Getting Back After It

Yesterday, Nadia (my 10 yr old daughter) and I went out to do some house to house visiting. It was really good for a lot of reasons.

It was the first time I have done house to house visiting since the pandemic started.

Jim Jordan, Bob Harmon, and Paul Blodgett put together a great door-hanger for our church… stay tuned because we will be going out as a church in our neighborhood, to get the word out about our great church and even greater Savior!

Lonnie Watts and Drew Meadows are leading a Discovery Bible Study (check it out here). This is, I pray, pre-mulitplication. First, I am freed up from teaching for a season, and can take The Nay with me on evangelism visits! Second, the goal is for some people in the class to be able to teach Discovery Bible studies and see many people come to know Christ and go deeper in the Word.

I have been doing house-to-house visits for a long time. When I moved to Lexington in 1995, I felt a call to minister on the streets, and did a lot of witnessing wherever I could. When I got to my first church and had no clue what I was doing, I came across the Methodist ordination questions. One of them is: “will you visit from house-to-house?” And that is what I did.

I had been worrying for a while that the pandemic was going to put an end to all that. Not that I figured the pandemic would never end. It was more about me. There is a lot of discouragement around visiting house-to-house. Because we naturally shrink away from it, we throw out every reason it is an awful idea! “People hate it if you knock on their door.” “You look like a Jehovah’s Witness.” “It doesn’t work.” “Religion is a private matter.”

All that aside, I don’t think most people understand what an internal struggle evangelism is. Will I go where He says to go? Say what He says to say? I know I am a dinosaur—doctrinally and practically. There really is a lot of pressure to stop being such a caveman about it all.

We put about 30 door hangers out in a short trip. Talked to 3 families. One guy looked like he was a bit grumpy (maybe that was just me… more of that internal discouragement) but Nadia went up to him and he was all smiles. I usually did better when John or Joe went with me when they were little… Nadia is a real pro like they were!