Highways and Hedges

It was the first time I had ever done something like this as evangelist.  Several months ago, Pastor Ken Schultz of the Emmanuel Baptist Church of Box Elder, SD, called me and asked if I would come and go soul-winning with him and his people for two weeks.  We would go out several hours each day, five days a week.  In addition to going out with him and his people door to door, I would also preach in the services while I was with him.  He requested that I teach on Baptist history while I was there.

The plan of his outreach was something called “The Book of John Project.”  The idea is to encourage people to read a specially prepared copy of the Gospel of John.  The copy of John is printed alone—that is, without any of the other books of the Bible with it—and has specially prepared explanatory notes introducing the reader to Christ.  Since the Gospel of John was written with the express purpose of convincing people to believe in Christ and so be saved, the book is given out to unsaved people with faith in this divinely inspired purpose statement.

But the New Testament gives us reason to believe that reading the Bible is not enough to understand the Gospel.  (See Acts 8:26-39.)  Therefore, The Book of John Project calls for personal workers to follow up with those who have read John’s Gospel so that they might answer any questions the person might have.  Of course, the objective is to see people saved.

In Box Elder, we gave out books and took names.  The plan was for the pastor and his people to follow up later, first by phone and then face to face.  In the time that we went out, we had nearly 70 people sign up to read the Gospel of John and have someone from the church return to follow up with them.  Pastor Schultz was both encouraged and nervous at the same time: that is more people than he has in his church.

I suppose I could fill a decent-sized volume with stories of encounters from these two weeks alone.  Suffice it to say that it is a joy to go out into the highways and hedges and preach Christ to sinners.