Soul Winning Prospects In The Church
Title: Soul Winning Prospects In The Church
Category: Evangelism Issues
Subject: Evangelism
Soul Winning Prospects Within The Church
Jim Mastin
As many of you did, I once read the little book, "Acres of Diamonds". The idea was that many of the greatest treasures in the world can exist right under our noses. This is also true with soul winning prospects.
As pastors we get so caught up in church budgets, paper work, incoming mail, staff, and even studying, that we forget the real reason we are here. That is to "seek and to save that which is lost". That was the reason Jesus was here and He told us when He left that we should do the works that He did and greater works than those because we would have the Holy Spirit to help us.
So where is our "acre of diamonds"? Where are all those lost souls we can reach? Right there in your congregation. Let me tell you a brief story.
A number of years ago I took a church with 25 members, four of which were men. The bank that held the mortgage on the church had just notified them they were foreclosing in one week. I was not made aware of all this at the time I accepted the call. When I arrived, I found the church was discouraged, despondent, and desperate. I knew I had to quickly revive the people or it was gone.
I went to the bank Monday morning and negotiated a 90 day reprieve on the foreclosure. Had a prayer meeting with the handful of people that came on Wednesday night. On Sunday I preached on the urgency of reaching your friends and loved ones. Sunday night at the close of the service, I passed out 3x5 cards and asked everyone to write down the name of every family member within 25 miles of the church; every friend in the area; every person they felt was a friend at work; every school mate they considered a friend. We collected the cards.
Much to my surprise we had almost 300 names turned in. On Monday we got volunteers and called and got addresses on all these names. We made visitation cards of the names. I continued to preach the burden of reaching lost souls. We had a couple of "filled altar" invitations praying for the list of names. We then set out over the next few weeks to visit all of the cards.
As a result, we had over 25 saved, a dozen or so baptized and added about 35 to the church attendance, all in about 90 days. The "spell" was broken. Over the next 60 months, the Sunday School grew to 900, baptizing 100 to 200 a year, and a new beautiful auditorium was constructed. All because we went soul winning!
Jim Mastin
As many of you did, I once read the little book, "Acres of Diamonds". The idea was that many of the greatest treasures in the world can exist right under our noses. This is also true with soul winning prospects.
As pastors we get so caught up in church budgets, paper work, incoming mail, staff, and even studying, that we forget the real reason we are here. That is to "seek and to save that which is lost". That was the reason Jesus was here and He told us when He left that we should do the works that He did and greater works than those because we would have the Holy Spirit to help us.
So where is our "acre of diamonds"? Where are all those lost souls we can reach? Right there in your congregation. Let me tell you a brief story.
A number of years ago I took a church with 25 members, four of which were men. The bank that held the mortgage on the church had just notified them they were foreclosing in one week. I was not made aware of all this at the time I accepted the call. When I arrived, I found the church was discouraged, despondent, and desperate. I knew I had to quickly revive the people or it was gone.
I went to the bank Monday morning and negotiated a 90 day reprieve on the foreclosure. Had a prayer meeting with the handful of people that came on Wednesday night. On Sunday I preached on the urgency of reaching your friends and loved ones. Sunday night at the close of the service, I passed out 3x5 cards and asked everyone to write down the name of every family member within 25 miles of the church; every friend in the area; every person they felt was a friend at work; every school mate they considered a friend. We collected the cards.
Much to my surprise we had almost 300 names turned in. On Monday we got volunteers and called and got addresses on all these names. We made visitation cards of the names. I continued to preach the burden of reaching lost souls. We had a couple of "filled altar" invitations praying for the list of names. We then set out over the next few weeks to visit all of the cards.
As a result, we had over 25 saved, a dozen or so baptized and added about 35 to the church attendance, all in about 90 days. The "spell" was broken. Over the next 60 months, the Sunday School grew to 900, baptizing 100 to 200 a year, and a new beautiful auditorium was constructed. All because we went soul winning!
