

[GloryToGod!]

I will try to outline one or two of the things our church has tried. We started out meeting at people's houses...we were small but had and still do have a strong evagelical desire to see all in our city saved. A short while ago my church put on a drama called "Crossing Over". Oh, I forgot to mention that the Lord has greatly increased the attendence over the years. I understand that your goal is saving souls for Christ....not growth in your own church. But sometimes it just happens without even desiring. We grew from a handful to 50....then God called us to build a building, which we did. And then later on a bigger one. Ok, I'm getting off-track here...I'm sorry.

We have gone on several prayer walks, strategically placing groups of people from our church in the four corners of our city and at places like hospitals, city government buildings, schools, etc. We were all given different scriptures to pray as we walked in the area we were assigned to. Claiming lives for Jesus, pulling down strongholds satan had claimed. We walked and prayed until we could walk no more. Then we returned to the church building for a final time of prayer.

When we did the drama for the next 3 nights we had 400 people come forward to receive Jesus as their Lord. They were then invited to a room where they were given followup care....each received a New Testament and could ask for more prayer. Our church has not significantly grown in numbers but we all know that there are 400 more souls going to heaven.

God Bless

Kathy

PS) I'm going to proof read this but my eyesight is poor and I tend to miss typo's.

[lostforwords]

hey. you know what you could try?

writting bible verses on toilet paper in public toilets and such. a few friends and i once did that at the mall.

it works, i think and it's funny too.

blessings