In this sermon, George Verwer discusses the importance of effectively preparing for evangelistic work. He emphasizes the need to go beyond simply handing out tracks and instead connect with people on a deeper level. Verwer shares a personal anecdote about a young preacher who struggled to engage his audience until he shifted his focus to the topic of love. He also highlights the necessity of prioritizing evangelism over other good activities and the importance of prayer, planning, studying, and memorizing scripture. Verwer cautions against both neglecting intellectual growth and overemphasizing it, urging a balanced approach to spiritual development.

This recording was made in 1965 on a rather poor domestic type recorder, but because the material is so helpful we have retained it in the hope that it will be a source of encouragement to you. Here now is George Verwer. Now we're going to be covering three orientation sessions in one. In our member conferences we present this material over a period of three sessions. I just finished doing it in Spanish in Mexico City in the earlier part of this week, and a few days before that in Chicago at our USA Canadian conference, in three hours. Now I want to try to do it all in about 45 minutes. So you'll just be able to get an outline of it. And the first session is called Preparing to do door-to-door work. And we want to realize and be realistic that it's going to take something to do this work effectively. Some of the people who have done the most evangelism have done more harm than good. This is why other people go to the extreme and wouldn't do anything. All of you perhaps have come across at least one time in your life a little old man running down the street with his ragged clothes jamming facts in somebody's pocket asking them if they're sane. It almost gives you a stomach ulcer. When I went to Moody Bible Institute, there used to be a little man hanging around the school all the time. And he was never dressed properly. He always looked tired. And he would sometimes be so nervous with giving out the facts, he'd give you five instead of one. And he seemed to usually give it out to the students. Anyway, we've all met these kind of people. And they've hindered the work of evangelism because they haven't been prepared. I believe that the Holy Spirit generally works in two ways. Works vertically and works horizontally. Comes down from above convicting people of this. Comes down from above to empower and to do great things that are also works through us, making us a little bit logical, teaching us, breaking us, preparing us. Now we're looking as we go forth this afternoon to some vertical working in the Spirit of God, trusting that the Holy Spirit will convict some hearts. But we trust that this morning there'll be some horizontal working to convict our hearts and to work through us. As we prepare to go forth, the first thing we need to do is to pray and to make a definite plan. To me, these work together. To pray and to make a definite plan. Many times you'll receive your plans as you pray. Not a day, not too long ago, we were praying over many problems we had in Europe, our various leaders. And after four hours of discussion, we got relatively nowhere. We went to prayer. It was about 1.30 in the morning. And it was in prayer that God gave us the answer to several of our most difficult problems. And so as we go to prayer, God will give us a plan, a definite plan. Now here are some things I list under this plan. I have this outline. I have them listed A, B, C, D, like your good little teachers do sometimes at Bible school. And they tell you to memorize all the A, B, Cs and Ds. And you do for at least a few weeks anyway. But anyway, the first thing I have down is keep a notebook on your contact. Keep a notebook on your contact. How important this is. You meet a man who's concerned. You write a whole stack of papers and he knows where it went by the time you look for it a day later. Keep a good notebook. And I'm convinced that we should go nowhere without our notebook. To get down these key contacts that we meet. Just about a week ago I was going, a week and a half ago, I was going house to house in the African part of Chicago where it's completely all colored people. And what a tremendous opportunity I had to witness for Christ. I was using what I call a Billy Graham survey approach. Asked these various people if they had been to Billy, to see Billy when he's coming to Chicago. None of them had. Then I asked them if they'd go that afternoon because he was in Chicago for one afternoon. None of them even knew he was there. And then finally asked if they were interested and would like to know a little bit about what Billy said. They all said yes. And then I took out a Billy Graham book and sold it. And as I went from house to house, I made some interesting contacts. I met a man who was converted last October and has never talked to a believer since. Never had fellowship with a Christian since last October. He's converted in his own home. And there's so many false cults down in that part of Chicago. He didn't know which church to go to. It all seemed a mass of confusion. And so he stays away from all of them. And of course I had a tremendous contact with him at his doorstep. Spoke with him for close to an hour. And now of course I have his name and address in my notebook so that I can write it. Keep a notebook. It's the key to follow up. And evangelism without follow-up is like a fruit tree without any fruit. B. Keep a notebook or an e-notebook of streets covered. Some record of what streets are covered. Now on a one-day crusade like this sometimes it's not so important. But anything other than a one-day crusade is very important. Everybody ends up going back to the streets already covered. You don't know how many thousands of hours can be wasted in a crusade because we don't do this. Two simple things. You say, oh you didn't need to tell me that. Well I'll tell you only about 10 percent of the people who do evangelism practice this. The Jehovah Witnesses practice this. They print up special cards. They have a file card system on practically every city in the British Isles. And they know who lives where. They know whether they're soft, hard, or indifferent. They know whether they're coming or going. And whether they've accepted books or not, etc. etc. The next thing I have is use a good map and mark off the streets you cover. I don't know if you'll be having that today in this one-day effort. But it's certainly an important thing to use a good map. The next thing I have is set aside a definite time for visitation. Now the purpose of these weekends isn't to evangelize Glasgow in an afternoon. The purpose of them is to get a beginning, to start, to receive training. That's why we spend the morning in prayer and in training. That you might take these things and teach the northerners. As you go back to your church, as you go back to your faithful men, that you can teach them to others so that you can do this work effectively. But it means setting aside time. We've already mentioned that the Mormons expect that it's going to take 500 hours per convert. We can do a lot better than that, I'm sure, with the power of the Holy Spirit and with a much more potent message. And I trust that some of you know a little bit about the Mormons. A new book we will have available in about a month explains all about the Book of Mormon. Some of you might be interested in getting a hold of that. Let's remember as we go forth, it's going to take a definite time. And the second thing I have listed under that, setting aside a definite time, is that we must lay aside good things to do the best thing. You're never going to get anywhere with the Lord until you learn how to lay aside the good things. Get 101 good things to do every day. Some of you have heard me tell the story of the man who worked on a railroad bridge in New Jersey. And this is a true story. The train was coming and a boat was coming down the river. It was a railroad bridge over a river. And he lifted this huge bridge to let the boat go through. This is a true story. But as he just, the bridge was up, he realized there was a train coming. So he began to lower the bridge with one of these cranks type of mechanisms. Yet this same day he had brought his little boy with him to work. And as he began to lower the bridge his little boy fell in the river. Now he had a tremendous choice. He knew that the boat would be able to stop so that was no problem. He had the choice of lowering the bridge or saving his son who had fell into the river. Of course he chose the best thing. He chose to lower the bridge and save hundreds of passengers from plunging to their deaths. But he never saw his son again. It's true. It's very true life at many times. Very very good and important things must be laid aside in the light of the best. And if you're going to do any sort of door work you've got to lay aside very very good things. I always had something good to do each week. When I was in Mexico five days ago I had 101 good things I could do. But I esteemed going out from house to house as the best thing and so I went out. If I didn't esteem it as the best thing I'd never get out. And therefore soon I would dry up spiritually and throw away. Two. First thing prayer and plan. Two. Study and memorize. Because some people among the Christians today think that studying is unspiritual. Others overemphasize it. One of the keen young men at London Bible College not too long ago, a young man I knew very well, seemingly overemphasized as far as I'm concerned the intellectual end of things. He didn't want to go from house to house. He felt that he needed to study more and study more. He had to get a degree and he had to persevere at Bible College. And today he's a Mormon. Let us beware of intellectualism. This young man accepted Mormonism and shook that school. And it's a danger of today. Unless we're busy in God's work moving out in the spirit we can be trapped into all the cults which prey upon minds that are busy doing a lot of thinking and little reality in terms of Christian service and moving out for Jesus Christ. The greatest danger I've seen in America is intellectualism among evangelicals. We all think we're going to be bright. We all think we're going to gain up with a man in a secular university. And instead of getting anywhere we go backwards because we're four. We have a soul. We have a mind. We have a body. We have a spirit. And all of them need to be functioning and need to be moving. But we do really need to remember that study is important. It's a danger we go to extremes. One hand I need a man of God. I need a study. All I need is the power of the Holy Ghost. Another fellow he says no I can't go do any witnessing until I get my degree or until I finish school. From one extreme to the other we go bouncing back and forth. Certainly there's a happy medium of study mixed with evangelism and personal work. Study is important. We've just put out a supplement to our discipleship manual which some of you might be interested in. You can get this free of charge. If you purchase at any time or receive free a discipleship manual you can write to our office and get a free supplement of five more chapters including what I'm preaching the word and mentioning personal work. But in that supplement we list almost 50 books on the subject of how to win souls for Christ. Pretty soon there'll be more books on how to win souls than there'll be soul winners. But anyway these books are available and you need to take some of them and study. We are soon putting out a new manual on the subject of soul winning written by the sponsor of our group at Wheaton College, the director of missions. And he's written a tremendous book on soul winning and we'll be putting it out very shortly. But there are other books. This one already is in print in a hardbound edition. We're just going to put it into one of our more economical two or three shelving editions. Read study books on soul winning. Review these notes. Another idea. V, this is the main thing. Take your New Testament. Memorize key verses. Learn key chapters. Know where to find verses. You know you can have a friend on the other side of Glasgow that if you don't know his feet and you don't know his house number you're going to have a rough time finding him. You might know his name. You might know a lot about him. But if you don't know the feet and house number you're in for a rough time. So learn the references. Learn that Romans 3.23 is all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Learn where it is. Every verse has its house number and its street. We need to know where they are. The key to this thing of memorizing is review, review, and review. I feel that probably one of the greatest tools in soul winning is memorizing the word of God. Dale Rothschild in Turkey has been so mightily used of God. Has about one third of the New Testament in his memory. Oh that some of us would take memorizing seriously. Anyone with perseverance and a love for God's word can memorize chapters, can memorize verses. And I believe that this is a thing that not only gives us power in soul winning but cleanses our unconscious mind and makes us clean vessels ready for the Master's use. You know it's amazing in Ephesians it says be filled with the Spirit and then you shall speak in songs and hymns and spiritual songs making melody in your heart. You'll end up giving thanks always and you'll be subject to one another. It's all in one sentence. Most people just like the first part of being filled with the Spirit. That's the other three things that are all in the same sentence followed by a period. But you know in Colossians it hardly ever mentions the Holy Spirit. In Colossians it says let the word of Christ flow in you richly and you shall speak in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs making melody in your heart and to the Lord. Dale says in his little book Christian Strategy that it's as we allow the word of Christ to dwell in us, as we allow the God through memorizing, through meditating to dwell in us as we see in the book of Joshua that the Holy Spirit can begin to take control. We realize that as we go into the word of God. The next thing under this thing of studying and memorizing is learn from every experience in life. Life is a tool, a testing platform, a proving ground in how much we can learn here from every experience. Some of the most bitter experiences are the most precious lessons. From the most sad situations you can learn the most valuable teachings that you in turn can use to teach others. There's a definite verse on this, a lot of verses on it. I haven't got them listed. Learn from every experience of life. This afternoon as we go forward let's think of it as a learning experience. Not how much you can jam down the throat of the man behind the door but perhaps how much you might learn from him. Could be you know he's a lot better Christian than you are. Could be that he knows a lot more than you are. Could be, probably most likely you will. And so as you go forth be ready to learn. Be ready to listen. Listening is a very important thing in winning souls to Jesus Christ. Be ready to learn. The next thing I've written down is very important. Study and take an interest in people. Immediately upon dealing with a person about their soul I put them in some kind of a category. I'll be listing some of these categories later on like people who are indifferent, people who are agnostic, people who are hungry and seeking. And it's depending on the category that the person is in should bring about a very different type of witness. You deal with an indifferent man in a very different way than you deal with a man who's hungry for the gospel. You deal with an agnostic in a different way than you deal with a man who's caught up in a false cult. And so we need to know people. We need to be able to analyze them upon speaking with us. Know what their situation is. In other words we need to be interested in people. I pray to God that none of us will go forth this afternoon just because we've come on an OM training weekend or just because we're going forth to win someone's soul. It was said to a young student at Moody Bible Institute down on Skid Row which is similar to your Soho or London Soho. The poor drunkard said to him he said you know he said you know you're not interested in me all you want my soul. And it really shook this young student because it was true. He was out telling souls. He was out seeing if he could win someone to Christ. And really had no interest in people as they were. Human beings, personalities with needs, problems, struggles, difficulties, trials. You don't know what some of the people you're going to this afternoon have faced this very morning. Might we see people as people and might we take an interest in them. That means at times we're going to do some listening. Next thing is we need to study salesmanship and public speaking. Salesmanship is just another word for convincing others. We need to learn various methods to convince people of what's on our hearts. If you don't sell yourself to someone you won't sell your gospel. Maybe you don't like the word sell. Well use any synonym you like. But it's the truth. Until people have some confidence in you they're not going to be interested in what you have to say. Most people reject the gospel not on the basis of the gospel. They reject it on the basis of the person who presented it. Somebody came to the door one day who was ugly, who was impudent or was egotistical or had some other virtue of the devil and tried to put across the wonderful gospel message and they couldn't see the gospel because of our own lack of humility. I pray that we might go forth realizing that people need to be convinced about us. We are the vessels of the Holy Spirit. That's the word of God and if we're vessels of the Holy Spirit there needs to be some reality in it outwardly. Public speaking. About 75 percent of all the testimonies I've ever heard in my life have been utterly miserable. Utterly miserable. I don't like to be too blunt but I wish the person had never testified. One out of every five prayers I ever hear prayed I wish I never heard it prayed because we know so little about communicating in public. Now I love to hear a new convert ugly pray. Make miserable mistakes. Pray off theology. This doesn't bother me one bit. But when somebody's been in the church for 10 years and they're still praying so miserably and giving such miserable testimony something's wrong. Basically it's this. We're too proud to learn. We're too proud to get some criticism from others and to learn from criticism. I've learned more from my critics than I've ever learned from my friends. My friends don't tell me the truth. They say I can go seek behind my back. Some of them are I don't know why but they don't tell you the truth. They love you too much some of them. Others are just too busy who knows what. But your critics give you the truth. Sometimes they give you a little more than the truth but still you get the truth and you can learn from them. Nothing like a good class at homiletics. We used to have those in back at Moody. A class in public speaking not for all that you learn but for the miserable way that you feel when you finish your first sermon and everybody in the class hands him a little critique sheet blasts you right through the moon when you thought you were doing great. What I ask many of my friends to do when I speak is to just jot down a few things that they think are a bit goofy in what I say what I do especially when I speak in Spanish and make an error every two lines. And I was speaking in the biggest Methodist church in Mexico City last week. The most embarrassing thing to have to get up and speak in a grammar that is shocking especially since I haven't lived in a Spanish country in four years. So I asked our Mexican director if he'd take notes. Of course he couldn't keep up with the errors but at least at least he could jot down some of the grammatical mistakes. Now I can review those mistakes and perhaps next time I get up to speak I will say la problema instead of el problema. So be willing to learn a little bit about public speaking. There are some tremendous books on public speaking. We offer one to people who want it. A book by Dale Carnegie on the subject of public speaking. A secular book that has tremendous information and I believe that there's things there to learn. Above everything else practice it. Some people think oh Billy Graham he got the anointing. Oh the Lord's blessed. And look Billy Graham learned his preaching standing on a stump in Florida preaching to the trees. Sure the Lord anointed him but he also learned. He also got into books. He also got out in the slums and practiced. And Billy Graham was an abrupt salesman from house to house in his early life. And you can ask him and he'll tell you that was one of the ways that he learned to communicate to people. Be surprised how much you can learn through practice. The last thing under study and memorize is study the various approaches in your literature manual. We put out this little literature manual that contains definite approaches. Definite phrases you can memorize. You know the Jehovah Witnesses use this method. They memorize definite phrases to repeat to you at the door. When the JWs come to your door one of them doesn't say anything usually. The other one does all the talking. One's the learner and the other's the talker. They all are in the process of memorizing various things. Well they start off with memory and then as they mature then they can talk on anything. The same way I believe that we as we go forth get a few basic phrases. Memorize them from the literature manual. Memorize them from what I've given you today. Then as you go forth you'll be able to build on that. But at least you'll have always something you can say at the door. And have a few phrases and a few memory verses to build on. This is why young people have learned to speak the language through going on our crusades. Because they started off with 25 phrases. That was the foundation. They always had something to say at the door. They could always wheel off their 20 phrases or their 10 from someone who didn't get them all memorized. And then they could build on that. Young men like Maynard Tarnes today can speak Spanish and he can speak French. All basically on the fact that he learned it going from house to house. Of course when you can get a little grammar study in on the side it certainly does help. But there's nothing like practice and memorizing some phrases to start off. A young man who's been with our work for a number of years off and on who got his second master's degree in Madrid in language study is now getting his doctor's degree. And the United States government gave him a few thousand pounds scholarship money to experiment in language study. He is now taking over the study phase of operational organizations for the summer. He'll be at our conferences to handle all the language study which will be far more intensive this year. But he's done it all with these little magic machines, these little transistor tape recorders. But if you can get a tape, a language tape, we have them available and listen and listen and listen. When I was studying Russian I used to play it every morning, play it every night, play it as I walked down the street. And when I got to the Soviet Union I was able to at least communicate a few words and a few sentences from what I had memorized through tape recording and listening to these words over and over again. Study. Learn some phrases from the literature manual and from what we give you today. The next thing I have, number three, after study and memorization is choose your tool. I'm not going to take much time on this, only to say that we believe in using all kinds of tools. Some say only scriptures, some say only Bibles, some say only tracts, some say use only chants, some say use decisions. Well we use it all. All things to all men to win some. People are different. The literature that makes an impact with a university student might not necessarily make an impact with grandma over here in the other block who's sixty some years old, nor will it perhaps make an impact on a child of ten. So you need all kinds of literature to reach all kinds of people. There's thousands and millions of different personalities in this world today and one thing that's good for one person will not be good for another. So as we go forth we want to choose tracts, we want to choose booklets, we want to use some magazines, we want to use some larger books. And of course an important thing is to try to know your literature. Today when we give out the literature we're going to pass it out to you individually and as you receive it I'm going to talk about it. So you can have it in your hand and we can say a few words about it before you go out to do distribution. The fourth thing is dependency. After choosing a tool, dependency on the Holy Spirit. As I have written down Acts 4.31, good to read it in context however, I find a lot of people like Acts 4.31 don't do anything about the five verses that come after it that are literally earth shaking. We need to defend on the Holy Spirit to lead us to prepare our hearts, to give us boldness and to convict people of sin. All that we might especially go forth with boldness. Love casteth out fear and if we love fear is going to be cast out as we go forth to witness for Jesus Christ. If there's any work that God had to do in my heart as a witness was to give me boldness. Still when I go forth I'm in constant need of boldness to realize God is with me and if God is with me what more do I need. All right the next item I have listed after dependency on the Holy Spirit is the decision to persevere. That's about 90 percent of the balance. Remember good old Galatians 6.9. We need to make this decision that we're going to persevere. Let's not forget the 500 hours that the Mormons put in for convert. More than that let's not forget our Lord Jesus Christ who persevered all the way to the cross. We need to realize as we go forth in this work that we're learners. You know it takes eight years to become a doctor, eight or nine years to be a several years to be a nurse and yet some of us think three weeks we're going to be a small winner. One afternoon of visitation we're going to be an apostle. It's amazing we live in a dream world and some of us wonder why we don't get results. One young man has been out in the villages and his village team three or four visits wondering why they haven't seen a great amount of fruit yet. Almost had to laugh. We expect things to happen so quickly like the young man in one day and over at our office a young fellow from Holland he prayed for a thousand pounds just out of the blue boom prayed for a thousand pounds and he went out just rejoicing thought God was going to bring in a thousand pounds. Well a thousand pounds didn't come in but he was so expecting it he thought it did come in. He rationalized this and that and you heard this story here. Mixed six or stories together and he told me that a thousand pounds had come in. I said that's interesting. I didn't know it came in yet but he had thought it had come in and it had. It's easy to presume. We had a one girl one our crusades in Mexico she believed God in prayer. I bet she did for a thousand souls that week and well when she finished praying I felt like the ant crawling underneath the bottom of the lava. A thousand souls. I was having trouble believing God for three and I talked to her later I said you really believe God for a thousand souls. She said I don't know I prayed it and of course she didn't and so and so and so how much better it is to pray for one soul and have a realistic prayer and really believe God because it's so easy to presume and when we presume in prayer all we get is a lot of frustration. We need to know God's will. A good part of praying is knowing the will of God. It's worshiping and some people when they pray it's like turning on a machine gun. They pull the trigger and they let God have all 45 barrels and God doesn't get a chance to say anything. I always think of the word of the Lord. Be still and know that I am God. We're not heard for our much babbling. We're not heard for our many amens and hallelujahs. Be still and know that I am God. Let me speak. Let me lead. Let me guide. The Bible says in Romans we can't pray as we are. The Holy Spirit must give us the word. The Holy Spirit must lead us. I'm convinced that at least 50 percent of real prayer is worship and praise. We worship and praise the Lord. Our hearts become linked with his. Then he can really give the command and really tell us what we need to do. How important this is. A decision to persevere. Made in prayer. Not presumption but realistic. The next thing I have. The sixth thing just before the last item on the first lecture is personal appearance. Personal appearance. How important this is. We had a young fellow come to London very sorrowly several weeks ago. Miserably dressed. And when I said that people who weren't at least fairly properly dressed go forth very upset. He said what do you mean Jesus didn't say anything how we should dress. Hey you can dress any way you want. If you can convince me that Jesus Christ was a beatnik you've got a long way to go. Because that one robe that he had although it was only one robe was a valuable possession. It was a nice robe. And it's obvious from the teachings of Christ and from the life of Paul who said all things to all men. Who said if eating meat would offend my brother I'd never eat meat again. You know all my life I had what's known as a crew cut. You know that's one of those things they take an anti-aircraft gun and shoot all the hair off your head. And just like a brush. And I always found that I hated to comb hair. I despised combs and hated hair tonic. And so I always had a crew cut. You know how it's in Spain. The only people in all of Spain with a crew cut were the idiotic American Air Force men. And I didn't exactly want to be identified with the United States Air Force in trying to witness for Christ. They didn't have very much of a reputation in Madrid. And so I lost my precious crew cut. And I'm convinced that we need to be willing to adapt ourselves even in dress to reach people for Jesus Christ. It's especially true when we go into foreign countries. It doesn't mean you have to wear things they call them kilts this afternoon. Those that came up from Britain. But it does mean that we go forth neat and clean. One girl came to me one time about the some of the young men on her team. She said I can't stand to go forth anymore and let some of these fellas clean. Wash their necks. Simple thing is it. But my the back of some fellow's necks can really get pretty shattering. And don't get it all inferiority complex all day. But it is important to wash up. It's a simple thing. You know I got here this morning slept all night on a train. But you know even the railroad stations have places that you can wash up in. And this morning before I came here I was able to wash up and comb my hair and brush my teeth and freshen up. Even though I had no place to go in the city. You know they charged me an outrageous price. Almost four pennies. But it's worth it. Clean. Be clean. Conservative. Hair. Shoes. Ties. Hands. Etc. Last item on this little part of the lecture is motivation. Our driving force needs to be needs to be love. We go forth because of God's love constraining us. The Holy Spirit is above everything else and primarily a spirit of love. The fruit of the spirit is love. More than that God is love. You cannot separate him. The word of God clearly says if you cannot love him whom you have seen you cannot love him whom you have not seen. And I'm convinced as we go forth it must be love that drives us. Don't get frustrated and nervous and bothered if you don't feel that all the time it's pure love that motivates you. William McDonald the author of True Discipleship was telling someone not too long ago that he's given up just constantly seeking his motives because he found it's impossible to always work out of a pure motive. You'll become the most introspective nervous person in all the world. But as God gives you the grace and as you consciously realize it allow yourself to be motivated by his love. When you feel like you're doing something that's not motivated by love simply stop and say Lord although I don't feel like I love I believe that it is your love that is sending me forth. Now the next lecture too as we listen is at the door. What to do at the door. The first thing I have listed in big bold print is a repetition of what's been said before. Take an interest in people and make friends. This is very important. Take an interest in people. Here are three ways to take an interest in people. A is ask questions. This is a key thing. Ask questions. Ask them how long they've lived there. Ask them if they have any children. If you're in a foreign country ask them if they speak English. Don't do that here in Glasgow it might be an insult. Ask them if they find much time to read the Bible. Ask them if they ever take time to read Christian books. Or refer to something about the climate. Ask them about the climate. That's always an easy one to begin off with. So this usually isn't the first thing you present at the door. The first thing you would usually do is introduce yourself and we'll be presenting that a little later on how to present yourself. These are ways that you can promote interest in people. When people can answer a question for you there's already a unity built up. And you'd be surprised how important this can be. This question message. B, pay a sincere compliment. Now be sincere. But if you can possibly say something about their garden. If you can say something about their children. If you can say something about their home. If you can say something about some church in the neighborhood. Or something about the neighborhood in general. Some compliments. Right away you're going to move in. And you're going to capture the mind and the heart of the person. Maybe you'll smell something very nice coming from the kitchen. And you can pay a compliment. Perhaps this is an older woman and you're able to ask her a question about her children. She said oh my children are all grown up. And maybe you can pay a compliment about well that must have worked for many years and had a hard job or something along that line. Rearing your children. But try to pay some kind of a compliment if you can. C, this is the easiest one. Be a good listener. A lot of people as soon as you knock on the door boom. Off they go and they're going to tell you about their grandson. They're going to tell you about their husband or something. And of course this is an opportunity to win their confidence. Learn from them. Don't do all the talking. Show interest in what they say. As they talk to you don't be looking off here and giggling with your books or something. Listen to the person. And it's very important to show that you're interested in them. All right that's the first thing. Taking interest in people. The second thing is break down prejudices. Now we can say a lot about all of these things. There isn't time. But this is one of the most important things in personal evangelism. Now many times these things I'm talking about here will take place after you present books. Sometimes however it'll be before. Depends on how open the person is and what approach you want to use. But in any case you must break down prejudices. People don't go against your gospel because necessarily it's the gospel. But because many times they have prejudices. Tell them who you are. I would say you would have circled it because I find this the most important thing when I go out house to house or wherever I go. It's to tell them who I am. I usually say I'm with a group of students international students and that we're going from house to house trying to get people to read good literature. We've finally produced our good literature card and if you want one your good literature crusade membership card you can write into our office and give us your name and we'll send you a good literature crusade membership card which does amazing things especially in some foreign countries the police wonder what you're doing and you show them this little membership card which we signed and rubber stamp and gets you all kinds of open doors. So if you want one of those cards you can write it. We'll be glad to send one to you to help you in your work. Tell who you are. If you have one of those cards you can show it to them at that time. Right away you'd be amazed how much doubt that'll knock out of their mind. I tell them right away who we are. As soon as I tell them who we are I mention to them I want you to know from the beginning that I say something like I'm not here to proselytize I'm not a Jehovah Witness or a Mormon or some little sect. Right away you liquidate tremendous questions in their mind. The JWs and Mormons are so much on the move today that you almost have to say in your presentation that you're not a Jehovah Witness or a Mormon or that you're not from some sect and not trying to proselytize. That's another thing that I emphasize here. Emphasize that you're not trying to proselytize and use non-proselytizing terminology and non-proselytizing approaches. Now there's certain terminology that is good but it's no good any longer because it's overused. Such terms as are you saved is a great term 50 to 100 years ago but I'd say today it's pretty well washed out. Some people still use it but I find it almost gets a laugh from an awful lot of people. How much easier it is to say I wonder if you've really found reality in Jesus Christ. I wonder if you've found Jesus Christ as the answer to your emotional and psychological needs. I wonder if you've found that Jesus Christ is a real and living person. I wonder if you've been delivered from worry fear and temptation rather than the old line have you been saved because oh so many people have heard this so many times and a good percentage of the people that you visit have already quote unquote been saved way back when they've been saved. I would say somewhere around at least 25 percent of all the people in British Isles have made some kind of a decision for Christ. Maybe when they were a little boy Sunday school but we're dealing with an evangelized population. Oh it's true you'll meet especially in some of these back areas people who know nothing in the gospel. That's very true. You'll also meet an awful lot who are soured on our terminology. Break down prejudices. Use non-sophisticating approaches. Instead of coming say I've got some good gospel literature say I've got some good literature and then as you the way opens then you can explain it as Christian literature. Generally the word Christian is more acceptable today than the word gospel. You say oh that's compromised. No it's not compromised it's communicated. We need to communicate to the people and if we study the life of Christ we'll see that's the way he evangelized. Jesus did have one little set pattern. Saw Zacchaeus in the tree he said ABC. Saw Mary said ABC. The woman at the well said ABC. You know he used different terminology with each of these people communicating to their hearts and to their personalities. Use quotations from famous men. Some of you have Ailey's handbook. I would take the front of that book and get some of those quotations by famous men. The fact that Alfred Tennyson said Bible reading is an education in itself and many other quotations are amazing things that can be used to break down prejudices. Many times when I go forth I use that book. We don't have any copies now. We have thousands of them coming on the boat. Sermons by great preachers. If I hit a Methodist I talk about Wesley. If I hit a Baptist I talk about Spurgeon. If I hit a Jehovah Witness I talk about Jesus. But anyway you can talk about famous men that these people are conscious of. Breaking down prejudices one of the key things is a smile. If you can get a something that'll make a person smile you've got it. It's nothing like getting someone to laugh and loosen up their frozenness to break down some of the ice. If you can possibly smile, if you can just get that much dedication up and possibly believe God and be so filled with the Spirit and have such a tremendous experience with God that you might crack a smile would be tremendous. Next thing I have listed is start on common ground. You don't go to a Roman Catholic and begin to argue about the Virgin Mary or talk about purgatory or go to a Methodist and begin to slam the deadness that you think might be in certain Methodist churches or go to someone in the Church of Scotland and tell them that they're engaged in formalism. But you start on common ground. Start on common ground. Such things as the fact that there needs to be more love one toward another. We were preaching last Saturday in Central Park, Mexico City. No one ever preaches there. Police don't seem to appreciate it. But we had a very good meeting and no one stopped us for about two hours. One of the other fellows was preaching and hardly anyone was listening. You thought he was giving him what he felt was the good old straight gospel A, B, C, D. And no one could much understand him. He was going from one verse to the other, flipping his Bible, giving him verse after verse. And people just were inconsistent. And I don't think they could follow what he was saying. And then the next person who got up began to speak about love. Began to talk about something that everyone had in common. The need to love one another. The need to overcome the racial problem. The need to overcome the poverty problem. These are things that people are thinking about. And pretty soon there were 100 people listening. And then pretty soon he was telling about how to have that love. To bring forth again through Jesus Christ. How we can liquidate our social and racial problems through an experience of the loving Lord Jesus Christ who changes lives and breaks down barriers, including the racial barriers. And there were 100 people I held there in the middle of that park listening. Two weeks before that we had the same situation in Hyde Park. We spoke on the subject of love and that one person practically in the audience would disagree that love wasn't the answer. Then when we happened to agree that love was the answer, then we brought in the more controversial part that it came through Jesus Christ. Start on common ground and then move toward perhaps what isn't so common. Talk about good literature. The need for good literature. Everybody agreed. And then move from good literature into Christian literature, you think. Instead of starting right off you need to read gospel literature and be born again, etc., etc. Something along the line of hasn't God blessed this country? Hasn't God blessed Scotland? Start off something that everyone can agree with. Some of course won't agree with that, but I think most people will. The one thing you think is very important is that we respect everyone's religion. Some people will throw at you right away in this evangelism work, oh well, everybody's going to heaven. All the roads go to heaven. Well, I mean, get ready to club them down with their unorthodox statements. But say, well, you know, I sort of agree with that. I feel that one of the most important things is that we respect one another's religion. You see, you're not compromising with the truth. You're giving them the truth. We should respect religion. One of the biggest problems with Christians in years gone by is we haven't respected other people's religion. We've cursed Jews. We've condemned Catholics and thrown Hindus in the Ganges. Instead of respecting, realizing that these people are impolite, realizing these people need to be loved out of their religion. And this is an important thing. We need to respect one another's religion. Never be rude. If someone is really offensive and you're going to find those people. Last time I was here in Glasgow giving that talk, the people going to the football game and selling magazines in the streets, some of those people are really quite offensive. And it was really a rather interesting crowd. Almost 95% of them had the sunburned fingertips. I mean, nicotine-burned fingertips. And some of them were very rude and just threw the literature down, etc. Don't let this get you all irritated. Just as they do, say, Lord, slap them. Slap them, Lord. You know, that's the real test. When you go to somebody's door and they slam it in your face and you can say, you know, Lord, just slap them. I have a friend who lives over in London, has a Jehovah Witness living across the street who's a bit off. And this Jehovah Witness sends him cursing letters called in the front of the pit. And every possible assorted name you can think of. I've seen some of those letters. You know, whenever you get attacked like that, you just need to ask the Lord to bless them. Bless those that hate you. Pray for those that despitefully use you to divert from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ. When people are rude, smile, even apologize. I think we should apologize if we bother someone at the door. Somebody's very busy and they come to the door and say, oh, well, I'm busy, etc. And they go inside and say, you know, I'm very sorry. I really didn't mean to bother you. I just felt that you really would be interested. Of course, if you're not, I'm very sorry and I'll go right away. You'd be surprised. I've had people, after I've apologized, break down and ask me to come back and go right into hell. And it's amazing what you can do through humbling yourself and apologizing to people for something you might have done wrong. Even if you say something offensive in your speech, be willing to apologize. Be willing to even say something like, oh, you know, this work is really new to me. I'm with a group of young people. We're just learning how to do this kind of work. So if I said something that really was wrong or offensive, you just, please excuse me or pardon me and I hope that I can learn from these experiences. It's amazing the opportunities you'll have along that line. Three, start conversation to gain entrance. One was taking interest in people. Two was break down prejudice. Now the big woman who will pray, I ask, start conversation to gain entrance. Very important to get a conversation going. Some people go to this work almost ridiculously. As soon as they get to the door, they push some books and the people say, I said, would you like to buy some Christian books? This is insanity. You know, they're not interested in buying Christian books, but if you can get a conversation going, if your heart can be linked with theirs, so buy a book every time. Many times I don't even take the books out until after a little while of talking to the person. So I would suggest aiming at getting a conversation going. Of course, some of you say, well, I'm not a very good conversationalist. Well, I see you. I would say, well, then learn those phrases. Learn some of the things we give this morning and you'll find that as you begin little by little, you'll develop the ability to talk. Some people think I'm a natural talker and I'll tell you the first time I get up to speak in public, I almost fell off the platform and I cried like a baby. Public speakers are not made, not born, they're made. Some of the most miserable, nervous men have become some of the greatest public speakers in the world. It's practice, perseverance and believing God that's going to enable you to speak and especially I'm convinced that this thing of practice, the reason that I believe, one of the reasons that I can go so easily from house to house at times, even though it's always in battle, because even at the age of eight, I began selling door to door. First with a Cub Scout, first thing I ever sold house to house, as far as I can remember, was pansies and I sold more pansies than all the Cub Scouts and the whole little group. Then I went to the Boy Scouts and we sold Easter chocolates and of course that was a rather good thing to sell. I enjoyed the whole thing. I started to finish especially the samples and then I was selling something else and so you can develop this ability to convert if you want to. Don't go into this funk about being shy or you haven't got the gift of speech. You can get the most shy woman in all the world that hasn't got the gift of speech, get her on her favorite subject, she'll talk your ear off. When we get to the point where Jesus Christ is our favorite subject, we're going to be able to talk about it. I don't believe in this line, you haven't got the gift of speech. That's the line Moses gave and you know what the Lord did in the case of Moses. We've mentioned the question method. The question method is a good way to get a conversation going. We mentioned paying a compliment. Another method is the object method. Refer to some object. Now a lot of fellows use our books as a basis of conversation, referring to the book. Others refer to the Bible or some particular Bible verse. You know you can find a Bible verse to match almost any circumstance. I think in particular of a situation when I think it was someone was getting a haircut or he was in a barber shop and he refers to the fact of I asked the man if he had ever heard of the person who got a haircut and six pounds of hair was cut off him. The barber of course was quite surprised and then of course he referred in the Bible to when Absalom had his hair cut and it came to six pounds. So I don't know that seems a bit of a strange to try to get a witness beginning but it's amazing the Bible verses you can find to match any particular situation. Of course you need to know the Bible and that's a very very important thing. Object method referring to something in the Bible. Mention something in the garden or in the sky or in the house and begin a topic of conversation. For instance the milk bottles on the porch and now I could give them their milk ask them if they ever read the verse in the Bible that talks about milk. Well they're going to say of course they haven't and then you can show them the verse about newborn babes desiring eating the sincere milk of the word. From there you can present something about being born again. There's many things I haven't got time to even go into them now. There's the vocation method. Get talking about the person's vocation. A big thing with men is their vocation. I always ask him what he does. From there I can usually work on by asking more questions. Taking a real interest. I'm very interested in learning about what people do because it always helps me later on in talking to that same kind of a person. And if you know something about a man's vocation you can really carry on a greater conversation with him or with the same kind of person or same career later on. Another method is the miracles method. Referring to something in nature or something about your body. The whole list of amazing facts you can get about nature and about your body. That really is an amazing way to present people with the gospel outside. E the survey method. Survey our census method. Now this is something you might want to do this afternoon. You might want to become an official part of our survey program to find out how many people read the bible. You might ask them if they've ever read the bible. You might ask them if they have a bible. You might ask them if they read the bible daily. You might ask them if they read christian literature. Then you can lead from that into the fact that you're on a christian literature survey and a christian literature crusade to supply people with christian literature. I use very effectively Billy Graham's survey method. You can use this in Glasgow and you'll find interesting conversations because some people are either against Billy Graham. And so you'll always get some kind of a conversation going but tell them you're taking a survey for Billy Graham. I'm sure he won't mind. Ask him if they attended the Billy Graham meeting when they were here some years ago. You remember it better than I would. Ask him if they would attend if he came back again. And then the third thing ask him if they've ever had his book. And then of course you can present his book. You can tell him that Billy Graham might be coming back. He might be in 76 or 86. Someone who was here might get back to Glasgow. But you can tell him that he's coming to London in 66 and you'll find an amazing opening. One of the reasons we use Billy Graham books is because we connect the message with a personality. That means that when people read those books if Billy does come back the possibility of them going to the meetings is a hundred percent better. You know yourself when you read a man's book you feel a contact with it and there's a unity with it. And so if he comes to lecture to speak you want to go hear it. That's a natural, just a natural thing. This is why we like to distribute books by people who eventually will come along and do the follow-up and help do the follow-up work. We also have Decision Magazine which helps along that line. So you can use this survey approach. You can develop your own survey. Now a group of grammar school young people in the United States and Wheaton developed a survey approach and they saw hundreds of pounds worth of books. Just going around asking you survey questions, some of them carrying little cards, and jotted down a few things. And there's another group that's really going strong in the states now called the Sloan Bible Polls and reaching both Jews and Gentiles. They go around taking the Bible polls. How many people have read the Bible etc. and they're getting amazing open doors. Now just the last comments on this section. Do's and do nots. Do not 1. Argue or slam the religion. 2. Lose your temper. 3. Act superior. 4. Pretend to know what you do not know. That's very important for us because as I look out on this audience I'm not convinced that we're probably the most intellectual group in Glasgow and so I suggest we don't pretend to know more than we do. You meet a student. You meet somebody who knows all the answers. You say look I don't claim to know all the answers. I'm this young. I'm learning. You say that's why I'm doing this way. I'm learning. I find that contact with people is one of the best ways to learn and it's true. No better way to learn a little bit about sociology, psychology, and labor problems than to go from house to house and to talk with people. You can learn amazing things. So pretend you know. Tell them that you know someone who does know the answers. You can always ask him to write to the address on some of this literature. You can tell them that we can send a book that will answer any question we believe they can ask and we'll be glad to continue the service of sending books out to any unconverted person answering any question that they might have whether it's about God or whether it's about science and its relation to the Bible or anything along that line whether it's Mormonism or Jehovah Witnessism and I had a Jehovah Witness or a Mormon. I said to him look I'm sure that if I could talk with you long enough I could really show some of these things that I feel that you're just a little bit confused upon but you know it can't just take all day and I wonder if you'd read a book that I send to you. I wonder if you'd read a book that I send to you and if they say yes of course send a nice little book like 30 Years a Box Tile Slave or something else that we can supply. Don't pretend to know more than you do know and the last thing don't push for decisions just for the sake of getting a decision. Things to do. Give your testimony. This is a simple thing but it can make a tremendous impact just a simple practical word about what the Lord Jesus Christ means to you and this can really make a mighty impact for Christ. Make it relevant, practical, realistic and can you underline this one short. Two, avoid theological terms under this thing of giving your testimony. Avoid theological terms. You know there's an awful lot of people that just aren't quite sure what rapture is and not quite sure what sanctification is and regeneration and being washed in the blood and all of these other terms. Try to aim and communicating to people using a secular terminology. Be speak clearly. One of my dear Mexican brothers every time he got up to pray last week no one could understand him. He was trying to pray in a sort of law class school and no one could understand. Talk clearly. Be friendly. How important that is. I find a key thing that really breaks down barriers with some men is as soon as I talk to them I say you know my name is George and I shake their hand. You know that's a panic for some people in England. In Britain this country is so frozen that some people don't shake hands from week in and week out I don't think. And down in Mexico and Spain and these countries no they don't shake hands they give you a good embarazo and down in Italy they give you a good kiss. And so we still just need to warm up a little bit especially when we go out to foreign countries. Be friendly. Let me show you. Be enthusiastic. Be enthusiastic. Now if you forget everything else you miss everything else and you go forth excited you're going to do great things. Henry Katsanowski is with us again this week. He's only been converted a few months. Last time he went out in Glasgow I think he sold more books than anybody else. I don't think he knows more than anybody else but he's excited about it. Something's happened to him. And I tell you when you find someone who's excited about something it gets you interested. Curiosity strokes up and you want to find out what the score is. What's happened to this bird? Why is he flying so high and singing so loud? And so enthusiasm is tapping. It's contagious and how we lack it. Oh my what I love to see these days is people that are enthusiastic in the spirit not in the flesh. Ease. Diagnose the person. Is he a seeker? Is he self-righteous? Is he indifferent? Is he caught up in a cult? Is he an agnostic? Does he have intellectual problems? There's a difference between a sort of a militant agnostic and someone who has intellectual problems. After our meeting in the park in Mexico City last week the young fellow came upon the invitation to our bookshop. In the back room we had a little some food and conversation. He was a militant atheist. He's only 16 years old but he thought he knew every answer in the book. The reason he wasn't an atheist was because he was reared among the Jesuits in a monastery and he hates the whole kitten caboodle as we say and thinks that we're all part of the same thing. Well this fellow has, having got intellectual problems, he is an agnostic because of prejudice and there's a difference in dealing with it. Dealing with those kind of people. In other lectures we, which you don't have time for this morning, we present how to deal with each of these kinds of people. The last thing, this is the thing you get to many times after you present the book, after you win the person as a friend and you really see that they're hungry, you begin to present the plan of solving.