Door-Step Getting Acquainted

Seeking to be genuine in making new friends

 

Looking back over the past 5-7 years,

I’ve been able take part in door-step, get-acquainted, visits to around 200 homes. Turning stomach, sweating palms, and swirling imagination color my story as I think about my index finger pressing each doorbell. But I can testify—it’s gone from being an a-w-k-w-a-r-d experience to a forward-looking one. I’ve come to see the blessing of meeting my neighbors this way. That’s why I keep in the forefront of my mind what priority one is: meeting new people with a stated purpose—friendship and possible opportunity.

It’s a form of reaching out to listen to folks talk about their backgrounds, and I usually get a better idea about possibilities for future ministry. 

I have found 10-15 minutes at a door allows me to introduce myself, and I can center on being new to the area or that we are starting a new Bible study or church. Giving consideration to their spiritual interests stirs up prayer.

Here’s how I start as the door opens:

Hello, my name is Mark Sumpter. I serve as a pastor in the area, and I’m out meeting folks in the neighborhood. Do you have a moment; may I ask you four questions?

1. Do you presently attend a church in the area?
2. I am helping to start a church [a Bible study, a class] right here in town. Would you be interested in helping us or know of someone who might be interested? (I have found that there’s often a pause as the person might be preparing to respond, so I offer brief elaboration with something like: Any feedback or comments to offer us? Or I might say something like, May we keep you up-to-date on our progress?)
3. Is there something for which you would like prayer…maybe prayer for you and/or your family?
4. Would you like my wife and me to stop back over? We enjoy visiting with folks, do you mind if we stop by again in a week or so?

That’s it. This is a get-acquainted door-step visit.  The visit may be very brief or it may go for 45 minutes.

When I meet someone plugged into a local church, who is involved in a Christ-preaching church, my visit often turns to asking for their prayers for our efforts.

With the uninvolved, I am ready to take down their address and contact information. But I am not pushy. I have found a folksy conversation opens up possibilities for a return visit.  

Budding friendships sprout from taking tiny baby steps. Coffee meetings, hospital calls, telephone conversations, in-home visits, a prayer meeting, and mercy ministry of diaconal deeds have surfaced—in some cases, there have been multiple visits as call-back appointments. Good, growing friendships around the things of Christ spell pastoral witness to new people.  It can start by getting acquainted at the door.

Aiming at Faithfulness

Here's Pastor Ed Gross in his book, Are You a Christian or a Disciple? on being more fruitful in our ways of outreach and evangelism

 

"My way [in the past] was pretty much as follows:

• Try to manipulate every conversation so the plan of salvation was woven into as many of them as I could. I was always seeking the loophole to turn the conversation from what it was towards the gospel message.

• Once we were there, I tried to pressure the person with as many arguments as I could to ‘turn or burn.’ The goal was to get them to believe and repent before we parted ways. Who knows, it might be their last chance—so I went into the conversations as I was trained—like a fireman into a burning house. Hell was and still is very real to me.
   
• The goal was simple—Get them to pray some form of the sinner’s prayer and ask Jesus into their hearts. THAT was the expression of faith and repentance I was looking for.
   
• If they prayed, and it seemed as though they were at least somewhat sincere, I assured them that they were saved and no one or nothing, could remove their possession of eternal life. Like your first birth, you are ‘born again’ only once.
   
• Then I moved on to the next lost soul to do the same.

The problems with this way to reach the world for Christ are many, and my purpose is not to dissect them all. I thank God for those who were truly saved this way. But after decades of doing this and hundreds of sinners praying, I saw two undeniable things. First, not many whom I led to Christ this way stuck. They did not become lifelong followers of Jesus. Second, I could never get more than 10% of any church plant or established church I pastored to implement this approach as their normal and natural strategy for outreach. However hard I prayed and trained and tried. It just didn’t work well. And instead of accusing the people of being lukewarm or carnal or sell-outs, I eventually realized that I was never comfortable doing it like this either. This approach, however I would rationalize it, was not the way Jesus evangelized. It was not the way Love incarnate reached the lost. I and many others have found a better, more loving, more discerning and less rude way. A peaceful, less stressful way to reach to lost. The way of discipleship evangelism.”