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Lesson number one, we're going to talk about preparing for soul winning, preparing for soul winning. Number one, let's talk about the soul winner's goals, all right? And if you read the note there, it says, although our primary goal is to have someone saved when we go soul winning, that is not our only goal. Oftentimes new soul winners will go out and then they'll get discouraged because they go and don't have anybody saved the first time. And maybe they don't have anybody saved the second time, and maybe you'll go a few weeks or several weeks, and all of us, all soul winners go a time maybe when we don't get somebody saved. And you need to understand our primary goal is to have someone saved, absolutely. That's why we're going, that's why we're doing it. But that's not our only goal. We're accomplishing multiple things when we go out soul winning. Letter A, when we go out soul winning and no one gets saved, and that's what I want to talk about. Because obviously when somebody gets saved, that's exciting, right? You're excited, you come back rejoicing, talking about, man, this person got saved, this person received Christ. But when no one, when you go out soul winning and no one gets saved, we may not have done any soul winning, that's your blank there. We may not have done any soul winning, but we have done some soul warning, all right? We may have not done any soul winning, but we have done some soul warning. And honestly when we go out, we call it soul winning, and that's a biblical term, you know, the Bible talks about that. But in some ways we ought to call it soul warning. In Acts 20, 31, the Bible says this, therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I cease not to, notice this word, warn everyone night and day with tears. Colossians 1, 28 says, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. See when we go out, our goal, we want to see people saved, we want to win somebody for the Lord Jesus Christ, but we can't force that. Individuals have to decide that they want to receive Christ, they have to decide. Our goal is to warn everyone. Our goal is that everybody in Natomas, everybody in Sacramento hears the gospel, has an opportunity to get saved, and this will minimize a lot of the frustration that new soul winners have. Because oftentimes new soul winners, they get really mad and upset because they're like, man, I gave the gospel to this person and they didn't get saved. But when your goal is to get somebody saved, then you're going to get frustrated when someone doesn't get saved. But if your goal is just, I'm going to be a faithful steward of the gospel, I want to give people an opportunity to get saved, and what they do with that is between them and God, but my job is just to warn them, then you are successful even if nobody gets saved. So letter A, when we go out soul winning and no one gets saved, we may not have done any soul winning, but we have done some soul warning, and really that's the goal. Letter B, when we go out soul winning and no one gets saved, we were at least obedient to God's command. Matthew 28 19, we read it earlier, but again, it begins with these words, go ye. And that's a command. He's telling us to go. He says, go ye therefore and teach all nations. He's not saying go, you know, but stop if people don't get saved. Our job is just to go. Our job is just to warn. Our job is just to be faithful. So even if you go soul winning and no one gets saved, you still were obedient to God's command and that's good enough. Letter C, when we go out soul winning and no one gets saved, God still rewards us for our labor or efforts. God still rewards us for our labor or efforts. Sometimes people get this idea that they're going to get rewarded in heaven based on how many people they got saved. And that's just not the case. We do not get rewards in heaven because of the amount of people that I got saved. Because here's the thing, I didn't get anybody saved. Jesus did. All right? He's the one that paid their sin debt on the cross. All I did was bring them the gospel. Now we labor together with God. We understand that. There's an issue with saying that I got someone saved. That's a biblical term. But you need to understand what we get rewarded for is our labor, is our effort. First Corinthians 3, 7 says this, so then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. It's God that gives the increase. It's God that produces new life. It's God that saves the soul. Verse 8, now he that planteth and he that watereth are one. He says, look, if you plant the seed, if you water the seed, whatever role you play in getting somebody saved, he says they're one. It's the same, you're the same if you're laboring. Notice what it says at the end of verse 8, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. Do you see that? So look, if I go out and I spend two hours out soul winning and I get three people saved, or if I go out and I spend two hours out soul winning and I get nobody saved, I believe that God's going to reward me the way because I put the labor in. I put the effort in. Does that make sense? I went out and did the work. The people got saved, that's between them and God. My job is to be a faithful soul winner. Letter D, when we go out soul winning and no one gets saved, we at least got the word out about our church, okay? So when we go out and nobody gets saved, hey, we at least got, you know, some publicity out there. We handed out invitations, we invited people to church, and here's what we have found at Verity Baptist Church. If you turn the page, you'll see the statistics there. Let me give you those blanks. The first one is 10. When we get 10 people saved, here's what I found on average, and it doesn't work out exactly like this every time, but on average, when we get 10 people saved, we can count on one of those coming to church and being a first time guest. And you say that? That's not a very good average, you know, but that's how it goes and that's how it was for Jesus. Remember Jesus, he healed the 10 lepers? How many came back to thank him? Only one. And that's what we have found. It's very true. You get 10 people saved? We can count on one of those being a first time visitor or a visiting family. The next fill in there is 100. What we have found is when we give out 100 personal invitations, what that means is you knocked on a door, they opened the door, you looked at the individual, you spoke to the individual, and you invited them to church, all right? You said, we'd like to invite you to church. Now, you know, and they gave a positive response. Now, what I mean by a positive response is it doesn't mean that they said yes, they're coming. They didn't say no. Does that make sense? They didn't rip up the invitation. They didn't spin your face or whatever, right? They didn't slam the door. They just took the invitation. Maybe they didn't say they were gonna come, but here's what we found. If we have 100 personal invitations, we can count on one first time visitor or first time visiting family from those. Here's another statistic for you. A thousand flyers handed out. When we hand out as a church, a thousand of these invitations, we have found that for every 1,000 of these that we hand out, we can count on basically one first time visitor, one first time visitor coming to church. So here's the thing. You go out for two hours, you go out for three hours and no one gets saved. No one even opened the door, you know, and all you did was put invitations on the door. That's fine. You're still accomplishing something because for every 1,000 of these that we hand out, we can count on someone visiting church. And here's the great thing about somebody coming to visit church, they're very likely to get saved here or very likely to at least hear the gospel here because we have soul winners set up that approach our guests and present the gospel to them. So you say, I went out so many and nobody gets saved. You know, I handed out 75 of these things, but you still produce something. You still did something because visitors often come from the invitation. So we talked about the soul winners goals. Number two, let's talk about the soul winners appearance, the soul winners appearance. And we're talking about how you ought to dress for soul winning. Letter A, when dressing for soul winning, remember who you represent. 2 Corinthians 5-20 says this, now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. Now I don't know about you, but to me this is an extremely powerful verse. The Bible says that we are ambassadors for Christ. An ambassador is someone who represents, you know, a king or represents some sort of a leader. The Bible says that you and I are ambassadors for Christ. But notice these words, as though God did beseech you by us. When I knock on someone's door, when I present the gospel to someone, when I approach someone with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Bible says it's as if God himself is beseeching them by us because I'm his ambassador that he sent to represent him. He said, notice the last part of verse 20, we pray you in Christ's stead. Here's what he's saying, he's saying Christ couldn't come so he sent you. He said he has sent you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. So number one, when you're out soul winning, remember you represent the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the blank there. You represent the Lord Jesus Christ. But number two, you also represent Verity Baptist Church. When you're out soul winning, you are a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ, absolutely. But you're also a representation of the Verity Baptist Church. So we want to make sure you dress appropriately for soul winning. Let me give you some some notes and, you know, think what I think, you know, people ought to dress like at least for soul winning. Letter eight, men, I would ask that you'd please wear at least a tucked in collared shirt. Some of you wear a shirt and tie, but I know some of you guys, you know, would die if you put a tie on. So if you could just put a collared shirt on and tuck it in, I would appreciate that. All right. For the ladies, letter B, please no low cut shirts and skirts or dresses should go below the knee. No mini skirts or anything like that. Just you know, just realize, when we're going soul winning, you're representing Jesus, okay. You're not going to the park, you're not going to barbecue, you're not going to the nightclub, you're not going to a bar, you're representing the Lord Jesus Christ. So just dress nice, dress appropriately. You don't have to be super fancy, but just just dress, dress nice. You know, the way I'm dressed is how I usually dress to go out soul winning. Letter B, when dressing for soul winning, remember how you will feel. So not only remember who you represent, but also just remember about how you how you feel. And what I'm talking about is dress comfortably, especially your shoes, all right. You know, ladies, sometimes they've got so many, they have these high heels on and stuff. You're going to be walking, all right. So just put on some comfortable shoes, put on something that's going to be, you know, that you're going to be comfortable in when you go out soul winning. So remember those two things, who you represent, and remember you represent Jesus, you represent the church. And then of course, just remember to be comfortable when you're out soul winning. Number three, let's talk about the soul winners rules, the soul winners rules. Letter A, the silent partner, all right. Number one, do not interrupt. That's your fill in the blank. Do not interrupt. The key word in silent partner is silent, all right. That's the key word. So I do not want soul winners interrupting each other. I don't want people butting in and saying, I have something to say. No you don't. If you're the silent partner, you're the silent partner. Now here's how it works, all right. If you do not, you say, I don't want to give the gospel. I always think it's funny. I'll ask people, I'll go out soul winning with someone, and I'm like, hey, do you feel comfortable giving the gospel? Do you want to be a silent partner? They're like, oh, no, no, no, I'm not ready to give the gospel, you know. I say, okay, great. You know, I'll do all the talking. And then like, they always want to butt in. You know, I look at them, and I'm like, I thought you said you didn't want to talk, you know. If you can't talk, then don't talk, all right. Now if you're out soul winning, and there's two of you who talk, you know, two of you if you're comfortable, then just switch off at every door. When I go soul winning, and I have somebody with me who's comfortable giving the gospel, I knock at the door, I give the, you know, I talk, and then at the next door, my partner talks. So when I'm talking, at that door, he's the silent partner. When he's talking at that door, I'm the silent partner. Does that make sense? And let me just give you another rule. Here's how I do it at least, and how I think the men do it, and I'm pretty sure there's other women do it too, is we basically switch when you talk to someone. So if someone opens the door, and you verbally communicate to someone, whether you give them the gospel or not, you actually, you know, speak to them, invite them to church, then you switch. Does that make sense? So if I knock on a door, and nobody answers, then it's still my turn. If I knock on another door, and nobody answers, it's still my turn. I knock on a door, somebody answers, I say, hey, I want to invite you to church, they're like, not interested, now it's my partner's turn. Does that make sense? And that just makes it so that everybody gets a turn to talk, and everybody, it's kind of fair that way. So that's how we should do it. As a silent partner, number one, do not interrupt, the key word is silent. Number two, pray silently in your head. When you're the silent partner, and when I'm the silent partner, and someone's giving the gospel, I pray, you know, I'm praying, Lord, help this person understand, Lord, please help so and so to communicate it clearly, Lord, please help them to get it. So pray silently in your head. And number three, when appropriate, minimize distractions. Your job as a silent partner is to minimize distractions, but I want you to understand this, when appropriate, okay? And here's some examples. I've been out sowing before, and there's some little yapping dog that's just, you know, won't leave us alone, right? Sometimes a good sowing partner, what they'll do is they'll kind of maybe start petting the dog and, you know, playing with the dog and kind of minimizing that distraction, right? Or sometimes, you know, I've been sowing, you got to be careful with this. Like I said, you need to be appropriate with this. Sometimes we've been sowing, and maybe there's like a child that's being a little distracting, and maybe the sowing partner can kind of just talk with the child or, you know, just kind of say, hey, what's your name, you know? But here's what you got to understand. The goal is to minimize distraction. Don't start playing with the dog if you playing with the dog is going to be a big distraction. Don't start playing with the child if you playing with the child is going to be a distraction. Don't start playing with the child and then go off and take the child somewhere where the parent can't see. Does that make sense? You know, do it appropriately, but when appropriate, minimize distraction. But your goal as a sowing partner is to pray and to minimize distractions whenever at all possible. Here's a great example. Let's say you're giving the gospel, there's two people. One is interested and one is not. One is interested and the other one's just being rude and being, you know, confrontational. Sometimes what I'll do is I'll take that person and say, hey, you know, come over here, let me show you, you know, what the Bible says. And here's the thing, I know that guy's not going to get saved, but I'm just basically removing him from the picture so that the other sowing partner can talk to the one who is interested. Does that make sense? It's a work effort. And here's the thing, when that person gets saved, hey, I'm going to get rewarded for that because I took this distraction away. Does that make sense? But we want to just, when appropriate, minimize distractions, when appropriate, try to help with the situation. So, letter A, the silent partner. Do not interrupt. The key word is silent. Pray silently in your head and when appropriate, minimize distractions. Letter B, the people's property. Don't walk on their grass, all right? Don't walk on their grass. I don't know where this idea came from. I know it didn't come from our church. It must have came from some other churches or whatever. But this idea of, like, the goal is to, like, run to the next door and walk through people's grass or whatever. Look, we want to look professional when you're out there, all right? We're not a circus. This is Verity Baptist Church, all right? Walk to people's doors, knock professionally. Don't walk on people's grass. People don't like it when you walk on their grass, all right? And so just, especially if it's nice, you know, if it's all dead or whatever, that's one thing. But if they have nice grass, don't walk on their grass. You don't, and sometimes I say that and people think it's silly, here's the thing. I don't want to put someone off to the gospel because they're so mad at me because I just walked on their grass, when I could have taken an extra 10 seconds and gone through the sidewalk or whatever. So don't walk on their grass. Number two, don't sit in their furniture. So pastor, do people really do this? There's a reason why it's in the lesson, all right? People have patio furniture, don't sit in it, all right? That's not your furniture. Don't sit in their furniture. Just be respectful of people's property, all right? You know, they've got an apple tree. Don't take an apple off the tree. I know in the Bible days that was totally appropriate, but that's not the days we live in. So just be respectful of people's things. Letter C, let's talk about no soliciting signs, all right? Here's my rule for no soliciting signs. If you feel comfortable knocking on a door with a no soliciting sign, go ahead. If you don't feel comfortable, don't, all right? That's the rule. Don't make, you know, don't make someone knock on a door soliciting sign if they don't feel comfortable doing it, all right? If they don't feel comfortable, don't do it. But if they feel comfortable, then don't look down on someone who says, you know what, I don't care. I'll knock on it. Here's what I found. Nine out of ten times you knock on a no soliciting sign, they never even mention it. Most people don't even care. Most of those signs have been there from the time they moved in. One out of ten times, though, that person's going to yell at you, all right? So you're taking your chances, all right? And you know, and then, and just be careful and use common sense. Obviously, if it's like, you know, a metal plate no soliciting sign, it looks like it's been there for 20 years, you know, if you want to knock, go ahead. If it's handwritten, red letters, no religion, just use common sense, all right? You can kind of figure out who actually cares about it and who doesn't. Letter D, let's talk about our attitude. Number one, always be polite and pleasant, no matter how people treat you. People, for the most part, are going to be very kind and very respectful to you. It's very few and far between that people are rude to you, especially you ladies. People are almost never rude to you, all right? I mean, us guys, we go out there and some of the guys in our church, they just have these looks on their faces like they just put people off, you know? But you ladies, people are always nice to you. But in the case of someone who's rude to you, just be polite and pleasant, no matter how people treat you. Number two, remember we are uninvited guests. We are uninvited guests. These people did not ask us to come over. They did not invite us over. We showed up at their doorstep uninvited. Now is it wrong to do that? No, that's what Jesus told us to do. But just remember that. We are uninvited guests, so act accordingly, all right? We're there. Don't argue with people. Don't fight with people. If you are a soul winner and you are ending a conversation yelling, cursing, I really hope that's not the case, you know, mad, angry, okay, let me just tell you, you failed. You completely and utterly failed as a soul winner, all right? Because our job is to be pleasant, no matter how people treat you. Remember, we are uninvited guests. Number four, let's talk about the soul winner's introduction, the soul winner's introduction. Letter A, knock on the door firmly. Knock on the door firmly, all right? And you say, Pastor, you really need to go over these things. We need to go over these things, especially for new soul winners. Number one, how to knock on the door. Not too soft, not too loud, all right? These are the extremes that I see with new soul winners. New soul winners walk up and they're like... And I know why they do that, because they're secretly hoping no one hears them, because they don't want to talk, right? And that's fine, I get that. But if you're secretly hoping that no one hears you, then maybe you should just be the silent partner for a while, all right? So not too soft. But then also, you don't want to, you know, I mean, you might as well just yell, police, you know, we have a warrant. I mean, you don't want to scare people either, all right? You know, especially some of these neighbors we go into, you show up in a shirt and tie, you're knocking like you're the FBI or something, you might get shot. So you know, not too soft, all right? If you're secretly hoping like, I hope nobody hears this, then maybe we need to partner you with someone who is comfortable talking, but also not too loud, all right? Where you're just... And here's what I found too, like let's say they have a metal gate, sometimes what I'll do is I'll press the metal gate in and then I'll knock on like a part that's not going to hurt your knuckles. Because sometimes you knock on a metal gate and it just makes all sorts of noise. Just another thing, if there's a metal gate or something where you don't feel comfortable, but let's say there's wood, you know, on the side or maybe there's wood on the side of the window, sometimes I'll just knock on that wood, you know, just to, so people can hear you, all right? So let's talk about the procedures of knocking. Number two, knock, of course, you know, and knock appropriately, okay? We don't, don't do some weird thing, all right? Just knock and then wait a minute or two and then what I usually do is if nobody answers, if there's a doorbell, I'll ring the doorbell, and if there's not a doorbell, maybe I'll knock again. I, you know, you can do whatever you want with this, but I just always think it's better to knock. I read in a book somewhere, it's a sales book, not about so many, but I read in a book somewhere that, you know, friends knock and sales people ring the doorbell, all right? So when you're ringing the doorbell, people assume you're just selling them something or you're a Jehovah's Witness, so just knock, you know, it's what I think is best. But sometimes, you know, people may not hear your knock, so then if there's a doorbell, at that point, I'll ring the doorbell or knock again. But just, you know, knock once, wait a little bit, knock again, and then move on. Sometimes we're really quick to move on, so just wait a little bit and see what happens. Number, letter B, when someone answers the door, when someone answers the door. Number one, when the door begins to open and all conversation between soul winning partners. When the door begins to open and all conversation between soul winning partners. One of the benefits of going soul winning is that you get to fellowship with other believers. And really, like, some of the best, you know, the friends and relationships that people develop within church, they develop those after they start going soul winning because now you're getting partnered with a different person from church every week, you're getting to talk to them, you're getting to know them. Sometimes you go out to lunch afterwards or whatever. And that's great, you know, between doors, have conversations. Between doors, you know, talk and all that. But when you knock on a door and that you hear that doorknob begin to open, you know, when you knock on a door and you hear that the screen begins to open, just stop talking and be ready to talk to the person. I've literally seen this where two people are so into their conversation, they knock on a door, the person answers the door. They keep on their conversation and, you know, the person at the door is like, can I help you? Okay. That, we don't want to do that, all right? So, and you get good at this, the more you go soul winning, literally, like, some of the people at the door are soul winning, we'll be talking blah, blah, blah. In the middle of a sentence, they start opening the door, we just get quiet, deal with it. They, you know, they don't want to talk to us or whatever, they close the door and we just continue on with our conversation. You know, it's, it's fine, but when the door begins to open, end all conversation between soul winning partners. Number two, take the initiative in the conversation. Don't allow for awkward silence. The key word there is silence. So take the initiative in the conversation, don't allow for awkward silence. And this is true the entire time. You want to try to minimize the awkward silence throughout the entire presentation. You want to kind of know where you're going, know what you're saying. So there's not all this awkward silence, you know. So when they open the door, hey be ready to say something to them, don't have this thing where you're just kind of looking at them and, you know, don't know what to say. Try to avoid, avoid the awkward silence. Number three, start with a well planned introduction. Start with a well planned introduction. So here's how you avoid the awkward silence, is you have a plan for what you're going to say. You already know, when they open that door, here's what I'm going to say. I say the same thing every time at every door. Here's an example for you, a script that you could say is, hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church, wanted to give you and your family or give you an invitation to church. What I always say, I knock on the door, they open the door, Susie open the door, I smile at them, I look them in the eye, say hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church, just wanted to give you and your family an invitation to church, you know, and then hand them the invitation. I always try to make sure that I clearly say Baptist. You know, I'm not saying you have to yell the word Baptist, but I always try to make sure that, you know, they hear Verity Baptist Church, because a lot of times people think like, as soon as they hear the word Baptist, you can see their face changes, and they're just like, oh, I thought you were a Mormon, you know, and then all of a sudden now we're their friend, you know, or whatever. So just, you know, emphasize that, but don't yell it, you know, just, hey, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church, wanted to give you and your family an invitation to church, oh, you're a Baptist? Oh, okay, I thought you were a Jehovah's Witness. So you know, I always try, we try to do that. Letter C, if no one answers the door, if no one answers the door, I know this, you may think this is silly, but I need to teach it, because people don't do these things. If no one answers the door, number one, leave a church invitation on the front door or on the screen. We always leave an invitation. Always, always, always, always. Why? Because when we get a thousand of these bad boys out, we can count on one visiting family, one visiting, one visitor, and that person may get saved, and they may get baptized. Some of the best members we have at Verity Baptist Church, we knocked on their door when they weren't home, but we left an invitation, and they came to church as a result of it. So leave an invitation on the front door or on the screen door. Number two, leave the invitation so that it will be readily seen, all right? And sometimes, you know, we'll have children with us, and that's great. I think children should go. My kids go out soul winning with us every week, and they often help where they want to put the invitation. You know, kids are small, they always want to put it down here, you know? Just make sure that they're trained to put it somewhere where people are going to see it. Leave the invitation right side up and facing forward. Now, you know, this may be me being type A or maybe, you know, the military drilled in me, you know, attention to detail. I don't understand why people put invitations on the doors facing this way. I don't know why people put invitations on the doors facing this way. I don't know why people put invitations on the door facing this way. If you're going to, this is what I think. If you took time out of a Saturday morning to get dressed, drive down to church, sit through a lesson, get partnered up with an individual, go out into the community, you're knocking doors, you already put that effort into it, why don't you take time and just make sure that you put it on there nicely with the face facing frontward where it's actually right side up. You know, just pay attention to detail. That may just be my thing, maybe I'm making a big deal, but just do me a favor. When you're out, just make sure you put it on there nicely where it's facing forward, it's facing, don't put it all weird or whatever. Number four, put the invitation on the doorknob side of the hinges, all right? So you got a door, hinges on one side, doorknob on the other side. You don't want it on the doorknob side, you don't want it on the hinges, all right? So we talked about the soul winner's goals, soul winner's appearance, soul winner's rules and soul winner's introductions. That was lesson number one.