HAVE YOU SEEN TODAY'S "DEAR ABBY"?

“And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” (Acts 5:42)

Have you seen today’s “Dear Abby”?  (I mean “Dear Abby” for Tuesday, August 19, 2008.)  
Today is my day off, although sometimes my “days off” are more like “days ON” and I feel like this is going to be one of them!  I’ve got quite a bit on today’s agenda, including a 10 a.m. dental appointment. Around 7:30 in the morning, I sat down to breakfast at McDonald’s while reading today’s MetroWest Daily News.  I gave “Dear Abby” far than my usual glance over.

“Dear Abby” today is about how to handle “religious solicitors” who knock at your door and bother you.  The piece primarily dealt with “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and I will agree they do about 90% of the door-to-door “soliciting”.  One person wrote in to say she bluntly tells “Jehovah’s Witnesses” :  “I’m sorry but I didn’t see the accident”!  I actually thought that was kind of funny!
Another guy wrote in that he’d just stepped out of the shower and was wearing nothing but a towel when the “religious visitors” arrived.  Sounding like Bob Barker, he said “Come onnn innn!”  They retreated and never returned!

From time-to-time I have church members ask me (and they’re usually “new Christians” who are highly excited and motivated), “So, Pastor, WHEN do you want me to join you to go DOOR-TO-DOOR spreading the Gospel?!”  They’re usually quite bewildered when I don’t pick up on that offer.  Today’s “Dear Abby” is a big part of why I rarely go door-to-door.

There’s no question about it, the New Testament advocated ALL Believers getting out into the world and proclaiming the Gospel.  As far as I can tell, the New Testament is absolutely “pro” going door-to-door.  And, there are ministries who have gone door-to-door with good results.  I don’t know if it still exists, but World Literature Crusade (also known as “Every Home Crusade”) used to have teams all over the world taking the Gospel in print and on tape to thousands and thousands of residences.  There are scores and scores of testimonies of people who came to personal faith in Christ through their ministry  Fundamentalist Baptists also frequently go door-to-door.  They definitely do that in Framingham.  My daughter Rachel told me the story of two zealous people from South Middlesex Baptist Church who came to the door and pretty much wouldn’t leave until she told them how she knew she was “saved”.  Well, Rachel satisfactorily did that, and they left.

Unfortunately, as the “Dear Abby” piece proves, so many people in North America are SO turned off by “religious solicitors” going door-to-door that I fear it probably does more harm than good.  One of my Board Members and I DID go door-to-door in our church’s neighborhood over a period of several weeks in the Summer of 1996.  In order to keep doors from being slammed in our faces, I would start off saying, “We’re NOT Jehovah’s Witnesses, so please don’t panic!”  We gave them a church magazine (if they were interested) and in under sixty seconds gave a quick invitation to come and visit our church.  We got varied responses.  Even after my disclaimer, some slammed the door, usually uttering a few four-letter-words.  In our church’s diverse neighborhood, we found that the LEAST friendly and receptive people were white Americans.  Blacks, Hispanics, and Brazilians were MUCH friendlier than white Americans and always gave us more of their time and attention than did white Americans.  We found that even Russian Jews were friendlier than white Americans.  

We did not get any more than a couple visitors as a result of our canvassing, and no one joined the church as a result.  

I think one has to use wisdom and consider the culture he or she lives in before “going out to preach the Gospel”.  Vineyard Christian Fellowship, for instance, sometimes has outdoor concerts on the downtown Framingham common.  They pass out literature, and free cans of Coca-Cola, to those who drop by and express any interest in what they are doing.  I’ve found that building relationships with people over a period of time and THEN inviting them to special events at church is far more effective than the cold turkey “door-to-door” approach.  I also like to leave a tract with my tip at a restaurant, but let me remind you that if you’re going to do that, you’d better make it a generous tip!

One of the people at our church who sometimes gets all fired up about going door-to-door is a guy who’s sister in California is a “Jehovah’s Witness”.  He usually goes out to California and spends a week or two with his sister and her husband at least once a year.  When he returns, I hear all sorts of admonitions about what “good witnesses” they are and that they obey the Bible by going door-to-door while we don’t.  I know he’s repeating what they’ve told him.  Within a day or two, he usually adds a number of criticisms of their narrow-mindedness and then the, “Why don’t we go door-to-door?” stuff winds down.

There’s no question that as evangelical Christians we ARE supposed to be sharing our faith and making disciples.  I’m not absolutely opposed to doing door-to-door evangelism, but I kind of think the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and others have spoiled it for us.  Even so, we have got to find loving and creative ways to “let our light shine” in this world!