I had a feeling that this would be no ordinary day as a group of us gathered on a late September morning for
a morning of training in Evangelism with a particular focus on door to door visitation.
We soon learned that for all our efforts in preaching and teaching within the church building, statistics show that 78% of people become Christians through having a good relationship with another Christian who shares the gospel with them.
We also affirmed the biblical mandate that Jesus calls us to go into the world and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19) and explored the examples of Philip (Acts 
as he spoke to the Ethiopian eunuch and the woman at the well in Samaria who having spoken to Jesus went and told everyone in her village what she had heard and that many came to believe because of her testimony (John 4).
Then as we considered the many who are isolated in their homes, those who have never had a contact with
a church, as well as those that have, but turned away for one reason or another the size of the problem
became more apparent. Of those 78% of Christians only 2% were recent converts, whilst 76% had been
Christians for over 20 years.
So we then looked to ourselves – could we be the ones to go and take the gospel into our community? It was
a great privilege to hear from Trevor Dickerson, National Field Director from Outreach UK and perhaps the
most experienced door to door evangelist you could ever hope to meet. Not only does Trevor have extensive
experience, he also had experience here in Horsham having been the local evangelist in this area
some years ago. Perhaps the best piece of advice he gave was the evangelists prayer which is ‘Lord take me to
the one person you want me to speak to in your name today’
.
Once we had heard from Trevor there was really only one thing left to do and that was to Go!. So after a word of prayer together we set off into the streets around to meet with some of our neighbours.
Speaking for myself, it was certainly not ‘easy’, yet for all the people I spoke to no one was rude, no one was angry and even those who declined to accept the ‘Good News’ paper that we were offering did so politely. There were those who took the paper but didn’t have time to talk and certainly one lady who did explain that she did believe in God yet did not
have time for church.
When I invited her to come to our church at any time she did appear genuinely touched and I felt that perhaps this was the one the Lord had been leading me to. My final contact was with the elderly Pakistani gentleman who had visited our Summer Picnic this year and it was good to be able to have a few words with him albeit translated via his nephew.
Others came back with similar stories of doorstep conversations, one gentleman even inviting Trevor inside and allowing Trevor to pray with him. As we returned and reviewed our experiences it was helpful to acknowledge those
situations where we felt that we had missed an opportunity to continue a conversation but also to see
that as time progressed our confidence had grown and we became able to look for the keys to expanding a conversation.
Was it easy? -No.
Would I do again? -Yes, because I could see how much I was learning just through the experience and it was immediately evident that we were entering a spiritual desert where the word of God has yet to take root.
As a local church we have much to offer and for all the blessings we might see from the outreach events we already hold there is nothing like those 1:1 conversations for explaining the gospel of Good News and I do thank the Lord for those engaged on door to work and trust that we as a church might become partners through regular visitation in our community. Even if you were unable to attend the training session, if you feel that you would be able to be involved with a Church Outreach Group (either as a visitor or as a prayer supporter) then please speak to me or Steve or Kevin; we would love to hear from you.
Stuart Beadle
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