Tracts - Some Amazing Numbers!

How important is it to distribute Gospel tracts as we go about our daily tasks around town? Many people are unsure if the results are worth the effort. We seldom hear of someone being saved from a tract we hand out and rarely hear of someone coming to church because a Gospel tract was given to them. Maybe we should take a closer look at what happens when we regularly and faithfully hand out tracts.

When we give someone a Gospel tract, we never know what they are going through or how God will use it in their life. Several years ago, I was flying from Atlanta to Detroit and seated beside me was a former football star for the University of Connecticut. We began talking, and I gave him a Gospel tract. He was going to Detroit to attend his grandmother’s funeral. He was thinking about eternity, and I had the opportunity to lead him to Christ. When you give someone a Gospel tract, it may be just the answer to a troubled heart or soul. We must keep that in mind when we go through our daily routines around town.

Distributing tracts, especially with your church information on them, makes your church better known. Dr. Bobby Roberson said, “Don’t just be the pastor of your church, but be the pastor of your community.” When an unchurched person has a spiritual problem and needs a pastor, the pastor of your church should be the first name that comes to his mind. This is more likely to happen if your church members pass out tracts everywhere they go.

If each of your church members consistently distributed tracts, your town could be completely saturated very quickly. If 100 people distributed only 5 Gospel tracts each day, then 182,500 Gospel tracts would be distributed in one year! All we need to do is consistently give a person a Gospel tract each time we pull out our wallet to pay for something.

The problem isn’t that we have no opportunities; the problem is that we are not making a conscious effort to distribute tracts on a regular basis. May we all make a commitment to this simple task as we live for Christ each day.

By Earl Jessup (published by permission)

IFBKJV.com has these resources listed where you can obtain free tracts: Free Resources

What is "The Cloud"?

I came across a great YouTube on "the cloud". I have heard a lot about it lately, and went looking for info, and this you tuber has a lot of good info on his many videos. I can see how this could be beneficial in a lot of ways ie: my files at church and my files at home, so I thot I'd share it here for anyone who cares.



On a side note, at the Spiritual Leadership Conference in Lancaster, CA, they released a new app for the iPhone or Android. It's a app for soulwinning contacts! It looks really nice, and they have been testing it for a year. They just got it approved at iTunes, and you can get it there for 99 cents. It's called "Outreach", and here is a link that tells more about it: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outreach/id447923900?mt=8 "Once installed you can track the progress of each of your soulwinning prospects— you can quickly view a map to their home, make a phone call, and record each contact and spiritual decision. You can also view and organize your prospects into custom lists."

I don't have either phone yet :( but it anyone has used it, please post on it! I'd love to hear about how it works and what it can do!

Honoring The King James Bible (2)

I find it funny that many people have a hard time believing that God preserved his Word for us. Is anything too hard for the LORD? said God to Abraham, concerning his barren wife becoming pregnant.

Here is a thought I wanted to share you today. 


I was reading through the book of Nehemiah last week, and the inspiration for my next article on honoring the King James Bible came to me. This inspiration is found in chapter 9 of the book.

The chapter pretty much is arranged in a way which resembles a typical Sunday service at your church. It starts with the children of Israel gathered together, then it proceeds to the people reading the book of the law of the LORD, followed by praise and worship to God.

Now the next part is what I particularly want to focus on, From verse 5 of chapter 9, all the way to the end of the chapter, the Levites which numbered a total of 8 stand up and sound out a discourse very similar to Stephens own discourse found in Acts 7.

As I was reading this, what stood out to me was the whole nature of this service from the Levites to the people. The context of the discourse was from God calling out Abraham, to Judah returning back to Jerusalem from their captivity. This covers a large amount of history if taking into account Abraham lived around 2000 bc and the Nehemiah lived around 400 bc.

Now the first five books were penned down by the human author Moses, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit,  Moses as we know it, lived around 1500 bc, which is roughly 500 years after Abraham lived. 

Anyone who has even skimmed through the Bible (let alone read it) know that SO much history is covered from those dates given above, and recorded for us in the Word of God to read. We know in that space of time Israel went through the leadership of Moses to Joshua to Judges, to Kings to the kingdom being split and Israel being destroyed by the Assyrians, to the tribe of judah being taken into captivity for 70 years by the Babylonians and returning in the reign of the Medes and Persians. 

YET still, in all that space of time, God's Word was preserved for the Levites to open up and read in the ears fo the people, and the discourse mirrors exactly the events recorded in the first five books of Moses, which in turn is reiterated by Stephen in his discourse in Acts.

WHAT AM I TRYING TO SAY? it's simple :) better yet let me write one verse out of many of God's promise to preserve his Word.

Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. ~ Psalm 119 v160

CONCLUSION, God preserves his Word even through turbulant history, wars, persecution, trials, imprisonment, exile and the rise and fall of nations and empires.

God bless

Honoring The King James Bible (1)

2011 marks the 400th year of the King James Bible (AV)

In celebration of this, I thought I would write some short notes discussing the preservation of God’s Word using examples from um…God’s Word lol.

If time permits I should be able to write a new note every few weeks or so, we’ll have to see…

My first analysis today is found in the book of Jeremiah. (I recommend everyone read this phenomenal book, (one of my personal favourites)).

It concerns the conversations with Jeremiah and Baruch the son of Neriah found in chapter 36.

Allow me to set the scene.......

The prophet Jeremiah has been preaching to the people of Judah for many years now, warning them of the coming judgement from the Lord, It’s now the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah who was a very righteous godly king, but Jehoiakim followed not the ways of his father, but plunged Judah into more wickedness further kindling the wrath of God.

In chapter 36 we find Jeremiah bound in prison, but even there the LORD visits him and commands him to take a scroll and write down all the Words that he is about to speak, so it can be a book to be read in the ears of the people.

Jeremiah then calls Baruch the son Neriah to record all the words he speaks which he received from the LORD into a book to be read out in the ears of the people.

What is the lesson here? It’s simple!!

GOD’S WORD CAN BE PRESERVED down the line!!

The Bible says in 2Peter “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

In the case of Jeremiah, he received it directly from the LORD (1st inspiration), he then tells Baruch all the words he was told by the LORD(2nd inspiration) and that becomes the book which is read out by Baruch in the ears of the people (3rd inspiration)

In no way was God’s Word less inspired when Baruch read it out than when Jeremiah directly received it from the LORD.

In the same chapter, the book even gets destroyed by the king because he was offended at the Word of the LORD, but the LORD commands Jeremiah again to write down the SAME WORDS he spoke to him before in another scroll

“Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned.”

CONCLUSION

The King James Bible was diligently translated out of the Greek and Hebrew languages into the lingua franca of the world, English!!  and even from one language to another, it’s still God’s Word.

He promised he would preserve it forever and we hold the Words of God in our hands today. It’s still just as powerful, it’s still just as hated, it’s still the truth and it’s still inspired as it was when God first spoke the words and they were penned down by 40 different authors spanning thousands of years.

Jesus put it this way “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”

So yeah, this is my first article, I hope it brought my first point across, in that God’s Word was penned down by different people, yet it remained God’s Word.

So yeah um God bless :)

Door Knocking Doesn't Work Anymore

Do you remember when preachers all preached about going on door-to-door visitation? By that, I mean cold calls, city surveys, house to house. You walk up to a door picked randomly, knock on it, introduce your church, and inquire about the spiritual state of the soul who lives there. Then, based on the reply, give the gospel and invite that person to accept Jesus as Savior. You leave a little while later with a smile, a hearty handshake, and a promise from them to come visit your church soon.

Does this ever happen anymore? Or are you more likely to have the dogs set on you? Maybe have someone pull a gun in your face? Is this a familiar scenario instead: you knock on the door and all the lights go off. You wait. And wait. And wait. You leave a church tract or information booklet that you know is going to get thrown away in a few minutes, unread.

In the past few years, I have sat across the table from nameless independent, fundamental pastors who have told me, personally, that door knocking doesn't work anymore. Sure, they have a door to door campaign sometime during the nicest weather of the year, when it's not too uncomfortable for their church members. Maybe in conjunction with VBS, which has become the largest evangelical outreach program of the year in many churches!

Does it sadden you when you hear of a pastor who "just doesn't visit anymore"? Maybe he's too old, maybe it's too risky, or maybe his wife tells you, "No one comes when he visits them. He goes to visit newcomers and they stop coming." Soon it's not just contacts he's not visiting, it's cold calls as well. I have recently heard a pastor say that when he is in the hospital with one of his church members awaiting serious surgery, he is often the only preacher in town who shows up for his people, and that he would estimate that three out of four pastors don't even visit their congregation when hospitalized. Does a pastor who does not visit excuse a congregation that does not visit? Of course not, yet we all know the old truism, "You never rise higher than your leadership".

I don't mean for this article to be a critical article. I do want to point out what I am beginning to see as a growing problem and cancer in independent, fundamental baptist churches. I also want to confess my own faithlessness. My pastor started a new campaign at the beginning of this year. "Instead of trying to get a certain number here on Big Day in March, " he said,"I am going to set a goal we need to reach every week. A goal we can make sure we reach, and is dependent on us going out, not on them coming in. The Lord has led me to set 500 doors a week as our goal."

"500 doors a week! Is he insane?! That's crazy! That's unreachable! This is going to be more discouraging when we don't reach it!" my brain said. I didn't openly criticize his leading, but I sure did question it in my head! I didn't say a word to anyone, and I tried to keep my face neutral, but for the next few weeks, every time I heard the goal, I shook my head, mentally.