Jerry Blackmon uses granite as a lead-in, he said.
ALEXANDRIA—Jerry Blackmon uses granite as a lead-in, he said.
A businessman who installs granite tops into people’s kitchens, Blackmon looks for every opportunity to share the gospel, he said. And now he’s teaching others at Calvary Baptist the same approach.
“I don’t like knocking on doors and presenting the gospel,” he said. “I feel like we run into enough folks on a daily basis that the opportunity is there for us to do more than we can get around to. I feel like we should look for opportunities in our work and play and in friendships for folks that don’t know the Lord.”
Using granite as a lead-in for spiritual matters isn’t as difficult as it might sound, Blackmon continued.
“ I don’t pass up an opportunity to remind people that God made that stuff and how unique it is,” he said. “I use that as a way to begin to talk about spiritual things with customers that I talk with everyday.”
On July 15, Blackmon began teaching a course at Calvary that is designed to help others recognize and use everyday opportunities to share the gospel, he said.
With material he’s modified from past courses, along with scripture, Blackmon plans to help his students examine reasons people give for not sharing their faith, leading them to the realization that these are excuses more than reasons, he said.
Next, the class is set to study reasons why we should share our faith—primarily that God commands us to do it—and the power we possess through the Holy Spirit to do so, Blackmon said.
“I hope to emphasize the awesome God we serve,” he said. “He’s shown that through small things like parting the Red Sea and feeding the five thousand that He’s fully capable of doing small and large things through us.”
In addition, Blackmon plans to study in scripture some of God’s accomplishments and also have students write their testimonies, he said, an assignment designed to help students realize that God has done something awesome in their lives.
“We don’t have to be drug dealers or Hell’s Angels to have good testimonies,” he added. “[God] changed us from death to life, and that’s a pretty big thing. If he saved us, he did a big thing in our lives and that needs to be shared with others.”
After writing their testimonies, students can look forward to sharing them with classmates until they’ve grown comfortable doing so, Blackmon said.
Blackmon’s course fits into Calvary’s 1.7.1 focus for 2007, said Gene Ortiz, education minister at Calvary.
“1.7.1 is one person giving seven days a week for one person,” Ortiz said. The emphasis is to always be praying for one person while at the same time opportunities for cooperating with God about that person, engaging that person in conversation, and cultivating opportunities for conversation.
Developed during Calvary’s planning retreat for 2007, 1.7.1 focuses on areas that can help a person draw others to Christ, Ortiz continued. First, a person should choose a lost person on whom to focus.
Next, comes cooperation with God about that person, Ortiz continued. The Christian pledges to God to cooperate with Him in any opportunity that has to do with that person’s life.
“I’m believing that today when I have an opportunity to speak to or be with that person that it’s a divine appointment orchestrated by God,” said Ortiz, using his own experience as an example.
Besides cooperation, 1.7.1 focuses on conversation, too, Ortiz continued.
“If you just pray for [a person], but never speak to him, then you haven’t gone all the way,” Ortiz said. “You have to be bold enough to say something for God. It’s difficult to just go and present the plan of salvation. You have to have the trust of people in you, that they believe what you believe is important. Conversation gets you there.”
Cultivation provides opportunity for conversation, Ortiz said.
“That’s taking somebody to lunch just because you like them,” he explained. “You’re cultivating the relationship that makes the conversations possible. It’s intentional. If you’re going fishing anyway, take the person you’re cooperating with God about. Now your activity has purpose in it.
“If we have no intention, we’re wasting our time and theirs,” he added. “Some of our activities can be done with the intention of bringing alongside of us someone we can share our faith with.
“Talking about God to people is hard to start,” Ortiz continued.
But through 1.7.1 and the course Blackmon is teaching, that commandment just got easier to fulfill at Calvary.
Towards the end of the course, Blackmon plans to accompany his students to visit with people whom they’ve been cooperating with God about with the purpose of sharing the gospel, he said.
“I think that each of us, regardless of what we do, need to bring up spiritual things with people, find out their background and find out whether they know the Lord,” Blackmon said.
“God’s done some things in my life that got me kick started in sharing my faith when I was finding every way in the world not to,” he added. “When I finally did, I realized that I get more joy out of that than anything I owned or could buy.”