(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you I am recording this right now at streaming so we're going to be able to refer back to this you'll be able to refer back to this and if you have any questions or anything to look back on it and be able to point other people to in the future so all right this is the first installation of our soul-winning workshop the first thing I want to just start off and just just introduce with is that you know as a church when we go out soul-winning we are following the rules of stronghold Baptist Church okay if you don't like the way that we do the soul-winning and everything else you're free to do whatever you want on your own time so whatever you go out like if you want to go out by yourself and do whatever you do and talk to people you know obviously that's on you but we expect you when you're representing stronghold Baptist Church and you go out with our information and our literature and you're inviting people to church or you're even just going with us in any of our organized times that you're following the instruction that I'm about to get forward here and just a general instruction as a church so that we don't need anyone going rogue and just kind of doing their own thing and you know the one of the reasons for this is you know when people if infiltrators come in that want to preach a false gospel or something like that you know it's not going to be tolerated and it's not allowed and we're not changing our methods you know if you think well there's a better way of doing this and we're going to start doing this way no you know that decision is going to come from me and me alone so I'm going to decide the way that we operate the soul winning now that being said okay if this isn't you know sorting isn't super strict and restrictive of like you have to use this verse and this verse and this verse right anyone who's been sold in with our church at all knows there's you know there's there's a lot of flexibility in ways of explaining the gospel and things like that so but but the things I'm going to cover today and in future workshops are important so this this has to do with the way that we go out and preach the gospel and the way that you represent our church and just don't forget that when you go out so winning as a group for us you are representing stronghold Baptist Church every single one of you individually so I wanted to I guess I'll start off by saying we want to be respectful to people in general okay just just by and large your overall character when we go out is one that is humble and respectful we're not going out to get into arguments and fights and and yell at people and scream at people and force people to listen to you and and everything like that that is the wrong spirit that is not what we're doing the objective for soul winning is to win souls to Christ that's the purpose of going out we're trying to show anybody who's willing to listen the gospel of Jesus Christ okay that's always the primary objective is we want to lead people to Christ so one of the ways that manifests itself is when you approach someone you talk to someone and they don't have any interest in what you have to say we say have a good day okay we do not try to pressure people into hearing something they don't want to hear you don't want to just keep on going and just trying to just like keep them to listen to you if they've already expressed that they don't want to hear what you have to say and this is important because on the one hand we're zealous and we understand the importance of you know hey people need to hear this right this is a serious matter you know people are dying and going to hell and if they don't have the gospel that's where they're gonna end up so it is very serious and we understand that but at the same time you will end up wasting your time with people if they are not willing and want to listen and you're gonna have to try to pick that up and learn where people are at because there's some people who are kind of on the fence so there's always going to be a little bit of a gray area with some of the things I talked about today there may be some people who at first they kind of don't really you know they don't have anything else going on but they might say well I'm kind of busy and they're like you could see they're playing a video game there's nothing wrong with just being like look it's only gonna explain it's gonna take five or ten minutes or so you know whatever like whatever whatever you feel is appropriate about time we're not lying to them but you can definitely get through the gospel and say like if you know that someone doesn't have very much time you can hit the pertinent verses in five minutes in ten minutes you know it may not be the best presentation but you can do it so you can say hey look well if you're limited time this could only take five or ten minutes is that okay with you do you have that much time and you know if they say no that's fine right it's not fine for them but you know what we need we're seeking out people who want to listen that's that's what we're doing because otherwise you will waste your time and it's the same thing with people who may seem like they want they want to talk to you but they don't want to listen and there's a lot of people like that too sometimes they run into people who are very very steeped in what they believe in a false religion okay and instead of listening to what you have to say they want to teach you why you're wrong well another thing to understand when we go out soul-winding is that we are out to teach and to preach the gospel not to be taught there is another balance with this because when we speak with people we don't just preach at them we communicate with them and have a dialogue and have a conversation okay and this is very important because you need to be able to understand where they're at while you are presenting the gospel to them understand what they're thinking and what they're believing and hear them out but that is separate from someone who just wants to argue with you and tell you why you're wrong you have to be able to start you know and and and you learn this over time okay this is something that with more experience you'll be able to develop and start to see when people are being a certain way and are being more combative and when it's appropriate just to end the conversation and say well you know you could come and check out our church you could see if you want to see any more information it's on the website or you know you could you could go check out this video we reference a soul-winding presentation on our home page strongoldbaptist.church okay the website's listed on the front of our invitations so if you run across someone who may be busy they don't have time to hear you out or someone who's kind of being combative you're not really getting very far with giving a gospel out just say okay well if when you have some time right in the future you can you can go to this website right here there's a video presentation saying a lot of things that I was going to show you today so please go ahead and check that out and that's an easy way it's a cordial way it's a nice way to end the conversation okay because here's the thing we're not out to start you know to be so aggressive and in your face with people that if they don't hear you out they're never gonna want to have anything to do with you anymore or anyone that's going to try to preach in the gospel we got to understand that not everyone's gonna get saved the first time they hear the gospel and it may not be from you so what we want to do as humble servants is go forth bearing precious seed go forth preaching the Word of God be humble if someone you know if someone mocks you if someone you know does is trying to rile you up and stir you up just walk away the best thing to do is walk away and and let it be and don't waste your time and and you know what it's not always easy because sometimes your flesh wants to stick around and fight and and and tell that person why they're wrong okay but that's not why we're out now I will deal with certain situations when there are people who are getting really aggressive and out of hand and trying to you know it doesn't happen very often but are just completely trying to stop the work that's being done and can't just leave it at have a good day right those are sometimes where the general rule of how we're behaving might change a little bit and some of you have seen that from me before but it doesn't happen very often you know it doesn't happen very often we've had people following us around saying oh I'm gonna call the cause I'm gonna call these people to let if I'm around especially let me deal with that and you all everyone else continue doing what you're doing don't make a spectacle out of it just keep doing what you're doing don't let people threaten you or whatever like just keep doing what you're doing and and let me explain this to you we have every right to go out and preach the gospel everywhere in the state there don't don't worry about the law now I always leave it up to you individually if you are uncomfortable approaching certain doors you know whether if it's like no trespassing or no no soliciting and things like that that is your discretion and I'm not gonna have a problem with anyone choosing not to go to a door but legally especially with the solicitation thing if it's an HOA you're not a member of that HOA so you don't have to follow the HOA rules on walking through and knocking on doors we have a right granted to us from God first and foremost which is the most important thing to go out and preach the gospel every creature so if someone asks you if you have permission just say yes say yes we do you have to explain any further than that because we have permission by God Almighty to go out and talk to people and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and there is no greater permission needed than that at the end of the day that is the final authority for our lives and it is a command it's not a suggestion we are commanded to go forth and preach the gospel Jesus Christ so you could rest comfortable and confident knowing that alone but even besides that we are also afforded rights in this country to where it is your legal civil everyone to call it right to practice your religion which includes preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ we are not soliciting anything we are not selling anything we are not asking anything of anybody when we go out and talk to people we are simply inviting them to our church and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ those are the two things that we're doing and even leaving an invitation and we're not selling anything it's information you know political groups can do this without it's not called soliciting you go out and try to get people to vote for a certain candidate you can leave door hangers you could do it's all legal okay so don't worry about about that either don't let that be something to deter you okay now the stuff I'm going to be going over today and in future installments here when you brand-new to our church you know try to absorb as much as you can and people have been here for coming sewing for a long time be paying attention as well because you also have a job as you grow and so winning to start to be able to teach other people the same things so the design is that I shouldn't have to go over all of these things very frequently we will go over them from time to time because it is my job make sure things like I'm doing right now I mean we've been at this for a few years so I'm making sure okay let's kind of hit a reset button make sure everyone's on the same page and continue moving forward but the design the goal is to have disciples to have people coming to church this is our discipleship program by what happens out so winning when people start coming to our church that are newer you get paired up or teamed up with people who have been here and are more experienced and that that know and have been doing this for a while and they're comfortable giving the gospel because those are the people who are going to be equipped to teach and we already have soul winning team leaders so brother Vernon is a soul-winning leader on Sundays brother Carter is a soul-winning leader on Mondays and brother marks not here this afternoon but he's a soul-winning leader on Saturdays and all of these men are their job is to and just so everyone knows this right they have a job now the way that I've given a lot of freedom to how each individual chooses to run their group but you all have to understand that the people that I put as being responsible for the group you have to listen like like they're responsible for for setting up people with partners and things like that and what we're going to do and what buildings we're going to hit and everything like that they get the final say-so on that okay and sometimes you know you got people wanting to send kids together and everything else but you know what the soul-winning leaders are going to determine what's appropriate what's not and if you want to participate in our soul-winning times you have to be able to submit to that to that authority so that's that's what I've placed on them just so everyone understands because I'm not out at all these times and all these events anyways and they know what I've instructed them to do and I'm explaining that to you so there's no mystery of what what is going on we've had a lot you know over the years you have different things come up different situations when we pair up obviously we want to be appropriate with who we go so winning together with so here are some of the rules that we follow of pairing people up we generally like to send people out by twos so in an ideal world ideal situation we have groups just two and two going out but I don't want to say an ideal world because there's a lot of other factors that come in that I'm not going to say they're not ideal but like with children for example families going out so winning it adds an extra element so what the mindset is what the thinking is as much as is possible we try to keep the number of people showing up at a door to a smaller number when possible just to prevent a lot of distractions and and maybe even being overwhelming for the person coming to the door because again the mindset is what can we what's the best way that we can get through to this person best biblical way to have somebody listen to us and receive the gospel of Jesus Christ so one is to try to reduce now look got families families have multiple children and it's it's only gonna work out for all the kids ago great you know what go ahead amen go out with your family and I love it I encourage that actually and I don't want to die I don't want you just to feel like you have to leave your kids back instead of bringing them with you so any I like the kids going out so winning but what would be better is especially if you have a lot of children and you have some older children that we can start pairing up some older children with some other people to reduce the total number of people going to one door now we try to do everything yeah we try as much as possible to do everything above board everything to be appropriate where I'm looking for so when we pair people up so winning and the team leaders are aware of this as well you know we generally will put men with men and women with women we don't always have someone who's ready to teach whether it be man or woman right for people to go out together and then in those situations we might pair up like two men and a woman or two women and a man but but if we're gonna have mixed groups as in men and women there's always going to be some accountability factor there of having another another person there right so generally if newer people come in and they're married we might set the husband and wife with another husband and wife from church right so like the man will go the man when we go with a woman and that's completely appropriate or we might just send the couple together with one person from our church to you know they could be a silent partner and then and then they could learn that way also when it comes to children another thing with appropriateness is and this is going to be at the team leaders discretion but we don't send children off together to do to knock on doors by themselves there needs to be a responsible party present and I'm talking you know 13 14 years old I don't want 13 14 year olds off by themselves knocking on doors I'm not saying I can't preach the gospel okay because I love it when you know the young people go out and and are able to preach a gospel that's great but they need to be with an adult a parent preferably but if there is another trusted adult that the family member is okay with then I'll be okay with that too because again we're out in public we're out in the open and part of the thinking for that is so you understand is children don't always know how to deal with every situation and occasionally there are very bizarre situations that you may run into that a younger person may not have any idea how to handle and occasionally run into people who might be predators at a door or something right that can invite people in and and do that type of thing and catch them off guard because they're younger okay so for many reasons especially for safety reasons kids have to go with an adult that's just just the way it is and then on along the same lines when it comes to safety and doing things appropriately and when it comes to how many you know how many people are being sent out I mentioned before we like to send out people by twos but sometimes there's an odd number or whatever and someone might end up going out solving by themselves I'm a good example of that because my times usually are a little bit different than everyone else's I might show up a little bit late I might believe a bit early so I don't always have a partner set up for me right away so I might just go out and knock some doors now that's not ideal I'd prefer to have somebody I think we should as much as possible have partners right but in general it's okay you know we do that from time to time but here's the thing especially if you're by yourself if someone invites you into their house like if a man invited me into his house I'd have no problem with that I would say sure but if I'm all by myself and a woman that invites me in her house I'm gonna say absolutely not well I'm not gonna say that too I'm gonna be more polite I was gonna say no thank you can we just stand right here this is this is fine right and just insist that it's okay to have the conversation at the door and if they insist that they don't want to stand at the door then I would say well man you know is it possible that I could send my wife over here or another lady from our church to come in and you can politely say you know we just we have a rule we don't enter a house if you know if it's just me and I'm by myself and come into your house we just don't want to have any any problems right and most people could understand why because it's it all it takes is an accusation and if you are have witnesses and if you have people out there I mean you're you're protected against anyone who might want to say or do you know bring up some evil report against you so it's a lot of reasoning and hopefully you get this even just up to this point there's a lot of thought and reasoning behind why we do what we do okay so being new or being a silent partner allow yourself to just take in the instruction and observe and learn at least maybe the first few times that you come out so winning with us because there's a lot of thought in this and hopefully and my goal is to have this the the people over the members are church or doing a talking to explain like a lot of what I'm saying in between doors as you're going out as different situations present themselves do some teaching okay do some instruction so that way everybody can understand a lot of this stuff and start to realize oh there's a lot more thought behind this then just go out and do it right and this is gonna bring me to the silent partner okay and I'm probably gonna stop after this point there's a lot I could go through there's a lot I thought that the the notes I have right now would would I'd be able to get through all of them in a short period of time but but it requires explanation I think it's a good thing so silent partner when we send people out and again I'm going to speak in terms of twos but obviously there's other situations the point of the silent partner or partners one person does the talking at the door okay and the reason there's many reasons for that one of the reasons is and I'll explain it this way if you are you know every time we preach a gospel to somebody in your mind as you're talking you're thinking about the next things that you want to say and this isn't it whether you're so winning or not what you know in conversation when you're engaged in conversation with someone some things will pop in your head and you're gonna be thinking wow I want to talk to them about this next or that next or whatever and when you're in a conversation think about this for your conversation with a lot of people sometimes you might think of something you want to say but then what happens someone else pipes up and then the conversation is through the way and then you're like man I don't want to bring that up now because it's old it's stale right like like I can't go back to that point it would have been a great point and it would have been awesome and whatever but now I can't because the conversation went a different direction this is natural this happens but when we're so winning the whole purpose is to lead someone to Christ you don't want to have people even though we have the same goal in mind you may be thinking and I know I do I could think about setting up a certain point with a person showing them a particular scripture that I'm gonna follow up with another one maybe a couple minutes into my presentation and if someone else the other person pipes up and starts to say something because you feel like oh man this person just really needs to hear this or whatever you could end up messing up the presentation that that original person is trying to get to right so one of the reasons we have one person doing the talking is because they have a plan and they start talking someone and they're observing and in having their conversation with the person allow them to get through their gospel presentation now there's a lot of things that a silent partner can do while you're silent and very important things I might add as well so one person is giving the presentation the silent partner can be praying while you're there that there will be no distractions pray that God will open up their understanding pray that if there are things going on you know whatever that that they'll they'll be able to focus and stay intent not only be prayer but you're also there to serve as an assistant in any regard so maybe they're talking in the person hey can you get a Bible for me because he wants to give a Bible can you get you know like whatever any way that you can assist is also an important function so that you don't have to completely stop a conversation with someone they could go and do whatever a phone call comes in sometimes if we're coordinating amongst each other and someone called like someone calls me because hey where you guys at I could get my phone to my silent partner and say here talk to them while I continue conversation there's a lot of things that you can do and another big thing is heading off distractions before they fully become a distraction this happens relatively frequently I don't know not all the time but you could be talking to someone at a door right let's say I'm a silent partner and I have another partner talking they're talking he's gonna gospel everything's going great it's a good conversation I noticed someone pull up in the parking lot parked their car get out of their car and start walking right over to the door that we are at okay now everybody's different some people would just walk on by and not cause any problems and not cause any distractions and they don't care what's going on right other times people are upset that you're there and don't want you talking to the person you're talking to and they're gonna go and try to stop everything that's going on right away you don't always know how they're going to respond so a silent partner a very good thing to do if your partner is giving a gospel someone else and someone's approaching you approach them first let's make contact say hey how's it going we're visiting you know and don't be too loud don't be distracting so you could you know talk over each other that's another reason why we like going together but let one person do the talking and staying with your partner and not start hitting multiple doors in the same place because then it gets confusing you start hearing the kind of different conversations going on real in close proximity so keeping that in mind though a silent partner goes to head off a potential distraction and I've done this before maybe that person isn't interested in hearing the gospel which is fine you don't have to keep pushing for the gospel but I'll try talking to him about anything then seriously talk about the weather you talk about sports talk about whatever you know like there's anything that's going on in the world to keep them engaged so that your partner can have an uninterrupted time to give the gospel right and if they seem like someone who's just they're not angry they're not upset that you're there or whatever and they want to just go in obviously great but there's a lot of distractions that can come up that you can help prevent as the silent partner so be thinking about those things as well silent partner though it's very important to remain silent during the time that your partner is giving the gospel okay there are times when is appropriate to speak okay there are a few times but the general rule again is let your partner say what they need to say and in here's what you can do as a silent partner you have an opera you always have an opportunity to speak once the presentation is over okay if something pops into your mind and you think hey the way that this person is explaining this I don't think they're getting it and it's not that good maybe it's a bad example maybe they explain it quite right or whatever it happens and you want to just jump in and interject don't do it try to you know resist that temptation to just jump right in let them continue or maybe you think of something you said oh man but if they heard this then they'd understand don't interject oftentimes you'll see this is that the thing that you wanted to say sometimes a partner he's gonna say the same exact thing he's just doing it in a slightly different way and waiting and biding his time okay so let him do that but if everything ends now if everything ends and the person gets saved then great you didn't obviously you didn't have to say anything if everything ends and a person doesn't get saved that's a good opportunity to say you know once you realize a partner's done excuse me can I just ask you something real quick or can I show you something real quick go back to the point that you wanted to say for that person and bring it up and if they hear you out great and if and if that clicks and triggers with them and they understand and maybe they end up getting saved awesome but that's the appropriate time to do such a thing now there are a couple exceptions to this and I will I refer to these as a teaching purpose for someone who is trying to give an instruction to someone that they're out soloing with in an area that they may perceive that they could learn from by the interjection at that time okay there's a lot of things that you can wait if you're teaching until everything's over and that's fine but sometimes there is it it could be appropriate and this is for people who do in the teaching okay not for the person learning for the people doing the teaching to interject and to maybe make and point of demonstrating and I've done this before with some people in the church and so I'm giving you a little bit more insight into why I do that sometimes I'd I try not to do it very often but it's to I want to I want to illustrate and especially with people because I go oftentimes with people who are kind of more seasoned soul winners so they know a lot already and when I make an interjection it's it's to it's to help them to see a point and not do you know obviously we always want to be tactful when you're teaching people right but also just to help demonstrate that maybe there's an area here that they were not doing a thorough job on or whatever or something that they might not have thought of and so there's there's these rules and then there's some you know there's oftentimes exceptions right to these rules but generally speaking you know it's this isn't super complicated right just to sum it up because obviously there's a lot more I want to go into but for today I'm gonna wrap this up right now at the end of the day it's still very simple we're going out with the heart and the mind the attitude to preach the gospel to the lost world right to show them how to be saved I didn't even get a chance to go through the actual presentation we'll do that next time okay but I want to explain some of these basic fundamentals and principles when we go out because you'll get to hear the gospel presentation if you go out with us anyways you'll hear someone go through the verses and do all that so we will do that I'll probably plan doing that next time but I want to at least make sure we laid this groundwork down so to review we're gonna you know follow the rules of stronghold Baptist Church experience all winners teach these things to the less experienced so use it as a time not only to fellowship but also to give some instruction and just give some insight into why we do these things we pair up trying to minimize the total number of people going to door when possible when it's when it's appropriate and partnering up with people where it's appropriate we're not putting married men and married women together they're not married to each other to go off and in and spend a bunch of time together alone and preach a gospel but it's going to be appropriate based on you know with children with adults single married things like that and we don't send single people out with married people right of opposite genders so those are the types of things that we follow there and a silent partner is very important that you remain silent through the presentation of the gospel allow your sowing partner allow them to make some mistakes but allow them to get through their whole process and if you perceive that you still there's still something that you kind of want to add wait to the end and add that that's generally the the right time to do so and then finally for for people who are newer you know I recommend it already before that you you come along with us as a silent partner for maybe a couple times at least and if you're if you really want to talk and you feel confident and comfortable and you want to you want to give them the gospel great I don't want to prevent you from doing that also understand that you can anytime you want to start you can talk to your sowing partner and be like hey well just bail me out like if I if I can feel stuck have no problem saying well you know brother so-and-so or sister zone so can help explain this to you a little bit better or something and just kind of pass it pass the conversation off to that person if you feel like you don't know what else to say or you kind of feel nervous or whatever no problem with that at all and no failure in that at all just as you're learning do that and there's all there's so many little things right there's all these little situations kind of come up but overall yeah just when you're ready to talk don't just start talking communicate with your partner and say hey I'd like to get the next door and then they'll let you get the next door and not interrupt and let you give the gospel okay and they may wait till you're done and then follow up with some questions because oftentimes newer people may not be as thorough in communicating and that's okay and don't feel upset if someone wants to add something after you get done talking whether you're experienced or inexperienced because we all the same goal it's not a personal slam or attack or anyone thinking anything bad about you it's we care about the person that we're talking to we care about their soul so if there's any if there's doubt in someone's mind of whether or not that person got it we would like to make sure so that's that's ultimately why we're going out so appreciate everyone taking time and listening we're definitely gonna do this again at least one more time because there are a lot of little details when it comes to respect and manners and the way that we behave ourselves out in the field and all kinds of different things so we'll get into that later but we've definitely been here long enough it's almost time to to head out but first I'm gonna ask if everyone could please help us get everything cleaned up and I'm going to close in a word of prayer and then we'll we'll be ready to get going all right dear Heavenly Father we thank you so much for this opportunity and for our church and for all the people you've gathered together here Lord I pray to please help us to learn and to grow and to be very efficient and effective at the job that you've given us to preach the gospel Lord I pray that you would please fill us with your spirit and your power and understanding that that we need you and we could do nothing without you Lord and and we need your presence we need your spirit to be upon us as we go out and preach your word so that we could lead people to Christ and and just see more people getting saved that we love you in Jesus name we pray amen you