130. Freedom In The Church - Evangelism and Outreach with Dom Lum
Episode Notes
To reach Don Email him at dlum@mbcb.org or call his office at 601.292.3278
Here is a link to the NAMB Evangelism website https://www.namb.net/evangelism/
For more info visit our website. 4freedompodcast.com
For Merch visit this site. www.teepublic.com/user/freedom-ministries?utm_source=designer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Gq_E0abDp_8
Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Hosts
Welcome to the 4-Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safrit and Brett Martin.
Welcome back to the 4-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.
Upcoming Events and Announcements
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.
Been 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.
Uh, 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. Shalom 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. Get it right.
I'm, I'm, I was caught slacking my bad. Um, Dr.
Marcus Merritt's going to come back to, and I think we should even have maybe some of the preachers that went on our trip, you know, maybe, you know, talk about their Israel experience or something like that. Maybe we can even have Ben come on. Ooh.
And, uh, he would be, he'd be like two episodes late, but he would be there. Yeah.
Yeah. We, you know, we, we talked for 30 minutes before he got there, but, uh, no, Ben, if you're listening, we love you. We'd love to have, yeah. Man, because we love and Brandon.
Oh, I'd love to have Brandon on and Austin. Maybe we can have a group of all the guys. Cause 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.
Interview with Don Lum
Yeah. 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 Lum. Uh, this is the director of, um,
evangelism and the Mississippi Baptist convention and you line this up. And, uh, 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 Lum 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, uh, man, I feel 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, of who you are.
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. Don Lum, 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, uh, we'll just see where this goes and what God has for it and what God, how God can use it. My name is Don Lum. I am a Mississippian.
I've been here most all my life. Uh, 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'm a graduate of Mississippi College and, uh, have 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, uh,
have had an opportunity to, to be a Mississippian and see our churches and see our pastors and how we, how we operate. And, um, our churches are like so many other states.
We have very small churches that are bi-vocational and sometime or even part-time as well as, as, um, churches that are very large and multi-campus.
And, uh, so we have all of those. And, uh, 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.
Evangelism in Mississippi Baptist Life
Nobody ever walks off the golf course thinking that they've done their best. And, uh, we always feel that same way in Mississippi Baptist life that we could do more. And, uh, we continue to strive to do that all the time.
Um, I'm from the, I live in the Jackson area and that's where, where our offices are located. And, uh, so we travel the state, have an opportunity to be in about, um, 2,100 Mississippi Baptist churches throughout the year. And, uh, just glad that we can be a part of it. Love it.
I think it's great. And, uh, I do love what the North American Mission Board is doing in partnership with SEND. I guess y'all have SEND Mississippi. Uh, we have SEND NC here and, uh, love what's going on,
uh, with that partnership with the local churches and associations and, um, different, uh, partnerships that we're able to have with, uh,
uh, the North American Mission Board. Um, so 18 years you've been with outreach and evangelism with the Mississippi Convention. Um, what other areas and why did you land on outreach and evangelism, uh, 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, youth evangelism. And, uh, we had a number of youth evangelism events and things that were going on and they wanted to expand youth evangelism and reaching, reaching the next generation.
Uh, I came out of a, out of a youth ministry background to be able to do that. And, uh, I did that.
They asked me to do some things about, I was able to Sunday school and bridge evangelism in Sunday school.
And I did that. And so eventually, uh, the opportunity came to, to be the state evangelism director for Mississippi Baptist. And I felt from the very beginning that my giftedness moved, moved in that area.
And, uh, I love to, I love to help churches implement evangelism and think through evangelism. Oftentimes evangelism in our churches centers around, uh, one or two revivals a year. And, uh, 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, 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, uh, 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 a 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. Um, and I brought a few members of my church, uh, 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 made, uh, every couple of months to prepare this first meeting we had was just an idea
session, uh, 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
Community Outreach Strategies
Spirit. Um, the other churches, you know, we need to go out into the community and, and bring people in. And, you know, I remember growing up, you know, every Wednesday was door knocking, soul winning. Every Saturday afternoon was, was bus, uh,
visitations and, uh, we would pick a few streets and drop the teenagers off and walk down. And then afterwards we go to Taco Bell. Um, but, you know, growing up, that was about the extent of our outreach was door knocking.
And, you know, it's, 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, above and beyond that?
I think that, uh, the, the world in which we live in, society that we live in, uh,
there's just so much out there in terms of the way that people perceive the church,
perceive Christians. Uh, and that's not all bad, by the way. That's not all bad. I think that, that, that the church and Christians are still perceived in a very high way, high manner, particularly in, uh, in our smaller communities, in our rural areas, uh, particularly, uh,
church continues to be a major part of the life of, of, of people in our, in our communities. I know the church that I'm in serving as an interim pastor of is that very much the church centers around a lot of what we're, what the community does and knows about. And so, um,
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, 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 their 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 have, are going to be here until Jesus comes back. And, uh, we need to continue to remember and have our churches and build those, build our churches to be able to do that. So when I think about evangelism,
uh, I think more about, there are events and yes, events become part of it, but it is a, it's a mindset is 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, 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 here are the scriptures.
They're not going to do that. And we can beat our heads against the wall and we can be in, we can complain about it or we can make it or anything else, but it's not going to happen. But what they will do is they will invite people to come 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 that 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 what, 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, do your training,
train your Sunday school teachers so that when, when that 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, I have
been there for years. They know that they're Christians. I 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, 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 friendship, friends, and different ones. That help a little bit? Does that kind of work? Answer your question? Absolutely.
Yeah, it's great. Let's say we're, you know, in different contexts everywhere and context is key in a lot of things.
Addressing Church Inward Focus
But let's say someone's listening, maybe they just recently took a church or pastor or whatever, and the church has sort of become what we would call a country club.
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 that 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 going to, 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 local church begins to analyze where that church is.
And let's say that they're at the place where you're talking about they're, they're focused inward. They're not focused on it, 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'd 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 focus church. That's where they were.
They were literally in a survival mode is what they, 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've been there three, 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, took the, the Jesus film.
Um, and I have, have those, have those here in our convention board and I, and so I took that and I showed one night, I showed the old Testament on what we did is we took our Sunday night and they'd never, they'd never done anything like this before.
Well, we took Sunday night and, um, we turned our fellowship hall into a theater.
I got a big screen and then showed the old Testament. But the very first night we had it set up for some of our men, some of our men brought a microwave, bought a microwave. We made microwave popcorn and made the place smell like a theater.
And, uh, we, we put candy and M&Ms and Dr.
Pepper and everything. I told him, I said, I'm going to bring 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 told him we were going to 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, 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 fit,
um, make those bags, put them together. And then they signed up to where they were going to take them. So that, and we were in a rural community. We didn't have any neighborhoods. Uh, we were on the 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 is we didn't want anybody taking them to the same place. And so they signed up on the, on the card saying where they were going to take them.
And about 25 people signed up to, uh, 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 us, 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 there was not us. It's about them.
And I began to see that it's, that just wouldn't, and this wasn't hard. I wasn't asking them to share their faith.
I wasn't asking them to do something that was going to 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, and, and that began a process.
Now that's been several years ago. And that church was literally, well, let's, let's, they were bleeding out.
They were spending more than they were taking in and things look bleak. And now this church has, has, 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.
Creative Ministry Approaches
But it had to start somewhere and had to start. And you start, you start where you, where they are and where you can, where you can find success. Yes. 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, the seminar that we went to listen to you speak where the pocket crosses.
And I'll tell you that my boys grabbed those pocket crosses and have been given 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 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 say you got, you take your, 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, 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, and then, and then as I give them three crosses, I'll say, one of them is for you.
You keep one of them like, like the one you have there on your key ring, you keep one and then you give two of them away. You give them to two people and you start with saying, Lord, who's going to be? Who would you have me to give a cross to?
And it just seems neat 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, and so he began to take these crosses and he would take them, put it on a little chain, like, 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-through 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 is 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 what, how it's going to be used. I don't know anything about how it'll be, what'll happen with it.
Occasionally, God will let me, let me see some, 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, I'll mention that one, but I also have a couple of more as well.
Do you remember? It was the barbecue. It was the barbecue. You came back. He gave it to the waitress.
That's all I can really remember about it. 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, 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, I'm a pastor. And, and several years ago, I really became under conviction.
Lord, you, you made me like I am. You call me to this work. And yet at the end of the day, I feel frustrated because I don't see results. And what, 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 pray, you work all week long preparing for a Sunday school lesson. You teach it to your, to your class. And you wonder, is it, 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, in a barbecue restaurant called Sonny's, Sonny's Barbecue. It's located in Brandon, Mississippi.
There's, there's a couple in our area, but I was in that restaurant and had lunch with, I think that day, I think I had lunch with my brother. I'm not sure, but 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 else about it. So 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. Well, 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'll 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, I 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'll 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 that 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 said, well, he said, my best customer walks in the door. And he said, well, my best customer walked in the door. He said, Lord just spoke to him.
He says, 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, 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, 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. But we go at, we eat a lot. You know, we, we like to go to restaurants. And so when the waitress comes and takes our drink order, she's, she's attentive.
And I'll say, Hey, you have a second. I said, can, 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 with. And I don't think I've ever had someone say, Nope, I'm good. And walk away.
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, what you're talking about, inviting them to, 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 to me and said, yeah, you can. And I thought that's pretty neat that, that in that same setting, you're talking about that, that, 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. Absolutely love it.
Amen. Well, we, we talked about how, you know, a church that maybe who's, that's not doing anything,
how we, 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 or 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, they don't want to change, you know,
um, 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, uh, in the, uh, at the fair with, 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, um,
I think that's a great tool, how you're allowing the churches to use that to avenue of outreach that we just haven't had before.
So when it comes to evangelism, if 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 from, to go from there. Oftentimes when you begin to change, sometimes, you know, change, change, real change occurs slow.
You can change anything on a dime, but for, 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, and as you do that, then you have the opportunity to, 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, 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, and seek to, to build the 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 ought 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 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 a, maybe a simple analogy, but it's the truth as, 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, and what we're, 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, 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.
No. 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 the Mississippi in that regard?
Rodeo Outreach and Evangelism
Because I think, I think our listeners would love to hear that. Sure. Sure.
Let me, 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.
That's 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 the Rock Springs, Wyoming.
I went to that one year to be a part of that and to share Jesus there and 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, 1st of February.
It's about, about three or four week event. The rodeo only lasts about seven days, but the whole stock 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 asked us three years ago,
in fact, during COVID is when they asked 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, I buy a side by side, like a John Deere Gator or a, or a Kubota mule or something like that.
But I don't buy one of those, 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, you know. And so we've, what we've done is we've begun to train and we, 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, 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 10 or one in 15 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 American Mission Board. And I 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 praying to 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 then, you know, you just have that opportunity. 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 the southern part of the state, a small community, that once a month they go 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 the same way on 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're hooked into a local rodeo.
And they'll go to that rodeo. And just people, just gobs 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 wholly different setting. So, again, just like you're saying,
find a 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 Walmart in Elkin, North Carolina, with a prayer tent already built, bought. 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.
Brett? Our folks love it. 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 me. But can I give you contact information? Absolutely. I'll add that in share notes as well.
Resources and Contact Information
Yeah. It's DLUM, D-L-U-M, at MBCB, which stands for Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, but MBCB.org. So they can reach me that way. They can call our office direct at 601-292-3278. 601-292-3278.
They can call our office direct. We'll be glad to answer questions or talk to folks. I 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 a resource. We are the resource people in the 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 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 ministry. And I partner with them regularly and lift them up and appreciate them very, very much. So those are good folks. But we have resources here as well from tracks.
We do a ministry at 4th of July. 4th of July will be the next thing coming along. We have tracks and door hangers for 4th of July that are available.
We just think that what you talked about earlier, Brett, was knocking on doors and going by people and inviting people. We just believe that's important. And we still encourage folks to do that. We encourage folks to focus on revivals.
And we make their 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 there are church revivals.
Usually a good church revival will lead to evangelism, yes.
But some churches want to want to want to want to want to want to want to want to want to want to want to 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.
The 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 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 Thanksgiving and Christmas with the 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 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.
Closing Remarks and Farewell
And until next time, to God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. I found my new name. I found that good grace.
I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you.
Thanks for listening to the 4-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 4-Freedom Podcast. 4-Freedom Podcast I don't know if I don't miss you. I don't miss you.
I don't miss you. I don't miss you. Thank you.
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