Ding Dong Yo

Ok, well I just got back from hurdle 1-of-3. I don't know if I ever explained this on here before or not but before I'm 30 I have set up 3 personal achievements that go against my very being, but ultimatly serve for the better. These are (in order)... 1.Door-to-Door witness/evangelism 2.One on One encounter of the random variety to share the gospel (the whole thing not just that Jesus died on a cross) and 3.Street Preaching to passerbyes attempting to draw a crowd to hear the gospel.

Today a friend of mine came with me to go door-to-door in the neighborhood, meeting and greeting and talking to strangers. While I was honestly looking for a chance to use the gospel we were concentrating on just getting conversations going and mentioning things like worshiping God and the Contemporary service coming soon. In part getting over the hurdle of actually going out to do it and in part putting on a welcoming face for those in the neighborhood. It helped a bit in gathering intel for the area and what people wanted in a worship wervice. Then we closed by talking about the creation museum and asking if they had prayer needs.

We did meet a lot of people, but a lot of doors never opened for us of course. This I believe is due to the number of JWs and Mormons that come around. A shame as those that did answer were very friendly and (once they understood why we were coming around) were very friendly even when they had different worldviews. Most of them were interested in more traditionsl services and so we did not talk about much Contemporary stuff except for one or two people. Many were now inactive members of churches not in the area and one man even offered to help with the construction of our Contemporary service.

I only got two opportunities to share the gospel and didn't do it in either case. The first time was when an atheist opend the door and we talked about his past in the church and his problems with it. Since he had church background he had most likely heard it before, but that is no reason to not say it. (I am writing him a letter of contact info and comments to encourage his interest in our discussion so maybe that will open up the door for the gospel again.) The second person was a young Muslim woman who would have been ideal, except I was in too much shock to know what to do at the time. It was quite unexpected to meet a Muslim or Jewish person in this area...or so I thought. So I basically tryed to talk about how she worshiped simply to save the conversation from becoming a staring match. Maybe I'll re-group and go back to these two houses next week anyway with a better plan, maybe.

Over all it was a great experience and I don't think it will be difficult to go back out tomorrow or next Saturday or whenever. However, I do need to take full advantage of opportunities with the gospel and also find away to get doors to open easier. Maybe a sign that says "We are not JW or Mormon" that I can wave in front of the peep-hole? We'll see...