First Day of Outreach

For sure God is awesome! Aside from the fact that I would have to go door to door as part of our outreach efforts, a big fear was that I wouldn't get any bible studies...

Wednesday morning's class started off with Evangelism Principles, or the do's and don'ts of evangelism.  One thing Jeffrey made clear as we started, and with which I whole-heartedly agree, is this: Evangelism is not an event; it is a lifestyle...therefore, it is a process.  How true is this, but then how often do we get it wrong?  Something to chew on.

Here are the do's and don'ts:

The Do's

Be Patient

Be a Good Listener

Transition Conversations to Spiritual Topics

Look for the Issue Behind the Issue

Find Your Way to the Heart

Be Genuinely Interested

The Don'ts

Avoid Untimely Advertisement

Don't Jump Ahead

Avoid Premature Points of Conflict - Build On Common Ground

Avoid Unnecessary Arguments

Recognize the Fool

Don't Deny Christ While 'Defending' Him

Jeffrey left us with a lot of encouraging texts and quotes which I don't have in front of me as I write so I'll have to add them later...if time allows.  On to the actual event!

We were all curious about who are partner would be and for one reason or another they only revealed the list Wednesday morning.  Once it came out there was a new level of excitement in the air; some of the anxiety disappated.  My partner: Andrew from Redding, CA.  And in our car group are Olga and Matt.  After a class on going door-to-door and receiving our material, we broke for lunch.  

Lunch was a fabulously delicious take on fish tacos.  Seriously, Bev comes up with some tasty food.  She fried up some battered tofu cubes for the fish, made a vegan creamy lime sauce, pica de gallo, and fresh pinapple salsa (my favorite, so good you could just eat the salsa, which I did for dinner).  Unfortunately I do not have a photo of the pallate pleaser so hopefully we'll have it again before we leave.

Our outreach material consists of a binder with a map of our area, the spiritual survey questions, a house tracking sheet (so we know where we've been), a calendar and another couple forms.  We also picked up some GLOW tracks and Digma video DVDs.  After a brief overview of the population of Eugene and religious affiliation breakdown (almost 75% are non-religious/atheist), we prayed and off we were.  At some point Jeffrey told us a couple stories from past groups, successes and non-failures.  I use non-failures to describe the groups that didn't get any bible studies.  Jeffrey reassured us that not getting a bible study is not failing because you still did the work, which was meeting folks, doing the surveys, and ultimately learning which areas are not interested.  This was encouraging for me but I still didn't want to be that group.

In the car our small group prayed and when we got to our destination we prayed again.  You can never have too much prayer.  I want to thank my friends who prayed for us, too.  God definitely answered so huge thank you!!  Here's our eager faces before parting ways...

Andrew, Matthias, Olga, me!

Andrew and I are in a Eugene neighborhood called Friendly, and the folks were indeed friendly.  A few declined to take the survey but majority who answered the door were kind enough to give us a few minutes of their time.  Definitely a lot of atheists but also a fair mix of people who have a religious belief system or a knowledge of God.

Oh, look at the time.  Breakfast is ready!  Details to come...