130. Freedom In The Church - Evangelism and Outreach with Dom Lum

Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. Thanks for being with us today. We are smack dab in the middle of our church series we've been in for the past couple of weeks. And we've talked about everything from worship to dress attire to service and structure. And today we're going to talk to our expert on evangelism here in just a few minutes. But in the meantime, things have been doing good for us here at the church. People getting baptized and we had our Easter service a couple of weeks ago. And man, we had a packed house and the Lord's been blessing. We've been, you know, starting ministries and just busy for the Lord. Uh, James, how are things going on in your neck of the woods? It's good, man. We're doing really good. Uh, who would have thought 13 episodes into this series of in the church? This is episode number 13 of it. And, uh, man, things are doing well. Uh, our church is doing just great so far. Uh, and, uh, like I said, we, we are in our honeymoon phase. And so I enjoy the honeymoon phase. Um, but at the same time, you know, you're, you're getting to that point where, uh, everything can't be, uh, ebb and flow hunky dory forever. There's going to be some, some, uh, mistakes and upsets. And, and so, uh, I'm always prepared for that in the back of my mind. And so, uh, just excited about what God's doing. And, uh, we started our small groups for the first time back on Wednesday night last week. And, uh, so we started out with, uh, all ages on Wednesday night, uh, all in a small group setting. And so I was excited to be able to do that and, uh, just see the Lord bless and see people, uh, come in here and just be able to, uh, immerse themselves in a small group setting that they normally wouldn't get on a midweek service. And, uh, so we're really excited about that and, and we're going to run it for the month of April and May, and then, uh, we'll take the summer off and sort of reevaluate where we're at, but, uh, looking really forward to that. And, uh, so yeah, things are going really good, uh, with, with all the things at the church and, uh, we're still here. We're still, the rapture hasn't happened and, uh, so we're still plugging along. So, yeah. Oh yeah. We're still here. We're, you know, we're not, we didn't go through Nineveh and, uh, you know, we're solar eclipse, you know, we're still, we're still kicking and, uh, we've got some things coming down the pipe. You want to keep in front of you, we want to remind you about, and the next thing on our list is Indianapolis. We're going to the National Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis in the month of June. And if you're a pastor and you're going to be at this, uh, convention, we want to know about it. We want to get together. We want to have a for freedom meetup in Indianapolis. So contact us, let us know you're going to be there and, uh, we will definitely meet up with you, me, me and James. And, uh, we look forward to seeing you there. And then, uh, next up, I think we've got Katusa. Yeah, man. Katusa Hope Church. Katusa there at JC's church with the RFP meetup. Looking forward to that. Can't wait. And, uh, hopefully we're going to have a, well, hopefully it's always a great time being around the family and, uh, being able to worship together, listen to the RFP guys and always, uh, father Craig speak to us. And, uh, so it's always a good time with that and, uh, looking forward to just being able to reconnect. It, I haven't been to a meetup yet. I've been to three of them there. I haven't met someone new, uh, that has listened to our podcast or shared their story with us or even afterwards or even during where we'll get their story and we'll record their story and we'll be able to make a friendship. And, uh, one of those I want to just highlight right now is that Shannon McAgena, we interviewed her a while back. We met her, uh, at the last meetup and she's over in Uganda right now. And, uh, she's trying to get her visa. Our church has supported her in a little bit, uh, in order to get that visa, but she still is trying to raise money for that. And so we hope you will support the family of hope of, of the RFP family and be able to share hope with her and, uh, help her in that series of trying to get, uh, her work visa over there. So, uh, it's one of those, those beat ups that are so great, so beneficial, uh, to make connections and make the relationships that, uh, are so vital in our Christian journey. And then Brett next up Israel, baby. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. Shuna and hummus and, and Jesus, you can't go wrong with it. And, uh, you know, I can't wait. I can't wait for the Israel episodes we're going to do next season. We've got a lot of things planned and man, those Israel episodes are going to be great. We're bringing back our buddy Marcus Merritt to the podcast. And I'm thinking Dr. Marcus Merritt, come on. Get it right. I'm, I'm, I was caught slack in my bath. Dr. Marcus Merritt's going to come back And I think we should Even have Maybe some of the preachers that went on our trip You know, maybe Talk about their Israel experience Or something like that Maybe we could even have Ben come on He'd be Like two episodes late, but he would be there Yeah, we'd talk For 30 minutes before he got there But no, Ben, if you're listening We love you We joke because we love And Brandon, oh, I'd love to have Brandon on And Austin, maybe we could have a group Of all the guys, because me and you didn't get it But all the guys that got tattoos Have a group of them coming on And just have them share It's going to be awesome, dude Yeah, so Well, hey, Brett, we'll jump right into this episode We're going to be recording with the Don Lom This is the director Of Evangelism And the Mississippi Baptist Convention And you lined this up And so we're going to jump right into it today And I hope you enjoy the episode today All right, it's our privilege To recognize our guest today His name is Don Lom And he is the evangelism director For the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board Some of his job duties include Intentional evangelism for individuals Churches and associations Personal witnessing Events And interfaith Now, Brother Don, I've had the privilege Of attending just recently An evangelism seminar That you spoke at And, man, I filled my legal pad up With idea after idea I took them back to my church I implemented them With our outreach team And, man, I just thought it'd be such a treat And a privilege To have you come on our podcast today And kind of speak about evangelism In the church But just so people can kind of get an idea Of who you are Do you mind just telling us A little bit about yourself How you got into the ministry And how you got where you are today And what exactly it is that you do Okay Well, so first of all Thank you for inviting me Letting me be with you all today I'm excited about being with you And we'll just see where this goes And what God has for it And how God can use it My name is Don Lum I am a Mississippian Been here most all my life In fact, the only time I've really been out of Mississippi Is when I went to seminary At New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary I graduated Mississippi College And I've been with the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board Now for about 26 years In different areas But I've been the state evangelism director Since 2006 And have had an opportunity To be a Mississippian And see our churches And see our pastors And how we operate And our churches are like So many other states We have very small churches That are bivocational And sometime or even part-time As well as Churches that are very large And multi-campus And so we have all of those And together We're literally seeking To make a difference In Mississippi And around the world And we think that we are We think that we're doing that Do we think we could do better? Yes, we think we could do better And we We're kind of like golf Nobody ever walks off The golf course Thinking that they've done their best And we always feel That same way In Mississippi Baptist life That we could do more And we continue to strive To do that All the time I'm from the I live in the Jackson area And that's where Our offices are located And so We travel the state Have an opportunity To be at about 2,100 Mississippi Baptist churches Throughout the year And just glad That we can be a part of it Love it I think it's great And I do love What the North American Mission Board Is doing In partnership with SEND I guess y'all have SEND Mississippi We have SEND NC here And love what's going on With that partnership With the local churches And associations And different partnerships That we're able to have With the North American Mission Board So 18 years You've been with outreach And evangelism With the Mississippi Convention What other areas And why did you land On outreach and evangelism For the last 18 years What was the reason for that Yeah Well I came to the convention board Actually I came to the convention board About 23, 20 Well 1997 So about 26 years ago I came to the convention board And I came in the area Of youth evangelism And we had a number Of youth evangelism events And things that were going on And they wanted to expand Youth evangelism And reaching the next generation I came out of a Youth ministry background To be able to do that And I did that They asked me to do some things About Sunday school And bridge evangelism And Sunday school And I did that And so eventually The opportunity came To be the state evangelism director For Mississippi Baptist And I felt from the very beginning That my giftedness Moved in that area And I love to I love to help churches Implement evangelism And think through evangelism Oftentimes evangelism In our churches Centers around One or two revivals a year And that's a kind of a history And evangelism is more than that If we're going to reach The next generation We're going to have to do Some other things In addition to that Not instead of But in addition to that We're going to have to do Some other things That allow us To be able to Reach the gospel In places that People don't normally hear it You know My goal for our church This year Is we have outreach On three different Three different levels We've got A community level We've got a state level And then we've got An overseas Out of the country level And our local level Of outreach evangelism Is I got the idea To start an outreach team And that was one of the reasons Why I came to the seminar That you were having At First Baptist Church Carthage And I brought a few members Of my church To hear you speak And you know We took that information That you gave us And we started An outreach team At our church And that we meet Every couple of months To prepare This first meeting we had Was just an idea session Just to you know Brainstorm on some Different things we could do How to reach people To bring them in For these events So you know With that you know There are a lot of churches Out there that you know They just come to church They preach behind the pulpit Every week And they just leave The increase up To the Holy Spirit The other churches You know We need to go out Into the community And bring people in And you know I remember growing up You know Every Wednesday Was door knocking Soul winning Every Saturday afternoon Was bus visitations And we would pick A few streets And drop the teenagers off And walk down And then afterwards We go to Taco Bell But you know Growing up That was about The extent Of our outreach Was door knocking And you know I know it's tried and true You have to do it You have to do the door knocking It's part of it But you know What have you seen Work Over the years Kind of above And beyond that I think that The The world In which we live In Society That we live in There's just so much Out there In terms of the way That people perceive The church Perceive Christians And that's not all bad By the way That's not all bad I think that That the church And Christians Are still perceived In a very high way High manner Particularly In our smaller communities In our rural areas Particularly Church continues To be a Major part of the life Of people In our communities I know the church That I'm serving As an interim pastor of Is that very much The church centers Around a lot of What the community does And knows about And so I think it's important That the church Recognizes That we have the opportunity To make a difference In people's lives And we And we don't need to Think that We're no longer relevant We are relevant And I think the church Needs to continue To remember that And I think it's part Of our job As leaders of the churches And pastors To tell our churches That Our churches need to know That you matter Your life matters You're not a You're not a dying breed You're not Becoming extinct Our churches Are going to be here Until Jesus comes back And we need to Continue to remember And help our churches And build those Build our churches To be able to do that So when I think About evangelism I think more about There are events And yes Events become part of it But it is a It's a mindset It's a mindset That we help our people Understand That you are the church And as you see people As you have an opportunity To invite people In Mississippi In Mississippi We kid ourselves If we think That all of our people Are going to share The gospel In terms of A one, two, three, four And hear the scriptures They're not going to do that And we can beat our heads Against the wall And we can be And we can complain about it Or we can make Or anything else But it's not going to happen But what they will do is They will invite people To come to church And we can If we can get them To invite people To come to church And we share the gospel Then God's Holy Spirit Has an opportunity to work And so we still We have life groups We have small groups We have Sunday school Which is major Still a major part Of the vocabulary In Mississippi Baptist churches And so we say If you'll invite people To church And then I always encourage churches To do your training Train your Sunday school teachers So that when Periodically Sunday school teachers Share the gospel In their Sunday school classes They may have a Sunday school class That the people In their Sunday school class Have been there for years They know that they're Christians They know all about them They still need to share Jesus In their Sunday school class For one reason Particularly And that is this Sometimes people hear it In the Sunday school class And it helps them Have the courage To say to somebody else Even though they're saved And so I still encourage Sunday school classes Teachers in those classes Or get somebody in the class To do it If they would rather do that But share the gospel In the Sunday school class So that the class members Can then be encouraged To do the same thing With their friends And different ones Does that help a little bit? Does that kind of Answer your question? Absolutely Yeah, it's great Let's say we're You know In different contexts It's everywhere And context is key In a lot of things But let's say Someone's listening Maybe they just recently Took a church A pastor or whatever And the church Has sort of become What we would call A country club You know You come And you got a membership You got your Members only jacket And the church Isn't doing any evangelism They're really not Even doing revivals They're not doing outreach They're not doing Any type of events What would be a way Would you encourage someone Or how would you Come in and say These are some resources Or some things That you can start In evangelism ministry What would be the part What would be that process Or how would you How would you begin That thought? Okay First of all If we If the leader The pastor of the church The leaders of the church Are the ones That have to keep Evangelism on the forefront Or otherwise It's going to slide to the back Yeah It's just That's natural That's a natural progression And it happens In every church No matter what size it is Or anything else It's going to slide to the back If the pastor Doesn't keep it on the forefront And so the pastor Has to Has to Has to be able to do that And In order to make that happen And you're talking about Maybe say a pastor Comes into a new situation And he's Learning that Learning that church And learning those people I think the first thing He's going to do Is Is gain their approval Gain their acceptance And And And literally come in there And gain And gain their confidence So that they can then Feel comfortable In following him And And so As a pastor Comes in And And begins to His ministry In the local church Begins to analyze Where that church is And let's say That they're the place Where you're talking about They're They're focused inward They're not focused on Focused outward How can we then turn that And help them to be able To do that And make it Make it an outward focus Let me give you an idea I went into a church A few years ago The pastor They lost their pastor In fact their pastor Had passed away He passed away on a Monday And After a church on Sunday And he had a heart attack And passed away And the church Had become an inward Focused church That's where they were They were literally In a survival mode Is where they were So I came in I'd been there Probably three Four months And again I'm in an interim situation So I'd been there Three or four months And I Had an idea for them And I took The I don't know if you've seen it or not But I took The The Jesus film And I have Have those Have those here And In our convention board And so I took that And I showed One night I showed the Old Testament We We did We took our Sunday night And they'd never They'd never done anything Like this before But we took Sunday night And We turned Our fellowship hall Into a theater I got a big screen And And showed the Old Testament The very first night We had it set up For Some of our men Some of our men Brought Microwave Bought the microwaves We made microwave popcorn And made the place Smell like a theater And We We put Candy And M&M's And Dr. Pepper And I told him I said I'm gonna bring you All the things I like You bring the rest of it You know We just set it up Had a great time On Sunday night Showed the Old Testament The next week We did the very same thing And showed the New Testament And after it was over with And I I told him We were gonna do this up front Then I had I had those I think we bought them At the grocery store But those little brown lunch bags That you can get People used to put their lunches in We bought those little bags And we put A A video Of what we'd just seen We put a track We put a note From our church And we put a bag Of microwave popcorn In the bag And And And we Had let them Make those bags Put them together And then they signed up To where they were gonna take them So that And we were in a rural community We didn't have any neighborhoods We were on the We were country roads And they signed up To where they would take them And we had About 25 people Who delivered 75 bags To different places And the reason we wanted them To sign up Because we didn't want anybody Taking them To the same place And so they signed up On the card Saying where they were gonna take them And about 25 people Signed up To To take out those 75 bags That they had made up And we had Again Information about our church We had some people Visit us We didn't have anybody Join us Then We had somebody Join us Later After his wife Passed away And he He was taking care Of his wife At the time And he joined The church later While I was still there But here's what it did It all of a sudden Gave our church A mindset To say It's not us It's about them And I began to see That it's That just And this wasn't hard I wasn't asking them To share their faith I wasn't asking them To do something That was gonna put them In a place Where they didn't feel Comfortable All I was asking them To do Is to take the bag And take it To somebody's house And give it to them And say We would love to have you Come visit us At our church And that began A process Now that's been Several years ago And that church Was literally Well let's They were bleeding out They were spending more And they were taking in And things looked bleak And now this church Is doing well In fact I talked To the pastor Of the church Last week And he said We had 16 Sunday school This past Sunday You know And that kind of thing But it had to start somewhere It had to start And you start You start where you Where they are And where you can Where you can find success You're trying to find things That they can celebrate And that was a celebration For us So that's just one idea Brother Don Before I go To the next question A thought hit me That I wanted to talk To you about Is one of the things That a big takeaway From the seminar That we went to Listen to you speak Were the pocket crosses And I'll tell you That my boys Grabbed those pocket crosses And have been Giving them out And they're completely out And they want more crosses To give out They just They're you know It's a great avenue They just go up to people And hand them the cross And I want you I want you to talk And tell us about The pocket crosses Okay And then if you wanted To tell that story That you told about it You wouldn't hurt my feelings About the way Okay What we found is this The cross Is the most visible symbol In Mississippi culture We realize it's more than that More than Mississippi culture But in Mississippi culture People recognize the cross People know what it is And people will take the cross Let's just say You go to a To a Community fair And you see You got You take your You take your students there And you take Tracks And you start handing out Tracks to everybody there After the fair is over with You'll find Some of those tracks Laying around Where they had them And they left them Or whatever Give them a cross You don't find any crosses Laying around They always put it In their pocket They always had it And so Just knowing that the cross Is available And how different people Can use it It's easy to use I like to give the crosses out And when I do Like in a church setting If I give them out at church I'll say Take three Take three crosses And then As I give them three crosses I'll say One of them is for you You keep one of them Like the one you have They're on your key ring You keep one And then you give two of them away You give them to two people And you start by saying Lord who would you Have me to give a cross to And it just Neats how God opens doors For us to To be able to use the crosses And give them away I don't live too far From a Chick-fil-A And We have This man has passed away now Mr. Wayne has passed away But Mr. Wayne Member of the churches One of the churches Here in the Jackson area Wanted a ministry He wanted to do something Ministry wise And so So He knew about the cross He had heard A similar story About the cross And everything there Like you had Brett And so He began to take These crosses And he would take Them Put it on a little chain Like you've Like you've got Your key chain Take this card That comes with it And put a little hole In it And put that together And he'd stand outside In the drive-thru line At Chick-fil-A In the mornings And hand these out And folks would take them And sometimes they'd say Well you just gave me One yesterday And he'd say Well take this one And give it to somebody else Right And what a phenomenal Ministry that he had You never know Where that ministry's going You don't know What God's going to do with it I give these away Particularly in restaurants I do a lot of A lot of meetings And things at restaurants And so I'll take the cross With me to restaurants And And leave it there Sometimes I'm able To give it to the individual Sometimes I leave it With a gratuity But The honest truth is Most of the time When I leave a cross I don't know How it's going to be used I don't know anything About what will happen with it Occasionally God will let me Let me see some fruit And let me see that So Brett I'm not sure Which story it is I told So tell me Which story it is And I'll tell I'll mention that one But I also have A couple more As well Do you remember It was the barbecue It was the barbecue You came back You gave it to the waitress That's all I can Really remember about Okay All right Let me tell you the story I know which one You're talking about now Because there's so many Good stories Let me tell you something Guys A lot of pastors Are going to listen Listen to this I come from a family Of construction workers My dad My uncles Were construction people I mean They lived with a hammer And a saw In their hands And that kind of thing I'm a pastor And several years ago I really became Under conviction Lord You made me like I am You called me to this work And yet At the end of the day I feel frustrated Because I don't see results And what he showed me Was that you're Working with people And when you work With people It's hard sometimes To see the results I tell our Sunday school Teachers the same thing You work all week long Preparing for a Sunday School lesson You teach it to your Class And you wonder Is it touching People's lives Is it really making A difference And so I began to pray God Would you show me results And what I've learned Is occasionally God lets me see results Here's one of the results I was in a barbecue restaurant Called Sonny's Sonny's Barbecue It's located in Brandon, Mississippi There's a couple In our area But I was in that restaurant And I had lunch With I think That day I think I had lunch With my brother I'm not sure Who I had lunch with But I think it was With my brother Anyway Finished lunch Left for gratuity And left this cross On the table Walked out Left Didn't think anything You could think Anything else about it The rest The young lady That was waiting On me that day Her name Was Sonny S-U-N-N-Y Little blonde About probably Five feet tall And she waited On me that day And like I said She was very nice And we talked For a minute Nothing about Anything special I left the cross Left the restaurant The very next day Some of the guys At work Were getting ready To go to lunch And asked me To join them And so I did And they didn't ask me Where I wanted to go They just said I want barbecue And one of the driver Took off And we went back To Sonny's Same place Same restaurant And sat down Across the aisle From where I sat The day before And Sonny was there To wait on me Little girl The young lady That was there Same girl Same young lady S-U-N-N-Y Waited on us that day We enjoyed our meal Got ready to finish up She looked at me And she said You were in here yesterday And I said I sure was And of course My buddy said Lum why did you tell us You were here yesterday We'd have gone somewhere else And I said Man this was great I like this place Anyway She as we're talking She pulls this cross That I had left The day before Out of her knapsack That she was wearing And she says You left this cross On the table And after you left The cook and I Talked about Jesus Talked about the cross While she's doing that I immediately take I don't pass up An opportunity So I've reached Into my pocket Pulled out another cross And I said Sonny have you got 20 seconds And it's busy It's lunchtime She's going She says Yes sir I can give you 20 seconds And I said Sonny let me tell you About the cross And so what I told her Was I said Sonny the cross Has two sides And one side is smooth And one side is rough She's holding her cross Between her fingers I'm holding mine Between mine And I said The rough side Is rough Because it's got Writing on it You see that And she said Yes sir Says God loves you And so I said Sonny I want you to know That God loves you No matter what's going on In your life No matter what you're doing Where you are God loves you And she said Yes sir I know that I know that I said Well that is great I said Sonny the backside Is clear It's plain It's smooth It doesn't have Anything on it And for me That represents The fact that I choose to love him And I said This cross for me Says He loves me And I can choose To love him And I said Sonny you can too And she says I do And I said So Sonny You know Jesus She said Yes sir I do know Jesus I said Well I tell you what Take this cross Hand her to the other one And I said Take this one And when lunch is over You tell the cook What I just told you And the neat part About that Is simply this Walked out of that restaurant That day And having talked to her Had a great conversation I've never seen her again I don't know That she might See this podcast I have no idea I don't know If she's alive I don't know If she got married I don't know Where she is I know nothing Except one thing Our paths crossed On two days Back to back And the second day They crossed We had an opportunity To talk about Jesus And based upon Her conversation She'll be in heaven And she and I Will have an opportunity To reconnect And all I know Is that God gives us Privileges And gives us Opportunities And he's used This cross Numerous times To be able To make that happen Let me tell you One more story About the cross I had a guy In church one day And I handed The crosses out Like I just told you Asked people To take them And use them This guy Was working In a parts house Selling heavy Equipment parts And he said He got to work That Monday morning Had two crosses In his pocket And he said That he was working And he said My best customer Walks in the door And he said When my best customer Walked in the door He said Lord just spoke to me He said Give him a cross And he said When God spoke to me And said Give him a cross My first response Was uh-uh And he said He said This man Was He said I don't know If he was a sailor Or akin to a sailor But he said He had the mouth Of a sailor And he said He walked up To the counter And began to talk To me And converse And he said His mouth Was just It was just Coming out All the different things And he said God spoke to me Again in my spirit And said Give him a cross And again I said Under my breath Uh-uh And he said The third time God said Give him a cross And he said That time I reached in my pocket Pulled out the cross Laid it on the counter Faced in him And slid it to him And said I never took my eyes Off of him Said I was watching him And he said The man looked at me Looked down at the cross And when he looked Back up at me I nodded He said The man took the cross Turned around and left And didn't order a thing He said I thought I had just Lost my best customer And he said He walked out Walked out And he said That was on a Monday He said On Wednesday morning He looks up And here comes that man Coming through the front doors He said He made his way Straight toward me And he came up to me And he said He said I want to thank you For giving me the cross He said God's been working on my life Ever since you gave it to me And I realized My language And I realized The things I was doing And saying And he said I want to thank you For the cross And thank you For the difference It's making in my life And I thought What a neat thing And he didn't do anything But listen to God's spirit And slide the cross Across the counter And give it to his friend And God did the work And you just never know What God's going to do And this is easy For people to do They can take the crosses And they can share Jesus And be able to make that happen And it's just a neat thing Looking for opportunities To say How can we share Jesus? Man, I love that I love the Just the practicality of it Just the The easiness of it It's non-confrontational One of the things that I do And I try to do it often As much as I can think about it We go out We eat a lot You know We like to go to restaurants And so when the waitress comes And takes our drink order She's attentive And I'll say Hey You have a second I said Is there anything We can pray for you about? Is there something on your heart? Maybe you're dealing with something That we can pray for you And I don't think I've ever had someone say Nope, I'm good And walk away Yeah I've always had someone Well, my mom's really sick right now My dad's having surgery Something And I'll say Well, can I pray with you right now for that? I said We're going to pray over our food anyways Can I pray with you real quick? Yeah And we'll pray And you would be amazed At how often They'll come back by later And say Hey, can we talk a little longer? And they'll just have that opportunity Just to open the door Someone's in deed Someone's in hurt And we just get to have that conversation later And I love that I love just the The easiness Of just being able to To show them the cross And just let the Lord Take care of it from there I was in a restaurant With that very thing And we did exactly What you're talking about Inviting them Can we pray for you? Is there anything We can pray for you about? And this young man Was waiting And he looked at me And he thought No Said I don't have anything That I need to be prayed for And I said Well, can I pray for you? And he thought a minute And said Yeah, you can And I thought That's pretty neat That in that same setting You're talking about That he allowed us To pray for him And again I don't have any idea How it affected his life He didn't come back and say But it was neat That in a restaurant like that We were actually able To pray for him specifically Yeah And to do that That's just a neat way That we can We continue to share Jesus With folks Love it Amen Absolutely love it Amen Well We talked about How You know A church That maybe That's not doing anything How you could You know Start something going But there are a lot of churches Out there They kind of feel like Things have gotten stale Like they've done The same thing Over and over And they're spinning Their wheels They're not getting Any traction And they're still Not growing And a lot of that Has to do with With traditions And stuff like that They don't want to change You know They don't want to do Anything like that You know They don't want to think Out of the box Just do what they've always doing I like what y'all are doing In the At the fair With the side by side And opening up That to the churches And in a minute If you want to talk about that You can Yeah I think that's a great tool How you're allowing The churches to use that It's an avenue of outreach That we just haven't had before So when it comes to evangelism Do you think churches Just need to keep doing What they're doing Or do some churches Need to change up Their message Because we've got Social media We've got modern culture Things are changing So I guess the question is Some churches may be asking Do I need to change What I'm doing Well that's an individual church Thing to go from there Oftentimes when you begin To change Sometimes Real change occurs slow You can change anything On a dive But for it to really Sink in It takes a while For people to buy into it And for them to Embrace it And say This is what we want to do And so that takes That takes time For some folks And so I don't agree With the fact that You change for the sake of change I think that you change In order to accomplish something You change to make it happen And you And As you do that Then you have the opportunity For God to Take harmony and peace Let's face it Nobody wants to be a part Of something that's not harmonious I mean I got out of a deer I got out of a Of a deer club one year Because it wasn't harmonious I didn't want to be a part of it It wasn't harmonious And I don't want to go to a church That's not going to To work together And seek to To build a kingdom And so I will try to be harmonious With what we're trying to accomplish And I believe you can do that When you do it in the right way Creativity Is something that a pastor Or to be a part of On a continual basis As the leader of the church As a pastor I mean Let's just Let's take Let's just take David for instance Let's go back to the Old Testament What if David went to the same Patches of Four patches of grass All the time with his sheep Eventually Sometimes Sometimes it would finally get Eaten down And he had to be creative In order to find The right places For his sheep To be able to eat And drink And be safe And to take care of them And that's maybe a Simple analogy But it's the truth As you and I As pastors We have to We have to constantly think What is it that we can do To lead our people To help them Think about outreach And touching people's lives And being evangelistic And what we're Trying to accomplish And let's face it Some folks aren't Real creative I'm not a real creative guy By myself I like to be creative With people I find myself Most creative Just like y'all are doing Together I find myself Most creative When I've got Two or three or four People around me And we can brainstorm Some ideas Because I may say Something that Triggers something In somebody else's mind That creates a great idea Or vice versa And so I think creativity Is a key For us In ministry To be able to do Whatever we're doing And keep it Fresh And make it Positive And then to help folks To be able to see the results And what we're trying to accomplish So I think Being creative Is a key For a pastor As he seeks to Lead a church To think How can we Make some good things happen And reach people Amen Tell me now If I'm answering your question If I'm not Lead me further So that I can Answer your question The way that you And what you're asking me Okay Yeah I think that answered My question Very well Before I throw it over To James For his thoughts Can you tell us About the rodeo And the fair And what's going on In the state of Mississippi In that regard Because I think I think our listeners Would love to hear that Sure Sure Let me Give you a little bit Of background I was invited to Be a part Of the National Finals Rodeo Which is a National thing Just like Little League Baseball Just like Little League World Series They have a National Finals For Junior High And High School Rodeo The Junior High Is in I don't remember The town But it's in Tennessee This year The National Finals For High School Is in Rock Springs Wyoming I went to that One year To be a part Of that And to share Jesus there To see how They did it And I realized We could do The same thing In Mississippi We have What we call The Dixie National Livestock and Rodeo Show here in Mississippi It's always in The end of January First of February It's about Three or four week Event The rodeo Only lasts About seven days But the whole Stock show Lasts about Three or four weeks With all the things That they do But I realized That we could do The very same thing Here And then they Ask us Three years ago In fact During COVID It's when they Ask us To expand That to the Mississippi State Fair So here's what We do We rent a space At the fairgrounds We put a Tent up I put a 20 by 30 Tent Up And we use That space Wise And I buy A side by side Like a John Deere Gator Or a Kubota Mule Or something Like that But I don't Buy one Of those Machines I buy But I buy A machine That will Work Something that People will Say hey I'll give you Three minutes To talk about Jesus If I have An opportunity To win That machine So we use That as our Bait That is our Hook And so What we've Done We've Begun To train And this Is a Constant For us We're Teaching And helping Mississippi Baptists Understand That this Becomes A real Life Laboratory They can Come And learn How to Share Their Faith And be Able To do It In a Really Great Setting And when They leave They say I have Learned How to Share Jesus With Somebody I've Never Done It Before I've Never done Anything Like this Before But they've Learned How to Share Jesus And so Over The past I'd say Seven or Eight years In particular With the Last three Years Down at The State Fair We've Seen Hundreds Of Mississippi Baptists Literally Not just Say they've Learned How to Share Their Faith In a Fellowship Hall Or a Sunday School Class But actually Do it With people They didn't Know And to Have an Opportunity To In three Minutes To say Jesus Changed My Life And let Me Tell you About it And so That's What we've Done And that's What we Do We do That We sit With the State Fair Is always In October And the Dixie National Is always In February And so Those two Different times Of the year We share Jesus We do it Out in the Public Pretty neat To see God work And do Those things We'll average About one In ten Or one In fifteen Who give Their life To Jesus That's a Pretty good Average for Us That's great Man I love That I love That We're So often And I say This so Often We said Even last Week When we Recorded We've got To meet People where They're at We've got To find The common Ground We've got To find The town Square Where people Are meeting Where people Are gathering Whether that's In a location Like a fair Whether that's At a grocery Store Whether that's At a You know I said In like An urban Area Or a city Area Like a street Corner You know There's Nothing wrong With telling People about Jesus On a street Corner It's just Doing it The right Way In the right Manner And I Love that I love What you Guys are Doing And I Love You know Even what Our convention Is doing Here in North Carolina And the Equipping That the Conventions Are giving Right now To churches Is so Great With the Partnership With the North America Mission Board And I Love Love Hearing Those stories And I Hope it's An encouragement To our Listeners That you Can do These things As well There's Not a lot Of training That goes Into just Simply pray On someone You know You can Just simply Ask someone Hey can I Pray with You And you Don't know Where that Conversation Is going To go Man There's Been many Times Where I'll Have someone That I'll Say that to And they'll Literally just Break down In tears And say I've been Wanting someone To pray With me And that You know You just Have that Opportunity Right And so So thankful For that Let me share With you Three instances Of how This is Happening With us We have A church Down in Southern Part of The state Small Small Community That once A month They go To the To the Grocery Store Sit Outside Have a Tent Just one Of those Small Tents That they Sit Outside Give Away Bibles And pray With folks I have A church In north Mississippi They have A fair Day In the City And they'll Set up A tent Same way On the Main street Because main Street's Blocked off That day Where people Are just Walking around And they'll Set a tent Up And they said One of the Neat things Is we're Talking to People that We know Talking to People that We rub Shoulders With on a Regular Basis And to Be able To make That happen Pretty neat We have Another Couple of Guys that Help us In the Fair Ministry And they They're Hooked into A local Rodeo And they'll Go to That rodeo And just People just Gobbs of People from All walks Of life Are going to Come out For a Weekend Rodeo And they Have an Opportunity Just to Share Jesus In a Holy Different Setting So again Let's like You're saying Find and Place where People are Go where The people Are That's What you're Looking at Go where The people Are That's What you're Talking About Love it Our Association Has a Standing Offer From the Local And any Church that Wants to At any Time can Set it Up Run it For an Hour Two hours As long As they Want And we've Got the Invitation From them Where we've Worked that Out over The years And so That's just An opportunity For us To be There and Plant seeds And serve The community So yeah Our folks Really embrace It They do a Good job With it Yeah Well brother Don if There was a Church or Pastor or Church members Listening to This podcast Episode and They're thirsty For knowledge On evangelism How to expand Evangelism in Their church What are some Closing thoughts That you would Like to leave With them And anything Else that You'd like to Mention Well first of All I'd be Glad to talk To them And I'd be Glad to do That and I Can do that Through y'all Or through Through me But let me Do can I Give you Contact Information Absolutely Can I do that Sure Notes as Well Yeah It's Dlum D-L-U-M At M-B-C-B Which stands For Mississippi Baptist Convention Board But M-B-C-B Dot Or So they Can reach Me That way They can Call our Office Direct At 601 292 326 327 8 601 292 327 8 They can Call our Office Direct We'll be Glad to Answer Questions Or talk To folks Always love To help Folks Focus on Evangelism So that's The two Ways To Connect With Us And To Be Able To Do That We are The resource People In Mississippi Baptist Convention And By the way Let me Just say This You mentioned North American Mission Board A few Minutes Ago I love Where the North American Mission Board Evangelism Team Is Right Now We have A really Good Evangelism Team In The North American Mission Board And They Are A great Resource For Men Women All Different Kinds Of Events And So All Of The Churches That You're That You're Probably Going To Get This Podcast Will Know How To Reach North American Mission Board And Reach Them In The Evangelism Office And They Are Great Resource People With Some Really Good Resources Available To Help You And Help Us Do Do Ministry! Very Very Much So Those Good Folks But We Have Resources Here As Well From Tracks We Do Ministry At Fourth Of July Fourth Of July Will Be The Next Thing Coming Along We Have Tracks And Door Hangers For Fourth Of July That Are Available We Just Think That What You Talked About Earlier Brett Was Knocking On Do And Going By People And Inviting People We Just Believe That It's Important And We Still Encourage Folks To Do That We Encourage Folks To Focus On Revivals And We Make Tracks And Materials Available To Them By The Way Guys When You Talk About Revivals There Are Really Two Kinds Of Revivals Evangelistic Revivals And Then Their Church Revivals Usually A Good Church Revival Will Lead To Evangelism Yes But Some Churches Want Want The Kind of revival you want also needs to be the kind of speaker you bring in. If you're bringing in a guy who's going to draw the net every night, and yet you don't have lost people there, it's going to be a long week. So if you're looking for a church revival where you're really trying to focus on helping your church focus on revival, then you're looking at a different kind of environment, a different kind of speaker. And so those are things that you can help people to understand when we're dealing with revival. But we have resources to help churches as they deal with that. We have resources to get ready for Halloween. When I say Halloween, that sometimes strikes a chord in pastors and churches and the way that they view that. Let me simply say this, the fall festival, the fall festival, in my opinion, in Mississippi is the greatest opportunity for reaching prospects of any event that we have. Let me tell you what, fall festival is a place where moms and dads are looking for a place where they can bring their children that's safe, has a great environment, and the church always provides it. Church provides a great environment for folks to bring their children, and we're not going to scare them to death. We're not going to talk about Halloween stuff and witches and goblins and all that things. We're just going, we're going to have a great time with them. And so they're looking for places to bring them. What you can do is you can have them sign in as they come in. Now you've got information about who those people are, and you can visit them. And if you go to their house and knock on their door and they look at you like, why are you knocking on my door? Your response is because you came to us first. You came to us. We're just coming back and following up with you. And so the fall festival is a great way to be able to touch people's lives and make some differences. And then, of course, you follow that up with the Christmas and the Thanksgiving and Christmas with those different events and things that you can always share Christ with and looking for ways to do that. So anyway, I can go on and on, but that's enough. Well, I love it. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom and what you guys are doing there in Mississippi and really all of our conventions. And I love, I've only been a Southern Baptist for eight years, nine years now. And I just love the partnership. I've shared several times, you know, in Idaho, I was in Idaho for four years and I just met with youth pastors. We were independent church and I met with youth pastors from all different types of denominations. And I thought, man, this would be awesome to do. Little did I know there was an organization, the Southern Baptist Convention, that did that on a regular basis where we share ideas, we share what's going on, a community of pastors that can help pray for one another. And it's just a blessing. And so thank you so much for coming on and sharing that with us. And hopefully you guys will reach out. I'll put all this information in the show notes so you can reach out to Don if you need to. And until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. Found my new name, found that good grace, found that healing, and the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending. Found that second chance, found my best friend. Found my forgiveness, found my happiness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast.

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