Below is the testimony of Don Andrews, pastor of Haven Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kansas. He discovered that as he led the way in accepting the Everyone Can challenge, his congregation was more than willing to follow his lead.
Bobby Welch came to our church in Kansas City, Kansas, last September on his Everyone Can bus tour. I was challenged to get busy and to be about putting "first things first." When our people went out into the community that day, it was the first time for many to ever visit anyone for the church or the Lord.
Then the Convention caused me to evaluate what I was already doing and challenged me to do more. I was encouraged that I was definitely on the right track, but I needed to help my church move into the "deep water" and carry out The Great Commission.
When I came to the church four years ago, we had no evangelistic outreach. The encouraging factor was that the church was ready and eager. We began with twelve people getting together to go out, which was good because we were running eighty in Sunday School! (Our church and Sunday School have both grown since then.)
Shortly after returning from the Convention, our church set a goal of visiting one thousand homes in one night. The date was July 28, 2005, and when we began going door-to-door, it was the first time for just about all of them. I was praying to reach one thousand homes with the gospel, but knew the task was much bigger than we could accomplish alone.
As the Lord often does, He came to our rescue. He provided the youth choir from Chisholm Heights Baptist Church in Mustang, Oklahoma, to help us. I told the leader, David Baker, that I wanted to go door-to-door and share with the people in our community. He eagerly agreed to help.
Our goal was to do as many surveys as we could and leave information on the doors of homes where there was no answer. In one night, we contacted 740 homes! About seventy-three of us went out, and we shared the gospel eighty-one times and saw four professions of faith. The next day, the youth group from our church and Chisholm Heights went out to share and finished the last 260 homes. They saw two more professions of faith.
The following Saturday, we went to help with an associational event. It was a "free garage sale," and they gave away tons of stuff. Our youth, along with others, used an "opinion poll" to share the gospel and to hand out tracts. We saw two more people profess faith in the Lord at the abandoned mall where the event was held. Over that three day period, we shared the gospel 109 times and saw eight professions of faith.
That evening, we came together for a sharing time. People who had never witnessed before had presented the gospel, prayed with people, and led others to faith in Christ. If they hadn't been able to memorize the gospel outline, they had used the resources provided and read from them. They had been graciously receive at home after home and seen many receive Christ. By the end of the sharing time, they were clapping, crying, and so excited how the Lord had blessed all they had done in His name.
It proved to be equally exciting to see people respond to the invitation the next Sunday morning. In my case, a young man, who our team had the privilege of leading to Christ, came forward and made his faith public.
God is at work here. I have an exciting ministry of teaching and training others to go. We are seeking to be faithful to the task.
"Everyone Can" … and we are excited to be "IT!"
This is a perfect picture of helping one another to do all we can for Him! We need to be doing Associational Baptism Rallies, a creative second VBS, youth events, large church ministry events to help smaller churches, focusing on the three SBC baptism dates of Thanksgiving, Easter, and the last of September, 2006, and on and on.
I am excited to be a Southern Baptist and excited to hear evangelism on the lips and hearts of our people and pastors! God bless you!
