An Opportunity Too Great to Miss!

For Christians in the U.S., July 4 is a fantastic opportunity to pass out gospel tracts and share Jesus with people at various community events.

God willing, we will be doing so at two local events tomorrow. Here's the announcement I made about it at church last Sunday:

This Saturday we have the wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with thousands of people celebrating July 4th. Events like this are ideal for evangelism because the people are well fed, happy, and not in a hurry to go anywhere

But maybe you’re petrified at the thought of sharing the gospel with a total stranger. I remember how scared I was a few years ago when Mom first suggested our family hand out tracts at our Lake Montezuma July 4 parade. I’d been in church all my life, heard hundreds of sermons, read the Bible a bunch of times, but I was frightened to hand someone a piece of paper!

Here’s something Charles Spurgeon said about tracts:

[Tracts are] adapted to those persons who have but little power and little ability, but nevertheless, wish to do something for Christ. They may not have the tongue of the eloquent, but they may have the hand of the diligent. They cannot stand and preach, but they can stand and distribute here and there these silent preachers… I look upon the giving away of a religious tract as only the first step for action not to be compared with many another deed done for Christ; but were it not for the first step we might never reach to the second, but that first attained, we are encouraged to take another… Let each one of us, if we have done nothing for Christ, begin to do something now. The distribution of tracts is the first thing.

So now I’m going to train you in how to distribute a tract.

You have a choice when handing out tracts. You can either hand out as many as possible without getting into conversations, or you can use the tracts to start conversations.

If you just want to hand out tracts without conversations, the less you say to the person, the better. Just walk up, smile, hand it to them, and keep going. To make it more friendly, you should say something like “Here you go” or “Here’s one for you” or “Happy 4th” or “Have a good evening”. If you’re not sure whether the person may have already gotten a tract earlier in the evening, you can say “Did you get one of these?” In about 95% of cases, people will take anything you give them without a question. You could be handing out tracts for the flying spaghetti monster and they would take them. In about 5% of cases, people will ask, “What is this?” You can just say, “It’s about Jesus.” The name of Jesus is hard to say to a stranger – so say it! People will then say “Ugh, no thanks” or “I’m a Christian already” or “Oh, that sounds good. Thanks” and you can move on.

If you want to start a conversation with someone, hold out the tract to them and say, “Would you like one of these?” They will then say, “What is it?” You can then say, “It’s a tract that explains the gospel. Do you know what the gospel is?” or “What kind of spiritual beliefs do you have?”

This Saturday is an opportunity for you to give someone the hope of salvation! Hope to see you there.

I encourage you to look at your own community's events and see if God might use you to plant seeds there.