You all might be a little further along than a lot of the Presbyterian churches I preach in, but here's what I've noticed. I've noticed that most of our Presbyterian churches, whether they're OPC, PCA, whatever, We tend to be weak in evangelism. Now, why is that? Well, my friend, Dr. Fogelman, who, as we all know, is an old OPC pastor and a professor at Columbia College, has taught me that there are three major ministry gifts that every church needs. One is evangelism, one is teaching or preaching, and one is mercy ministry. But we need evangelists and we need mercy ministry. We need all three of these gifts working together. Now, If a church is strong in teaching or preaching, and that's even discipling as well, you know, small group discipleship and so forth. And again, please understand, that's important. That's very important. But if they're strong in that area and weak in evangelism, what we tend to have is a sterile church. Now, by that I mean two things. Number one, sterile like a couple who cannot bear children. They can adopt children, which is wonderful. And that's kind of like our churches are. We adopt people from other churches. We have transfer growth. Why do they come? Well, because they love the Word and they want to be taught the Word. And I think that's really pretty much how your church used to grow with your former pastor. He was on the radio and he's a good preacher. People came in because they wanted the Word of God. That's good. But churches that emphasize that don't really see a lot of conversion growth. They don't produce their own children, so to speak. But there's another reason, there's another example of sterility, and that is churches like ours tend to reach, you know, nice people, good moral people, good church-going type people. We don't tend to reach prostitutes, drug addicts, drug dealers, and people like that, you know, real corrupt people. We don't seem to reach those kind of people too much. But on the other hand, a church that's really strong in evangelism, but not strong in preaching or teaching, and you can think of some of what I call the mega, mega churches around town. They do a really great job of bringing people in and having people make decisions for Christ, But there's not any real solid teaching going on. Those churches will become shallow churches. And the back door is as wide open as the front door. They come in, they're there for a while, but then they leave because they're not really being fed, or maybe they really weren't Christians after all. Who knows? So that's not good either. And then you've got some churches and some Christian organizations that are really strong in mercy ministry. Now, mercy ministry means you care for the poor, you care for the needy, you have great compassion. That is absolutely vital. See, evangelizing, teaching, and showing mercy are all together. All three of those things should be done simultaneously in every single church. All three of those things are of equal value. Okay? But a church that's strong in mercy ministry, but not in evangelism, not in teaching, sooner or later will become a social gospel church. And I see it all the time. What I try to say to churches is, if you're strong on teaching or preaching, you need to shore up your mercy ministry, and you need to shore up your evangelism. And actually, if you think about it, God has given us church officers in those areas. Now, we don't typically have the office of evangelist, which I think is a serious mistake. I think we should have that. But we do have office of elder, and we do have the office of deacon. So an office of evangelist, those are the ones who head up the evangelistic ministry in the church. The office of elder, they're to teach and shepherd the people of God, and the deacons are to care for the mercy ministry needs in the church and in the community. So all three of those things are to be together. But if you're weak in the evangelizing area, then you need to pray that God will bring you evangelists. Now, your pastor is out there doing evangelism. I don't know if he's an evangelist or if he's more of a teacher preacher. What do you think? He's doing the work of advancement. He's doing the work of advancement. How do you know? See, I'm kind of like he is. How do you know what your gift is? You're inwardly motivated. You don't grow weary. I say all the time, I can preach all day long, like we did yesterday. That doesn't bother me a bit. I can do that all day. Now, when it comes to evangelism, I say, okay, I got to get out and do it. I got to get over the hump. You see what I'm saying? But there are people who are evangelists, they love this sort of thing. This is no problem for them at all. They love it, they enjoy doing it. And then there are people who have mercy ministry gifts who just are zealous in that area. So it just depends. But if your pastor is more of a preacher-teacher, he is willing to do the work of an evangelist, which is absolutely important and it's commendable, but you need to pray if you don't have some already. I think you do. We have two already. All right, who are they? So you should pray that God will continue to give you those evangelists. And when you have them, let them go. Free them up to go out and evangelize. And y'all should go with them. Even if you're not evangelists, go with them and see what they do. And they will stir things up. So those are all very important things. But now let's get down very practically to your individual church. You're in the middle of a huge population area. I mean, any idea in a one-mile radius of the church how many people live here? Any idea? In a mile? Alright, that's huge. Even if it's a couple of miles, that's huge. So now I believe you all told me that your church originally was more of a regional church. People were driving from various places because the former preacher was such a good preacher on the radio and all that. And so you really not had much of an impact in your community. And I asked what people thought of the church and some of you said, well, we're not really, maybe they think because we're OPC or Presbyterian that we're just kind of stuck in the mud, you know, and not show much emotion or whatever. But probably, realistically, probably most of the people have no idea. They don't have any idea what's going on here, which is not bad. You know, it's not a bad thing at all. So here's my suggestion to you. I want you to look at Luke chapter 10. And I could go on for a couple hours on this. Obviously, we don't have much time. But in Luke chapter 10, Jesus is sending out the 70. He's already sent out the 12 in Matthew chapter 10. Now he's going to send out the 70, and their job is to go by twos into the surrounding area to see if people are open to his message. Because if they're open, he's going to go there. He went to every one of these cities, according to Mark, Matthew chapter 4, when he, in his early Galilean ministry. Every one of them. And all of, there was about a hundred villages and towns within a one to two day walk of where he was set up in Capernaum. And here's a very important point. You notice that Jesus did not sit back in the synagogue or at the Starbucks coffee shop and wait for people to come to him. What did he do? He went. He went. He went. And we tend to sit back and wait for people to come to us. That is not the biblical methodology. He's sending them out in twos. That means there's at least 35 groups of people going out. And then you'll notice his instruction. In verse 2, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Because of that, therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. And He gives them instruction. Go, behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. They're to trust Him completely. Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes, and greet no one on the way. In other words, go straight there. Whatever house you enter first, say, Peace be to this house. If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him, but if not, it will return to you. Okay, I'm all about door-to-door evangelism, okay? I believe it's biblical. That's what Jesus is telling them to do. In Acts chapter 20, the apostle Paul says, I was with you with tears and trembling, and I did not shrink from declaring to you anything profitable in teaching you publicly and from what? House to house. So that's a biblical methodology. Now, when you think about this, here's what you're doing. You're looking for people of peace. You're looking for people who are open to you. Open to the message. They might be Christians. They might be atheists. They might be agnostics They might be unbelievers Whom God's beginning to work on them or they've got some trouble some some tragedy some hardship in their lives And then you simply knock on the door What you're doing is you're looking as I put it like this. It's a numbers game I'm looking when I go out and do door-to-door evangelism. I'm looking for one out of ten one out of a hundred who are open. If I knock on the door, I'll knock twice. I stand there 30 seconds. If nobody's there, I leave some information about the church, inviting, you know, where it is and, you know, what the website is and all that, or maybe a gospel tract as well. And then I move on to the next house. If I knock on five doors and there's nobody there, I'm not worried about it. If on the sixth door I knock on the door and people say, no, we don't want what you have, I'm not mad, I'm not upset. Why? I'm looking for the one. I'm looking for the one person whom God's prepared. Now, what do I say when I knock on the door? What y'all could do, because again, y'all have not done much of this, you could say, we're from the Mount Carmel Church, we meet right over here, and we're really trying to get to know the people of our community, and we would like to know people's religious interests, and I'm wondering if you could give me three minutes and answer five questions. That's simple. Here's another way to put it. I'm wondering if you could help me out. People like to help other people. I wonder if you could help me out by taking three minutes to answer five questions. And I think Greg has those questions. If not, I can get them to you later. Very simple questions that eventually lead you into gospel conversations, like the fourth and fifth question are the old EE questions. I say, you know, I put it like this, I said, You know, I hope you live to be an old old person. You have your grandchildren and grandchildren and children all around you when you die. But let's face it, we could all die at any time, right? I mean, you could die tomorrow. I'm talking to a 20 year old, you never know, right? I bet you've got friends who've died recently. Yeah, I do. I said, Well, here's the important question. So what do you think is going to happen to you when you die? Whoa, I never thought about that. I said, that's a pretty heavy question, right? Yeah, it is. Well, I said, well, let me ask you another question. Let's say you did die and you stood before God. He said, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? Most people give some kind of works-oriented answer. Then I'll say this. You know, I hear a lot of people answer that way. Would you like to know what Jesus says? Well, OK. What Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes on me has eternal life. And then you're off with the gospel. if they'll let you, okay? So, all right, I've got one person's interested. I keep meticulous records, you get a Google map of where you are in the community, you keep records, have somebody in the church who's a good administrator type person, keep up with the records, you put their name and their address down. Now you've got one person in your pipeline. Okay, my middle son, my oldest son's an insurance broker, my middle son's an insurance producer. He was with hub international when he lived in Tulsa, and they have 1000 insurance producers around the country. And he was in the top 50. And he was in the top five, I believe of new business. Now what he would do is he would do a little research, he'd find a company that he felt like was not really insured as well as they should be. And he'd call them up, and in 30 seconds, he would tell them who he was and what he could do for them. And boom, most of the time, he got an appointment, okay? Now, here's what I want you to see. In the insurance industry today, people are saying, that doesn't work anymore. The way that you meet people is you do it on social media, Facebook, and all of this, and you know, that doesn't work anymore. I'm not saying you shouldn't use social media, but I'm telling you, and what he says is, no, it does work. The reason people don't do it is they fear rejection. They don't want to be told no. It's uncomfortable. And the same thing applies in evangelism. I hear people all the time saying, oh, that door-to-door stuff doesn't work. That open-air preaching doesn't work. That does more harm than it does good. Now, there's some bad open-air preachers out there. I'll grant you that. But they're not all bad. And that doesn't work anymore. What you've got to do is you've got to build relationships over a long period of time and then you can talk to people. Let me ask you a question. Just look at the Gospels. Look at Jesus. Look at the apostles in the Gospels. Look at what's going on in the book of Acts. Is that what you see? No. Jesus went town to town. Jesus went out to the people. The Apostle Paul goes into Thessalonica and he starts preaching immediately. He's not getting a gym membership and hanging out with people for six months and then trying to get an opportunity to speak to them. He's at it right away. And I believe we can do that. Listen, when you love people, they see it, they know it, they understand it. And when you have, when you love people, you have their hearts. And when you have their hearts, you can tell them anything because they know you love them and you care for them. You're not going to write them off. So I'm looking for the one person in the pipeline. He might not be a believer. He might be an atheist, but he showed some interest. Or you might say, is there any, at the end of the conversation, you might say, is there anything we pray for you about? You'd be amazed at what people do. When I go out to eat, and I'm at a restaurant, I'll say to the waitress, my wife and I are Christians, and we're gonna have a prayer before our meal, and I'm just wondering, is there anything for which we can pray for you? You'd be amazed how people will open up. Oh, you know, I'm going through a divorce. My child has been giving me trouble. He's in jail now. And I said, well, we're gonna pray. And I say, you know what your child needs? Your child needs just like what my children need, and just what I need as well. Your child's born with a rebellious heart. And I had a rebellious heart, too, until God changed me. And when he changed me, he gave me the heart of Jesus that loves God and hates sin. We're going to pray for your child that God will work in him and take out his cobra, rebellious heart, and give him a heart that loves Jesus. And there you witness. You witness right there to the person, like in 15 seconds. And you give him a good tip, by the way. If you're going to tell him about Jesus, you've got to give him a good tip, you know? Don't be stingy, you know? But now you've got one person in your pipeline. Now you go back the next week, and I'm urging churches to do two hours a week. That's all. But if you've got a van, you'll let them go a lot more. But you got one person in your pipeline, you go the next week, you're looking for somebody else, now you got two. And after a year, you might have 30 or 40 or 50 people in your pipeline. And the beautiful thing is, now you can get all the congregation involved. You might have some people, oh, I'm not an evangelist, I could never say anything, but they're compassionate. Maybe there's an old person that you have sensed is lonely. and you could have some people in your church bring a meal to that person or just go sit with them for 30 minutes or an hour a week. You'd be amazed, maybe you're not amazed what that does for people. You see, you're just, you're being the hands and feet of Jesus out in the community. So there's a mercy ministry need. Or maybe somebody is a believer, but they're going through a real difficult time in their marriage, maybe with their children. Well, you've got people with teaching gifts who can minister to those people. Say, well now, this is what God says about marriage, and this is what, you know, God can help you with your marriage as you go by His word, counseling, discipling, or whatever the case might be. Or you get somebody who's an atheist or an agnostic, but they've shown some interest, where you've got your evangelist who can say, well, how about us having an investigative Bible study? How about you get some of your family members together and what we'll do is we'll just study the book of Mark and we'll take just one little section at a time and we'll read it and we'll just start asking questions. And the questions are things like this. Now what do you, as you read this passage, what does this tell you about God? And you're not preaching to them, you're letting them answer questions based on the text. What does this tell you about God? And you'd be amazed at what they come up with. Now, what does this tell you about Jesus? What does this tell you about people? Now, based on what we've discussed today, what do you think you should do with that? I remember reading a book a while back, and there was this guy who went into a very poor part of Appalachia, very poor, illiterate white people, And there was a lot of drugs and alcohol and drug addiction, all kinds of terrible stuff going on. And so he went into this community and he started doing these investigative Bible studies. And there was a woman there who he had met who was just drunk all the time. And of course her health is going way down. And these four or five guys who knew her really well are in this investigative Bible study. And they're studying Mark chapter 2 where the four men bring the lame man to Jesus and they lower him down through the roof. And they're discussing who God is and what Jesus did and these people and so forth. At the end of the study they said, What should we do for this woman? I know what we should do. You know, she's drunk all the time and she needs to go to the doctor, but the doctor won't see her because she's drunk. So what we need to do is we need to stay with her the night before we're going to take her to the doctor and make sure she doesn't drink and she's not drunk. And then we can take her to the hospital, the doctor the next day. What about that? He goes, that's a good idea. That's what we're talking about. And you know, you get people involved in this sort of thing, God can bring them along in due time and they can be converted. My point is this, that after you have done this for a year, you can have 30 or 40 people to minister to. That will keep you busy for a while. Now, what we'd like to see at the end of the year. Now you've got 30 or 40 people that are coming to the church and have joined the church. You know what? That could happen, but that's not always the way it happens. Some of those people will, at least for that year, they're still in the pipeline, but they're not showing much progress. By the way, you're praying for these people in your revival prayer meeting. You've got their names down. You're praying by name for each one of these people and their particular needs. And you're touching them several times, like once a week or once every couple of weeks. Send them a text message. That's easy. Yeah, because you got the phone number, you know, got an email address, or just drop by, hey, we're just dropping by going through the neighborhood just want to say hello. Are you okay? Keep touching, keep reaching out. That's what my son does in the insurance industry. You know, he's working with these people. He didn't just go in the first time get a sale, it might take two years. But he's got several people he's working on at the same time. And eventually, some of it turns into business that he writes, sometimes it doesn't. But he's continuing to work his pipeline. He's always making phone calls. Every day, he spends an hour or two on the phone trying to get business. And that's what you have to do in the context of the church. Now, let me give you an example. Just two weeks ago, we were down in Georgia, and we were helping this small PCA church. And by the way, you want to pray specifically. You want to pray specifically. I had people pray two weeks ago. I said, pray, we're going to go door-to-door. We train people in evangelism. We're going to go door-to-door, Monday through Friday. And then we're going to have a cookout on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon. Pray that we will have at least 15 people in the Redeemer Church pipeline by Saturday. So we went out. And we had six people call on the name of the Lord during that week. And we had at least another 20 to 25 people who showed interest. We had the cookout the next day, about eight or 10 of those people came to the cookout. And at church the next day, four or five people came. And these are people in great need. One woman came in and her husband had just left her and she was about to be homeless, so the church was trying to minister to her in those particular days. She might be a Christian, we don't know, but hardship, lots of hardship. Now, that church, and we left after that, that church has about 25 people they need to minister to in one week. And that is, I believe, what Jesus was doing. I believe that's what Paul was doing. We do not live in a revival culture in the United States anymore. We did it one time. I go to India, I go to Africa, that's a revival culture. You can stand on the street corner and start preaching, the next thing you know, you got 100 or 200 people listening to you. You try that around here, nobody listens or they throw stuff at you or whatever, they just walk by, you know? It's a totally different ballgame. But we're to be out there. It's not easy as it is in other places. But God still wants us to be out engaging people in the gospel in a winsome, loving way. And here's my theme verse, if you will. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus is in the synagogue and was the custom, the leader of the synagogue would have a man or two stand up and read the scriptures. And Jesus is there and he reads from Isaiah 61. And he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. That's a positive message, isn't it? To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. You know what that's talking about? God gave Israel, when they came into the promised land, He portioned off the land. Each of the tribes had certain areas of land. And it was passed down from one generation to another generation. But you know how it is. Sometimes people have to give up their land. Maybe they made a bad investment. Maybe they squandered it. Maybe it's no fault of their own. Maybe it's famine or whatever and they ran out of money and they had to sell their land and make money or whatever, pay off their debts. It can happen any number of ways. And so God set up the year of Jubilee. And at the 50th year, whatever land had been taken lawfully even from other people had to go back to the original owners. That's the favorable year of the Lord. And think about that. There are people all around us who have squandered their lives. Sometimes they were abused, sometimes it's not altogether their own fault. But the ravages of sin are real, and it devastates people, and there are people all around us who've been devastated. And they've lost their dignity, they've lost their way, they're lost in their trespasses and sins, any way you want to name it. And what we're able to do is we're able to go into the communities and proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. He can bring you back. No matter what it is, he can bring you back. I remember talking to a guy several years ago who was this young man who's now, I think he's a pastor now. This guy grew up in a very well-to-do family in Michigan. Somehow or another, he got on drugs. And he was stealing from his mother and father, just stealing them blind, you know? And, and then he got then he got addicted on drugs. And his life was another mess. He's in and out of prison. And one day, he's at a one of these meetings at a halfway house, some preacher. And the guy said before he told me said, you know, he said, I remember thinking to myself, I wish I could start over again. I know I could do a better job. I'm just such a mess now. I wish I could start over again. So he goes to this meeting. The preacher is preaching. He says, you know, I want you to know that through Jesus Christ, you could start over again. And that got his attention. God saved him, you know, out of all that mess. And that's what he can do. Now, he might still live with the consequences of that sin, you know, but he's forgiven and he can start over. And there's people all in this community that are in that light, that are in that condition. And what I'm asking you to do is to say, God, you've placed us here to minister to people. And every person has a story, right? Every family here, But every family around this church has issues. There's no perfect family. You know, every family has dysfunction. And so, and only the gospel can heal them. So what I'm after is for y'all to say, and again, you're already doing this, but pray, God, when you have your prayer meetings, God, would you this week, when do y'all go out, Thursday usually? Thursday morning, God lead us to people of peace. Give us at least one person this week who's open. Now what you gotta do, listen, I think this goes without saying, this is hard work, okay? Now some of y'all are up in age and you're probably not able to get out like that, but you know what you can do? You can pray, can't you? You can pray. And that's powerful. And when you go out, expect to meet people of peace. It's astonishing. It's astonishing what he'll do. I took a group out for a new church plan a couple of years ago, and the pastor was pretty reluctant. He didn't think this was going to work, you know. And there was a woman with me who had never done this either. The first three houses we knocked on, boom, boom, boom, people opened. You know, shared the gospel with all three of them, got them in the pipeline, you know. It's amazing. And so you can expect that to happen if you'll go out. So again, practically speaking, you in your prayer meeting, you pray those of you who can't go out, pray God lead us to people give us the salvation of souls. I think you should I think you should set a prayer go God, would you give us five people this year to come to know the Lord join the church? You can pray that. And, and here's the thing. When you bring in people from the world to the church, it gets messy. Okay, it gets messy. My analogy is this. So there's this young couple that gets married. And they're both professionals. And so they they decide we're not going to have any children for a while. So they live in a nice life. You know, they take these nice European vacations, they're doing all this nice stuff. And then they start having children, maybe in their early 30s, or so forth. And then boom, everything changes. I mean, now they're up all hours of the night. Now they got three or four kids. They haven't slept a whole night in 15 years. You know, it's messy. Sick children vomiting, all, you know, kind of stuff. They used to have such a nice, peaceful life. But you know what? They wouldn't change that for anything. It's messy, but it's glorious at the same time. And that's what we're talking about here. You know, you're rocking along here. Y'all love each other. You got a nice church, you got a pastor who loves you and serving, your dear wife and so forth. You got a nice thing going on here, which is good, wonderful. But when you're out there reaching people, and you bring people in, it's messy. It's messy. I remember one church in Athens, Georgia. They were really reaching into the urban community there near the University of Georgia. I was talking one time to the associate pastor, and they were really reaching into the poor community. He said, yeah, he said, you know, he said, we We had a pedophile come into church, and we knew who he was, and we were watching him. So one day, he wandered into the boy's bathroom. Whoa, that didn't go well with the parents of these young children. I can promise you that. So you got to watch that kind of, you do the best, but that kind of stuff happens sometimes. So you got to be careful as best you can, but at the same time, you want to minister to people, right? I mean, you want to reach people who need Christ. It gets messy. It's hard work. but it's glorious at the same time. So that's kind of what I want to talk about. We've got a minute or two left, and so maybe if you've got any questions, I can try to answer any questions you have. Yeah. Yeah. I heard that from you. I said that what I need is that God, please, I'm asking you, allow Costa Rica to come back to us again, if you will, next year. So I spoke to one person that I need to speak to regarding that. So when I told him that, brother, this is what God Well, I'd love to if I can. Yeah, that'd be great. Yes, I will. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Good. Good. And what we can do too is we can have maybe do a intensive evangelistic outreach in the community and then have some kind of outreach at the end of the week, you know, like a cookout or whatever. Those can be really good. Yeah, or just several nights of preaching, whatever, whatever you think works good, doesn't matter to me. But I think that God has prepared you. You've got this beautiful facility. You've got people who love Jesus. I know you've had some trouble in the past. It looks like that's all behind you now. Let's move forward. You've got a pastor who loves you. He and his wife, they're dear servants of God. I've known these folks for a long time. They're zealous. They're committed. They really are. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Well, you know what you might do, you might have signs made up a little badges, Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church. whatever you know you know what I mean so they'll know right up front and also you know you always should take a woman with you don't just three men show up at the door that intimidates people take a woman with take a child with you you know most people are not going to turn away a child right And then think of it like this. You're saying, Lord, how can I minister today? I'm open, Lord. How can I minister to people today? It's like a hungry man's finding bread wants to help other people find bread, right? That's the idea. We're no better than anybody else. God's been merciful to us. We're just trying to encourage people. And smile. Don't go, oh, we're here from Mount Carmel, Presbyterian. Smile. This is a great thing. We're here. We love Jesus, right? You want to be a good ambassador, right? Okay, yeah. That's very important. If they can't speak English, it's going to be tough for you to minister to them. Come up with some gospel tracts in Spanish, right? Right. Right. That's right. That's right. Amen. Anybody else? Yeah. And with this couple, they saw me coming in, where have you been? I used to teach them the gospel. And you know, just from what I'm learning in the Bible, whether they accept it or not, some of them did. They had Jesus, some of them accepted him, and many did. But it just made me feel good that I was able to minister to them. Yeah. And you know, if you do it, that's what you're talking about. There's consistency. You want on a regular basis, and they get to expect you. They get to see it. They'll see in the neighborhood after a while, then they'll trust you, you know, and you're not. They're all not. They're not all going to come into your church, but at the very least, you're building the kingdom of God and you're changing the culture of your church instead of it being more ingrown. It's all about us now. It's an outgrowing church, and you're reaching out to people, and that's very, very important. So I'm going to follow up with you in a few weeks, okay? See how you're doing. All right. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for these dear saints whom you've called to yourself, and I pray your blessing upon them and your blessing on our service now that follows. And we do ask very specifically, Lord, that you would bring two Spanish speakers to this church, at least one of whom is an evangelist. They can reach out to these dear Hispanic people in this neighborhood. They need to hear the gospel of Jesus just like all of us. So Lord, we pray you'd bless that effort and we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.