Category Archives: Outreach

Outreach, People

Getting Along?

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Among the quotes that Abraham Lincoln may or may not have said is this: “I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.” Why then to do fundamentalists rage against the heathen? Would they not be better to befriend them in hopes of winning them to their cause?

Ah, but there lies the rub. For to a fundamentalist sin is like an terrible virus that is likely to leap from host to host. It takes but a word, a touch, a look and you too will become like unto them. Before you know it the world won’t be able to see at a glance that you are better than they.

It’s best to wear a protective mask of false smiles and gloves of self-righteousness when you’re near the afflicted. Wash your hands of their stench as soon as you get away and thank God that you are not like other men. Think of their worth only as for what they could be and never for what they are.

Distance. Deprecate. Dehumanize. And when you are finished you’ll find that you won’t have to bother separating yourself from sinners. They’ll separate themselves from you just like they did from Jesus.

I fear I myself have not been so careful. I hugged a gay atheist friend this morning because he was having a bad day. I’ll be sure to let you know if any symptoms develop.

Outreach

Information Highways and Cyber Hedges

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It’s great to see so many people enjoying themselves today on the blog and the forums. As I look around this site, I can see the community really starting to grow together into a family and that warms my heart. But I don’t think we’ve been called to rest on our laurels and just enjoy each other. Any chur…er…website that isn’t growing is dying. We need to keep on reaching out with our message of hope into the fundamentalist community and bringing in the sheaves.

To that end, today I’d like to introduce a new SFL outreach program that I”m  calling “Webvangelism.” Quite simply it’s taking the good news of the freedom you’ve found here to others and trying to get them and their Paypal accounts to surf on in here and see what we’re all about. Each one, win one, and soon we’ll be overflowing our server limits again.

Now any good outreach program is incomplete without organization so here’s the plan that I’ve drafted for you all. Starting next week we’ll meet every Thursday night at 6:00 p.m. in the chat room for a brief time of prayer and instructions. Then we’ll split into groups of two and go out onto the Internet looking for fundamentalists and posting messages that I’ll write down for you word for word in advance. We’ll do this for a couple of hours (no more than three or four at most) and then we’ll meet back for status reports, war stories, and prayer requests.

Imagine the impact we could have in only an hour a week spent posting on Fundy Facebook profiles, Twitter streams, and WordPress.com comments sections! If you have someone special in mind who you think would benefit from such a cyber visit please e-mail their name to me and I’ll make a personal visit to their URL with an invitation by me or my designated spambot.

For those who are concerned about online safety,  Don and I will tackle the job of looking for fundies on seamier sides of tumblr and blogspot since we have the spiritual fortitude to withstand such things without temptation. Or at least I do. Do be in prayer for us that Don will keep himself right and that I’ll remember to watch him like  hawk.

Now perhaps some of you have work, or families or other excuses for not actually showing up to Webvangelism nights. Thankfully, I’ve been led to start a second ministry for those who can’t make it that they can do any time. I won’t go into all the details here but I’ll just say that it involves sending promotional e-mails to everybody @juno.com

I’ll see you there on Thursday night! I’m excited and I hope you all are too.

Outreach

Soul-Winning “Use It Or Lose It”

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Today I’d like to share a blog post from a fundamentalist pastor who was concerned for his soulwinning stamina and feared that he might be “losing it” due to the following thoughts and actions:

– Do these people understand what they did
– Did they really did get saved
– I began to judge wether they were ready
– I began to look for people who were really ready
– I was praying for the really perfectly ready person
– I stopped the salvation presentation when the circumstances were not perfect
– I looked for kids to ride the bus….that was enough
– I failed to bring the person to the sinners prayer
– Weeks and months past and I led very few people to the Lord

Of course, rather than thinking that maybe there’s a good reason why he was feeling uncomfortable with his favorite “bag ’em and tag ’em” technique he decided that the problem must be with himself.

So this is how he got back “on track” for soulwinning:

– The silent partner wanted to see someone get saved….I was now accountable to someone
– I presented the soulwinning plan and quit trying to read into the person wether they wanted to listen or not
– I just went after people even if they looked like they were not really ready
– I pray before I go but don’t spend much time praying while I am out on the field
– I press on with the plan of salvation until the people stop me
– I look for kids to ride the bus and use it as a soulwinning stop
– If I go a week without leading someone to the Lord….I start to worry
– I don’t ever want to lose it again

And what happened when he gloriously decided to ignore the internal sense that something was terribly wrong with what he was doing and embrace the cognitive dissonance of his favored outreach method?

– I spend time every week to go soulwinnng(sic)
– I win about 4 or 5 every week
– I have had some great experiences
– I realized that I all I have to do is present the plan
– I have some of the kids I lead to the Lord that are still riding the bus
– I have a husband and wife and kids still riding every week that I lead to the Lord in Octoer(sic) 2010
– Let us have some testimonies next week on some people who were saved
– If someone gets saved it doesn’t have to be a dramatic testimony, just share it with others

Well, there you go. I guess it must be working if all that stuff is going on. I mean if he’s getting five people saved every week and some of them are even still riding his bus as long as a whole year later then it’s all good.