The reporter has joined the team of young people about to go
into the streets of Lake Charles to knock on doors and share the gospel.
The day is hot – sweltering, humid, South Louisiana hot.
The van is air conditioned cool for the students and adults
scattered across the seats. They include a reporter who is tagging along with
a team of three for an article.
The reporter has joined the team of young people about to go
into the streets of Lake Charles to knock on doors and share the gospel.
The day is hot – sweltering, humid, South Louisiana hot.
The van is air conditioned cool for the students and adults
scattered across the seats. They include a reporter who is tagging along with
a team of three for an article.
He is talking to the young people, asking their names, where
they live and such. One of the teenagers asks if the reporter works for the
Baptist association.
“No, the state paper,” he responds.
A minute or so later, she follows up on the thought. “So,
do you have a personal relationship with God?” she asks.
“Yes, I do,” he says.
“Well, I was just wondering,” she responds. “You
said you didnt work for the Baptist association.”
He laughs. “No, Im sorry,” he says. ”
I work for the state Baptist newspaper. Im a Christian, too.
“But Im glad you asked.”
This is a day to be inside … or in a pool … or anywhere
but out in the sun, where the air is heavy and barely moving too much of the
time.
But these 250 or so young people are outside nonetheless, dressed
in shorts and tee-shirts but still outside.
Not only are they outside, but they are walking the hot concrete
and asphalt streets of neighborhoods, some carrying backpacks, most carrying
bottles of water that will heat up quickly on this day.
They have chosen this activity, chosen to forsake the coolness
of air conditioning and more leisurely activities for this – this mind-boggling
gospel mission.
In three days, they will knock on 12,889 doors, talk with 2,752
people, leave countless gospel packets hanging on doorknobs – and see 173
people accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior.
Meet the Frontliners.
On this dead-end neighborhood street, many houses are empty.
But at this one, a man is walking through the garage – headed out a door
to the back yard – as the trio of young people begin up the driveway.
The man waves a dismissive hand at them, saying he is not interested
in buying whatever they are selling.
“Were not selling anything,” one of the three
says.
The man pauses just a moment – but that is enough.
The young people engage the man in conversation as an adult
helper watches from the street, out of earshot.
It is the longest conversation of the day thus far, lasting
several minutes. Soon, however, the young people leave the man and head back
to the street.
“That was so close,” one says.
“He was this close,” another adds, holding up fingertips
just a fraction of space apart.
The young people had shared the gospel with the man, who had
expressed interest and openness. He even had said he would like to receive Christ
into his life – but he had declined to pray the prayer of salvation with
the young people at that time.
“Well, look at it this way,” the adult helper tell
the trio of teenagers. “You know hes interested, and you know where
he lives.”
Frontliners is a ministry of the Kelly Green evangelistic team
from Brandon, Fla. It is a simple concept – take young people from various
areas, send them to a church, train them in gospel witnessing and send them
out on the area streets to share the Good News.
“The dream and desire is to equip students to go out and
share the gospel of Jesus Christ and put them on the front lines, … so when
they go home, they can put that into practice,” explains Carrie Bond, who
works as a coordinator for the ministry and recently led a Frontliners event
at Trinity Baptist Church in Lake Charles.
Frontliners was launched some 13 years ago and since has entered
into a partnership with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. This
summer, the ministry placed 14 groups in various locations.
As designed, youth from various states travel to a location,
where a host church provides housing and meals. The young people spend the mornings
in training, the afternoons knocking on doors to take a spiritual survey and
share the gospel and the evenings involved in a revival. By the end of the three
days, every young person has taken a turn in sharing the gospel with others.
“Its like a youth camp, mission trip and crusade
experience all rolled into one event,” Bond explains.
While the concept is simple, the undertaking is far from an
easy chore. It involves the entire church, says Steve James, pastor at Trinity
and current Louisiana Baptist Convention president. All in all, his congregation
hosted 179 young people from five states late last month. Another 70 Trinity
youth joined the visitors as well.
“It was an all-out church event,” James notes. “Our
whole church participated. Everybody took ownership.”
Indeed, adults were involved in housing and transporting young
people, feeding young people, walking with witnessing teams, organizing materials,
promoting special events, praying for the effort and more, James says.
All was geared to enabling young people in their gospel task,
he says. For instance, church volunteers worked hard to feed the 250 youth in
six minutes each day.
That meant the youth were able to get out to the houses sooner,
have more witnessing time, knock on more doors and share the gospel with more
people.
“So, you see, those people were not just serving food
– they were enabling gospel work,” James says.
“There was no unimportant job that went on.”
What did go on was plenty of gospel presentation. Each day,
youth left a brief post-lunch rally at full throttle, literally racing through
church hallways to grab bottles of water and load into waiting vans, horns blaring.
Adult leaders were dotted throughout the parking lot, yelling encouragement,
slapping hands and drumming on van windows to charge the young people up for
their task.
For the next few hours, the 42 three-person teams spent their
time walking with an adult helper from door to door, sharing with those who
were home, leaving packets of information for those who were not.
If they encountered someone along the way, they seized the
opportunity to share the gospel with them as well.
In time, they returned to the church to make reports –
“hot, sweaty, stinking and just beaming,” Bond relates.
As soon as team reports were made, adult volunteers headed
out from the church to follow up with persons who had made decisions during
the afternoon visits. In some instances, even these resulted in more professions
of faith as the volunteers had the opportunity to share with additional family
members.
Each evening, the entire church gathered for the crusade, where
even more decisions were recorded.
The numbers prove the effectiveness of the approach.
During its Frontliners week, Trinity recorded 173 professions
of faith in door-to-door visits, 62 professions of faith during the three crusade
meetings and 30 other decisions. James baptized a total of 34 persons, with
more to come.
“We just turned it over to God and said, Lord, you
do with it what you will,” James relates. “And it was beyond
anything we could imagine. I dont think any of us had any idea of the
scope and impact this would have. We left the results to God, and he blessed
it mightily.”
And the blessings were not all numerical, James says.
“We didnt do this necessarily to grow the church,”
he says. “It was to share the gospel in Jerusalem. This is our Jerusalem.
We go elsewhere (to share the gospel), but we have to be faithful to share in
our Jerusalem as well.”
Indeed, James says he expects the benefits of the week to last
for awhile. In addition to the decisions and the prospects identified, young
people have been trained in evangelism, adults have been trained in follow up
work – and everyone in the church has seen that it is possible to share
the gospel with others.
Overall, the event was worth the considerable cost in hosting
the young people and the crusade, James says.
“Of course, it is worth it in the value of one soul saved,”
he emphasizes. “But in addition, there is worth in the unity of our people,
in them getting a fresh perspective in their hearts and lives, in them seeing
the power of the gospel at work. … It has been invaluable for the church to
get together behind something.”
As expected, young people especially benefited from the event,
says Brad Parkhurst, minister of youth at Trinity Baptist Church. “It really
allowed them to start thinking evangelistically and start seeing people as lost
and friends as people they can minister to,” he notes. “I think it
really opened their eyes that God can use them to witness and to win others
to Christ, even as young people.
“It also got them out of their comfort zone,” Parkhurst
adds. “They really stepped up and did some tough stuff. They never knew
when they were knocking on the door if they would know the person or not.”
Parkhurst says he expects to see the effects carry over into
the school year, as young people head back to class and to their friends. He
notes that was the case with young people who attended a Frontliners event elsewhere
last summer. “They just really get a bug for evangelism,” he says
of Frontliners participants. “It more than just gets them on a spiritual
high. It changes their perspective and their way of thinking and how they see
others.”
On this hot afternoon, the young people talk as they walk from
door to door. The accompanying reporter asks what they like about Frontliners.
“It makes you bold again,” says Sarabeth Johnson,
a member at Trinity and a Frontliner veteran.
“It builds that fire inside,” adds Brian Harris,
a Frontliner rookie from a Texas Baptist church.
Then, Johnson begins telling of an experience on the previous
day. Her words are fast and her voice excited as she relates how a car turned
into the driveway just as they approached this one house.
A family got out of the car, with the wife and kids rushing
inside, Johnson recalls. But the man stayed to talk to the young people. He
told them how he recently had lost his job and how his mother had been talking
to him about Jesus.
As the young people shared the gospel with the man, he shook
his head in wonder, saying was it not a coincidence that they would have approached
him at that time.
“But I told him – I dont think this is a coincidence
were here at all,” Johnson recounts. “This is of God.”
(Frontliners information is available via the Internet at www.frontliners.org.
To receive a Frontliners newsletter, persons may e-mail frontliner@aol.com.)