SOULWINNING EXPERIMENT #2: SURVEILLANCE MISSION

 

(“He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30 NKJV)

Dear Readers:

I’m so glad you stopped by. Today we’re going explore the results of the last week of sharing the gospel with others. Then we’re going to embark on Soulwinning Experiment #2: Surveillance Mission.

Results in last seven days:

• I shared the Roman Road gospel tract I made with the Marcos Pizza manager. He was friendly and accepting, but showed that he was very unaware what the tract was about. He leafed hurriedly through it, as he was busy . . . and I was reluctant to go through the details right there and then. I want to be braver in the future.
• I shared the gospel verbally with two former Amish men at different times. They were accepting and listened, and one acknowledged, as he pointed to his heart, that he is aware that people have a vacuum in their hearts that can be only filled by God. I don’t think that young man attends church on a regular basis, or professes to be a strong believer, although I think he thinks of himself as a believer. I want to be more forthright in the future to ask people where they're at in their beliefs about Jesus.

Now to Soulwinning Experiment #2: Surveillance Mode.

• Surveillance definition: "Close watch kept over someone (as by a detective or a spy)."

You might ask, “What does surveillance have to do with soulwinning?” I would respond, “A lot, because we determine what direction to take with our relationships with people by understanding where a person is coming from . . . what he or she thinks about things . . . and what motivates him or her . . . in essence, what makes them ‘tick’

Steps for our Surveillance Mission:

1. Pray to the Holy Spirit to guide you to people to surveil, or observe, like a ‘detective’, or a ‘spy’. People rush by us in a hurry in social or neighborhood settings, like in a store, and if you’re like me, we seldom think about, “What makes that person tick?”
2. Purposefully think to yourself “What are the circumstances around that person that may be troubling him or her?” or, “How does God want to reach down into the heart of that person . . . because we know that He does?”
3. Ask God if He wants you to reach out to him or her at that moment, and then follow God’s nudging. Let’s try to be as brave as possible.

What's the worst that can happen to us if we share the gospel with someone?

• As a mental health job developer I took the approach when engaging employers to convince them to hire my people, that the most they could do to me is to get mad at me and ask me to leave. I encouraged the same approach with people trying to find jobs. The employer couldn’t have us arrested for bothering them. 
• The same holds true in soulwinning. People can shrug you off, or they can get mad at you . . . but they very likely aren’t going to have you arrested for harassment.
• But on the other hand, they might be friendly and wonder what is it about you or me that make us care about them?

Again, let’s try to remember that right now we’re trying to develop a culture of soulwinning, to “sow seeds”, if you will,  as Jesus said in John 3:36-37: “The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’”

Let’s be content with sowing seeds for now, and we know that God will honor our effort. We’ll talk next week about how we did in our ‘surveillance mission’

See you next week,
Arlen