Door to Door visitation

Our church was organized 37 years ago. From the beginning we have gone door to door, and passed out tracts on the streets.

Have we built a huge church as a result? No, but we do have men around the world who have won souls, trained men and been ivolved in starting new churches. One would ask, what does tis have to do with dodr to door calling? Faithfulness, we are keeping on dong what the Lord said to do. GO

We are still going door to door not only in our city but in many small outlying communities. Every Tuesday night is Great Commission night where we are involved in several programs aimed at door to door visiting. We print, fold and fill door hanger bags with church invitions, tracts, correspondnce course cards, and timely announcements about special services. Have we gained many members as a result? No, we are just keeping on doing what the Lord said do...GO

Are we winning souls, yes, then train them and send them. Works for us.

Matthew 28:19-20

 

Our church goes door to door, in fact I have been involved in this means of evangelism for the past 24 years. I wouldn't make it the all and end all of my church programme, we have had limited results. What I have found is that every time we engage in door to door we seem to see an increase in the number of visitors we have, though these folks were not contacted on the doors. It seems the Lord honours us as a church when we seek to honour him by this proactive means of evangelism.

With respect to our strategy, we leaflet an area, then we go "cold" calling for which we have a special visitation card made up, if we meet anyone who seems to show interest we follow them up with a call back for which we have a different card. I have seen folks saved this way, but nothing beats people inviting and witnessing to those with whom they already have a personal connection.

When I first started in my present pastorate it was mostly women who went, but as the church grew and we picked up men, and the men began calling the ladies backed off. Now I have 90 percent men in my visitation teams and about 20-25 percent of our church member ship are actively and regularly involved in this kind of outreach.

 

We go door to door every saturday. the response is not always great but I believe that God blesses the effort. we have seen many times that the people we actually talked to on visitation may not come, but God blesses us with other people coming into the church and I believe that is a result of our visitation effort.

I recommend when you walk up to the door and someone answers, that you first introduce yourself and share the Gospel with them before you invite them to chuch. people will find fault in the church but they cannot find fault in the Gospel.

 

In our church, we've taken a different approach. Instead of trying so hard to get the community into the church, we take the church into the community. We encourage the membership to be involved in some community outreach effort every week, and have specifically reserved SunPM for that. We have basically said, "You are free to do outreach and ministry--and if you miss the SunPM service to do outreach, then have at it!" You wouldn't believe the results. We have a literacy group that started on SunPM, that teaches people to read using the Bible. We started a 2nd worship service in a govt. housing project 1.5 miles from the church that is completely lay-lead. The pastors rotate preaching at the service and many people are coming to Christ through this.

Of course, we still go out every Tues. nite, and make personal evangelism and cold call visits. But we have found that when we invest in going to the community with an intentional evangelistic/outreach/ministry focus, the church grows.

We are planning men's Bible studies to meet in various office buildings throughout the city. We have strategic neighborhood Bible studies for women. And we are wanting to do more to "build a bridge" to the community so that they can walk across it into the church.

 

While not opposed to it, I've been amazed at the number of people who think you aren't evangelistic if you don't do it

I'm ok with it as part of an overall evangelistic strategy. However, one has to wonder if it is not tied to "easy-believism". Knock on a door, get em saved, move on to the next house kinda deal.

 

In 36 years of door to door very few have been led to the Lord either at the door or during that visit. That isn't the point. We are to tell them about Christ and allow the Lord to work in their hearts. While not many have come as a direct result of these calls the Lord has sent many visitors to our services, many souls have been saved, many young men trained and sent to start churches.

The reason for going door to door, one on one witnessing, living a separated life, etc. is obedeince to God. He gives the increase, buses and candy bars only brings numbers not surrendered souls.

 

I often thought the greatest benefit of door-to-door visitation was to the people calling. We always had great prayer meetings after the visitation.

One of the very best tracts to carry is your church bulletin, if it well done. People want to belong to something, and the church bulletin offers such an invitation. It advertises your church, pastoral staff,a nutshell message and displays the activities of your church family.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Our church does the FAITH Program from the SBC/Lifeway.

We generally try to hit people who visited church, or people for whom we have an address from a church member-friend. Then, if there's time, we visit sick members, or people we know. Or we do "cold call" opinion polls. Some groups prefer the opinion polls first, but some like the comfort of visiting friends they know. It's only through practice that you find the ways you prefer and that work best. So practice!

Not "a lot" of people have been saved, but this session (14 weeks into 16 weeks) has been the best yet (out of 10 sessions). So there's always hope for the future....

And I'd say "a lot" of seeds are planted. It puts going to church in people's minds who might not have otherwise thought of it that day. It opens a lot of discussions that otherwise might not have been discussed. It helps a lot of members in crisis times know that our church is still there, still our church, still thinking of them.

And the number of people who have shouting matches or slam the doors in our faces is, to me, surprisingly low. I'd expect it to be a lot higher. Maybe we just look "not too scarey."

It won't make anyone famous, and sometimes it seems fruitless, but it's what God said to do. And if you can get enough groups to go do it together, then you can share in the successes each night. (We have desserts, too, which is great! )

And it sure beats anything else I've tried door to door.

 

We have been involved in door to door visitation ministry throughout our pastoral ministry. I believe it does help us fulfill the challenge to "Go." Along with media advertising, personal contacts with friends and neighbors, friendship evangelism, etc it is another means of reaching our community. It also is the only way I know to make sure we have saturated our Jerusalem with our message of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is amazing to me to see the neighbors who live next door or down the street who have never heard. Going to their door and at the very least giving a tract or personal witness is the least we can do.

It should be at least a part of every church's full program of reaching their Jerusalem with the gospel of Christ.