Participants: Karen Thomas, Jason McCracken
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000066
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00:32 Welcome. I'm glad you could make it today. We have back with us
00:35 Jason McCracken who is the marketing representative for the 00:38 Review and Herald Publishing Association and a youth 00:41 evangelist. And the last time he was here with us we talked about 00:45 outreach to the community and the world. You know, these times 00:48 require that we have a Bible foundation for what we believe 00:51 and that is what he's here to talk about with us today. This 00:54 time it is winning people to Christ. Welcome to the program. 00:58 Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well I'm glad to be here and I 01:02 want to thank you for inviting me once again. We're going to 01:08 start with the word of God. Matthew chapter 28, because our 01:13 topic today is winning people to Christ. So Christ has given us 01:18 some excellent information that we need to share not only with 01:22 ourselves but people all over the world. The Bible says in 01:27 Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, it says go, go ye therefore and 01:33 teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 01:39 the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all 01:43 things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with 01:47 you alway even unto the end of the world. Amen! Now when Jesus 01:51 was talking to his 11 disciples, today he's talking to the church 01:56 He wants the church to go. G means get, O means out. That's 02:02 how I use it. Get out. Get out and teach all nations. Get out, 02:06 baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy 02:11 Ghost. And that brings us to our topic, Winning People to Christ. 02:15 How do we win people to Christ? 02:18 Well that's a question people want to know. How do we... 02:20 You know there was a book that was written, How to Win Friends 02:22 and Influence People. People want to know how to have a 02:26 winning personality. 02:28 Well, let's look at six different areas here. OK. 02:30 The first is we need to equip members... 02:42 There are two essentials we need to pick up here. Equip and to 02:49 share. The first is to equip. How do we equip? In order to 02:56 make disciples, we must teach disciples. We must sit down with 03:02 members of the church in not one session or two but we must do... 03:08 I do it in a period of six months to a year. Can you 03:13 imagine sitting with me for a whole year? But now I teach 03:19 people. We have to teach them how to become a disciple. 03:24 Now is the pastor supposed to do this only? 03:27 A lay person, an elder, a deacon, a church officer, an 03:33 associate pastor, the pastor of the church. It doesn't matter. 03:38 The person that is equipped for training people, that person 03:42 should be designated how to train. There are people in the 03:46 church that just can't do everything and the pastor cannot 03:50 do everything in the local church. So he must delegate 03:54 responsibilities to people who have the gifts. There are 03:58 certain gifts that people possess and I think the pastor, 04:02 if he cannot do it, assign it to someone else. If you want to 04:06 equip work like we do in a university on a curriculum 04:11 basis. Say I want to give you 24 lessons on how to reach 04:16 people and so the first is to equip. We want to make sure that 04:21 when they pick up the Bible in somebody's home and when they 04:24 start whizzing through these pages and say, well the text of 04:27 scripture is here, over here, they need to know how to do 04:31 that. Most people don't know how to do that because there are a 04:35 lot of questions to objections. So we have to equip. Now the 04:39 good thing is you need to share Christ. When you equip people to 04:44 go out into the community, they have to share Christ. Now, how 04:49 do you share Christ? You share Christ because you know Christ. 04:54 That's the only way you can share. An example: Somebody's 04:59 getting ready to get married. Invitations go out. They're 05:04 sharing that that person will get married on that particular 05:08 day at that particular time. When you look around the whole 05:12 church is full. Well how did that happen? Well newspaper but 05:17 word of mouth. People need to share. If Christ is in their 05:22 hearts, if they're convicted by the Holy Spirit, they'll share 05:26 Christ in their neighborhood. So after you equip them, now you 05:30 tell them to share Christ. 05:33 Let me ask you something. About this sharing. What is the 05:36 best thing for a person to go out with? Is it good for them 05:41 to go out with commentaries on the Bible primarily or some 05:45 people have said well I think I've got a really good book 05:48 on the end times and I want to just kind of blitz my whole 05:52 community with that. What have you seen has been the most 05:55 effective way for sharing Christ as far as... Is it Bible based 06:00 or is it primarily commentaries? 06:02 Well there are many ways you can do this. First of all I would 06:06 not sit in my home and say my community needs this particular 06:11 book. That's an opinion. The reason why we have an opinion 06:15 is because we don't know. First of all we need to go into the 06:19 community to find out what is happening in the community and 06:22 based on the events that are taking place in our community 06:26 then we can decide for a book or a magazine that will help our 06:29 community grow. And our community will respond based on 06:33 the information that we send them. Let's say that three 06:37 houses caught fire in the community. Would we send a book 06:41 on end time prophecy? No they have the current events. 06:45 Or are we going to send a book dealing with grief, hope, the 06:51 resurrection? We need to send information that's going to help 06:56 the community to grow. That's sharing Christ. We must share 07:01 Christ at the appropriate time. For example: During Christmas, 07:06 a very interesting phenomenon that happens around the world. 07:11 People who are not Christian understand that there is a 07:18 Christmas. The Xmas is Christ, the X means Christ. So now 07:24 people around the world actually celebrate that event. 07:29 Are you going to go in the community and talk about 07:34 stewardship? Or how it's a pagan holiday. 07:39 Yeah. You need to share. Bad timing. 07:43 Bad timing. You need to share Christ. 07:46 Well I don't want to get on the topic that Christmas is a pagan 07:48 holiday. But we share Christ. We share 07:52 Christ. When people are sharing Christ at the 07:55 appropriate time you get a better response. 07:57 Well Jesus said if I be lifted up. 07:59 If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me. So when you 08:03 go into the community you have to make sure that you are in 08:07 tune to what is taking place in your community and then when 08:11 you're there to share Christ it's easy. So they must equip 08:15 their members to share Christ in the neighborhood and in their 08:20 life cycles. Every day we should witness. Every day. It's a part 08:24 of our life style. It's like breathing. When we breathe we 08:30 get air into our lungs. It generates... I'm not a doctor 08:35 but see I understand some of the things. We have oxygen going 08:40 through our bodies. We breathe, we inhale, we exhale and it's 08:45 the same as sharing Christ. We share Christ because it's a part 08:50 of us, it's a part of our makeup We just don't say we're going 08:55 have a specific time and date that we go out and share 08:57 Christ. No, no. We share Christ every day, every day. Can you 09:06 imagine if a church of 15 people would share Christ seven days a 09:15 week times 52 weeks, how many people in the community would 09:22 know about Christ. Just 15 people. Christ only used 12 09:26 disciples. So if your church is small don't worry. Share Christ 09:31 on the telephone, in the internet, by passing out 09:35 literature, magazines, books, talking, communicating to people 09:42 share Christ. Let's go to number two. Be friendly. The reason why 09:48 I'm laughing is because a lot of people get the misconception 09:53 that Christians are not friendly they're not friendly. They're 09:58 sad faces. They don't show their teeth. Well now if you don't 10:03 have any it's something you don't have to worry about. 10:07 But if you be friendly. Marketing teaches us to be 10:11 friendly to people because they respond easier. 10:15 If you're mad and sad and gloomy nobody wants to talk to you so 10:19 be friendly... 10:23 Let's just say we're out in the community. We go to let's say 10:29 a county fair where they have a lot of horses and cows and mules 10:35 and exhibits and we set up a booth on health. We're passing 10:40 out magazines on health and all of a sudden our faces are gloomy 10:46 so let me give you a picture right here. I have a health 10:49 journal, actually it's a big book. Say for instance I'm 10:52 standing there saying would you like to have this health journal 10:57 Please come and get it. But if you say hello, come here, look 11:02 at this health journal. Would you like to see it. It's 11:05 beautiful. It's fully illustrated. This is what I'm 11:08 talking about. Be friendly to people. Be friendly. Christ was 11:14 friendly to everyone. He didn't care if they were drunks or 11:19 prostitutes. He didn't care if they were religious leaders. 11:23 He was friendly, he was courageous. That's the secret of 11:28 winning people to Christ. Be friendly. Be friendly. Number 11:32 three... 11:42 Let's say there's something that I do every year. There's a major 11:50 celebration that takes place in the United States based on a 11:54 pagan belief and it has a lot of spiritualistic values. 11:58 It's called Halloween. And that time of the year can be very 12:04 touchy to a lot of people, especially Christians. Now 12:08 normally we ask people to out and knock on doors, right, 12:12 before Halloween. But what happens if somebody knocks on 12:16 your door? Isn't it interesting you can have 100 or 200 kids 12:22 come to your door. Rather than giving them a trick you give 12:28 them a treat and the treat is sharing the gospel, sharing 12:33 Jesus. And when you share Jesus with them at the door some of 12:37 them will say hey this is nice. I have kids come to my door 12:42 every year. What do you got for us this year. Last year I had 12:46 the Listen magazine. And it had some famous artists that we 12:51 actually interviewed and the kids wanted to read about these 12:55 artists lives. And they came to my door, please we want that 12:59 magazine. So we featured people like Venus Williams, 13:03 Shaquille O'Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers and some of those 13:07 celebrities. One time we had Michael Jordan on the cover. 13:11 And so they want pictures and so they're sharing their 13:16 experience, Say No to Drugs, Don't Do Drugs. This is what 13:20 they're sharing. I'm sharing Christ in a magazine. That's why 13:24 they bang down my door. Now if I get 200 people to come to my 13:28 door and I don't have to leave that's good witnessing isn't it? 13:33 I can sit there and have a great time just sharing Christ and say 13:37 Don't Do Drugs, Say No to Drugs. I'm sitting there and there's 13:41 200 kids coming to my door and I'm throwing magazines in their 13:45 bags you know. This year we're going to have a radio station 13:48 right there in our community and we're going to talk to 13:52 children live over the radio. That's exciting. Yes. So we want 13:56 to be friendly, open and caring to persons visiting the 14:00 activity. Establish meaningful relationship with individuals 14:03 who are attracted to Christ. So if somebody's attracted to 14:06 Christ, they come to your door and they're attracted to Christ 14:08 now what you're going to do is you're going to establish a 14:11 relationship. You call, you walk, you talk, you share 14:16 information. How about recipes? I can share a recipe. You share 14:20 a recipe. One time I was sharing CD's with a person and they 14:23 were sharing CD's with me. Today they're Christians. 14:26 Praise the Lord. Just because we're sharing information. 14:30 You have a relationship that bonds people to you just like 14:34 Christ did. He just didn't preach in a community, but he 14:39 shared himself. OK. Now what if a person is 14:41 naturally reserved? What can they do. You know some people 14:44 are just not very outgoing naturally and it's very 14:48 difficult for them to strike up a conversation with people that 14:51 they don't know. What can they do? 14:53 Ask them can they write letters. Can they pay for a full 14:58 subscription of a magazine to somebody, a religious journal? 15:03 Do they like talking on the telephone? Now some people who 15:07 are reserved like talking on the telephone. So maybe they will 15:11 not identify with the person face to face but on the 15:13 telephone yes. How about on the internet? 15:16 That's a good one. You know I like that new messenger service. 15:19 Yeah. It's probably new to me where it makes you can actually 15:23 talk to a person and they can answer back 15:24 and you can actually get a group of people together. That's 15:26 a great idea. The internet is one way of 15:28 sharing Christ. In fact, out of the 20 million internet sites 15:35 out there, there are probably thousands and thousands of 15:40 different religious internet sites and you can communicate. 15:44 So there are... Share a site. Share a site. 15:48 Build your own website. But do something that's within your 15:53 talents and within your gifts. We all have talents. We all have 15:57 gifts. We have to discover those gifts. And having a relationship 16:01 is based on your character and your personality. So some people 16:04 like to do it quietly where others like me are bubbly. I can 16:08 out and say... I do it differently. My results are 16:12 different from someone else's results. But at least if all of 16:15 us are doing that we get greater results. Number four: 16:21 Now this is what I really enjoy. 16:35 Not too long ago I buried three people who were very close to 16:42 me in my family. Sorry about that. And so at this funeral 16:49 I was sharing with the entire congregation to accept Christ 16:55 as their personal Savior because the experiences that 16:58 I've had with the three individuals, they'd accepted 17:02 Christ before it was too late and then they died. So I'm 17:06 sharing the experience with them I said, now you have an 17:10 opportunity to accept Christ as your personal Savior. We were 17:15 in a location, in a situation that governs that decision. We 17:19 must ask. We have to ask. So invite interested individuals to 17:24 trust and believe Christ and accept his forgiveness and 17:27 unconditional love. We can do this on the airplane. We can do 17:30 this on the bus. We can do this on the street. We can do this 17:34 sitting in a Laundromat. We can do it in church. We can do it 17:38 on a baseball field. We can do it with children in a circle. We 17:42 can do it at a nursing home, at a police station, at a prison 17:48 and it goes on and on and on. Ask people to accept Christ as 17:54 their personal Savior. 17:56 Do we necessarily know what we're going to say before we get 17:59 in that situation? 18:01 That's the purpose of the Holy Spirit. We're in tune with the 18:05 Spirit of God and he will tell us what to say, when to say it 18:09 at the right time. 18:12 Well that's a relief. So then we don't have to worry about that 18:14 situation. We just trust God. 18:16 Howbeit when the Spirit of truth will come he will lead you and 18:19 guide you into all truth and that's the purpose of witnessing 18:22 The Spirit will say, you need to say this right now. And you 18:26 change you're entire theme and now you're talking to that 18:29 person and you are actually making an appeal to that person. 18:33 I went to a church in California one time and... Been to many 18:37 of them in California. You're from California, right? And 18:42 I made an appeal. I was preaching and I made an appeal 18:46 and 18 precious souls came up for baptism. Well I thought OK 18:51 that's cool. At the end of the service a little old lady came 18:55 up to me and said you know it's been 15 years since our pastor 19:01 made an appeal. Fifteen years. Wow! But 18 people were ready 19:07 in that congregation at that particular day at that 19:12 particular time. We need to appeal to people. Another 19:16 interesting area is to... 19:24 Now after we've made our initial contact in witnessing, 19:28 after we have bonded with them now we need to actually have 19:33 them study the word of God in a Bible study group. Invite them 19:37 to a seminar, a Revelation seminar, prophecy seminar, 19:41 a Daniel seminar or in your own home. Sitting down in your own 19:47 home opening up the word of God. We just created some 19:50 interesting material that will help people. We've been selling 19:54 a book called Bible Readings for the Home for many years. It's 19:58 a book that is being sold by the millions. Bible Readings for the 20:03 Home is actually a book that has been sold by literature 20:06 evangelists for many years. So we decided to have a smaller 20:10 version of Bible Reading for the Home. We placed it in this 20:15 little book called God's Answers to Your Questions. And this is 20:20 actually Bible Readings for the Home. 20:23 That's a really neat cover. 20:26 Well the cover is attractive because we want people to know 20:29 that we are dealing exclusively with the Bible. 20:32 Let me just take a pause here and tell the folks at home how 20:36 can get information about this book. Go to the 3ABN website 20:41 www. 3ABN.org and you will see a link to the Review and Herald 20:46 website there and they can give you information on how to obtain 20:51 this book. And so we use this book, Karen, 20:54 as Bible studies. This is our Bible study. It asks the 20:59 question. It answers it directly from the Bible and then we can 21:02 go into a conversation. What happens, you want to make sure 21:05 that you have enough time to deal with that particular 21:09 subject and so you don't want to move to different subjects. 21:11 You just want to stay on that particular subject. Let me give 21:15 you an idea of what are some of the questions that people are 21:18 asking. They are asking about the future. They are asking 21:21 about the Bible. They're asking about God. They're asking about 21:26 the end of sin and suffering. They're asking about the man 21:31 who was God; that's Jesus. They're asking about our future 21:35 home in heaven, of course. They're asking about salvation 21:39 through Christ, living for Christ. The end of the world. 21:43 With so many events taking place around the world, catastrophes 21:47 and earthquakes and floods and famines. I'm telling you, people 21:52 are asking about the end of the world. The coming King, the 21:58 creator. God's unchangeable day which is the Sabbath. God's 22:02 everlasting grace. They're asking about baptism and death. 22:06 People are asking about death and these tragic incidences that 22:10 are taking place across the world. They're asking about 22:13 hell. They're asking about 1000 years of peace, judgment, growth 22:17 in Christ, God's people, financial security. People are 22:21 saying how can I become financially free. Vibrant health 22:25 The Comforter and also following Christ. A few subjects that we 22:30 introduce. You know, I like what you're 22:33 saying to really focus on what of course what the interest is. 22:36 There are a lot of people who have different ways that they 22:38 like to take information. I know my husband and I, when we 22:42 travel that's one of the things we also encourage people. Find 22:45 out are they readers, are they television watchers, are they 22:49 video watcher, do they like to listen to CD's or music and then 22:54 get that information that fits that person's interest. I mean 22:57 someone who doesn't enjoy reading and doesn't belong to a 23:01 book club, you know, maybe another type of material could 23:05 be of interest to them. Maybe they like to watch things on the 23:08 web. That's right. I met a young lady 23:11 who received a tract at the door. 23:14 What's a tract? 23:15 It's a small little brochure that has a particular subject 23:19 maybe on salvation through Christ or faith. And so 23:22 they'll read the tract. It gives them a lot of Bible questions 23:26 and answers and they go to their Bible and read that. So she 23:29 flipped it over and it said from your friends the Seventh-day 23:33 Adventists. Well she went on the web and she started researching 23:36 Seventh-day Adventist and she found the web site to the 23:39 Seventh-day Adventist Church. And in the website it had 23:41 actually Bible studies. She completed all the Bible studies, 23:45 went to a local church in New York, went to the pastor and 23:49 said I want to get baptized. And the pastor said I don't know 23:53 you. She said, you will now. And she told him the whole story 23:57 I met a young lady like that. Just from the website we can 24:01 actually reach people. 24:02 I know that's true. I know when I travel a lot I have these 24:06 little cards for 3ABN and I'll pass them to people because 24:09 not only can they watch Issues and Answers, they can watch a 24:14 lot of different programs on 3ABN and people will go and they 24:18 will do that. And there's lots of stories that you hear on the 24:22 Presents program and other programs on 3ABN how people have 24:25 actually come to the Lord by watching television. So that's 24:28 another medium. We'll talk about the website now and then of 24:32 course these kind of books here. OK, all right. Somebody may not 24:35 go to the web. They may not watch television. They may be 24:39 too busy to even watch TV. I've had people tell me I'm just too 24:42 busy to watch television, but they will read as they're riding 24:45 the subway or, you know. 24:46 I was on the plane not too long ago and I was sitting next to a 24:50 senior citizen. She was going to Florida, and of course I was 24:53 going in the same direction. And we were just talking about 24:57 life. Her grandchildren, my children. And finally at the end 25:00 of the conversation as we were landing I said well I represent 25:04 a religious publication and would you like a copy of it. 25:07 She says sure. And I pulled out of my bag a Message magazine 25:11 and I gave her that magazine and I said well my the Lord bless 25:14 you and keep you. And she said thank you. I'm going to a 25:16 wedding. And I said, well read it. It's very good. And the 25:19 subject was on the Holy Spirit. Well when I was leaving to come 25:24 back, to return to Maryland, she was on the same plane. 25:28 She tapped me on my shoulder and said Hi, how are you doing? 25:31 I said, Hey, it's nice to see you. Did you enjoy the wedding? 25:35 Was it great. And she said yes. And she said oh that magazine. 25:39 Oh that magazine, I love it, it's so beautiful. I said you 25:42 like it. I said on page such and such you can call a 1-800 number 25:47 and subscribe to it. She was not a member of my church. But 25:51 she loved the content. Reaching people through literature is one 25:56 of the areas in which I think every believer should preach 26:01 through literature and also by their mouths. OK. Let's go to 26:05 the last one... 26:11 Do you not realize that there are people sitting in our 26:15 congregations who would come to our church as visitors for years 26:19 and we've never asked them to become a member. 26:21 We always say will the visitors please stand up. Now how about 26:25 the guest. Can a person say guest. Would you say in your 26:29 home would the visitors in your home... 26:32 When I was pastoring a very, very small church, a very small 26:36 church, I had 10 people in my congregation who were going to 26:41 that same church for 20 years, 20 years, and they were not 26:45 members of my church. They are now. 26:48 I'll tell you a funny one. We had a dentist in our church and 26:52 he did a health program for the afternoon and we didn't find out 26:56 until like after he had finished the presentation and a lot of 26:59 people from the community had come, that he was not a member 27:03 of any church. We said well why not. He said, well nobody ever 27:07 asked me. That's right. We have to ask. 27:09 Why don't you ask, Jason, ask our viewers today. 27:13 We would like for you, all of our viewers, right now if you 27:18 have not accepted Christ as your personal Savior, why don't you 27:23 take this time to just fall on your knees, close your eyes, and 27:28 ask Christ to come into your life. It's very simple to say 27:33 Lord I want as my personal Savior because the Bible says 27:38 in John 3:16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only 27:42 begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not 27:46 perish but have everlasting life. Accept Christ today. 27:50 Thank you so much, Jason, for coming to our program today. 27:53 Thank you. And thank you for sharing this topic and until 27:57 next time may God bless you. |
Revised 2014-12-24