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The Million Dollar Question

Recently, Pastor Tim Frisch, of Calvary Baptist Church in Claremont, and I took to the streets to share about the Good News of Jesus Christ. We were armed with million dollar bills and a simple survey question, “in your opinion, who is Jesus Christ?” Our approach was simple. We would wave a million dollar bill in front of people and ask, “Would you take part in our survey for a million dollars? We want to ask one question.” If they said yes, which the vast majority did, we would then proceed to ask them “who is Jesus Christ.”

A surprising number of answers were Biblical. A few people said that Jesus is God. One person said that He died on the cross as Lord and Savior, and He is someone we should listen to. A few others simply called Him Savior. There were many that had a nebulous view and said things such as, “Jesus is cool because he helped people,” and “Jesus is a good person,” “He spread a message of peace” and that Jesus is “someone to look to for help.” And then, there were some that admitted that they have, “doubts on believing about Jesus” and question whether Jesus existed in the first place. One person went as far to say “There is a Jesus in everyone. He gives people a positive idea or goal to have.”

Here are a few observations that we were able to make during our time talking with people.

1. The million dollar bill tract is an excellent way to get a Gospel tract into the hands of people (and they only cost 30 cents each). It is something they wanted to have and I suspect it will be something they will want to keep or even show their friends. Try it yourself.
2. People loved to share their opinion. It was amazing how eager people were to share their thoughts about the person of Jesus. Asking about Jesus was a great opening line. It definitely helped us to understand immediately the background of the person. I highly recommend this technique.
3. Not once in our time of witnessing did we feel like an unwelcome intrusion. The vast majority of people were very receptive. If you have a fear to share the Gospel because you think people don’t want to talk about Jesus, based on experience, that fear is unfounded. Try for yourself; don’t take our word for it.
4. Having just the million dollar tract was not enough (you might think having a million bucks is enough, but it is not. Such are the economic times of today). We also carried other tracts. One was “Do you consider yourself to be a good person” and the other was “Why Christianity.” These were used in situations when we were able to dig deeper than just theinitial survey question. We used these only if the situation deemed feasible. In other words, we didn’t hand these out to everyone but we led the conversation in directions where these tracts were helpful.
5. Prayer was very helpful and necessary. Before going, we prayed that God would help bring people to us and to prepare our hearts and the hearts of the people that we would be sharing with. We prayed for wisdom and that we would have a love and compassion for the lost. We prayed when we were finished as well. We thanked God for the wonderful opportunities we were given to share Christ and we prayed for the people we talked with, some by name, others by description, asking God to have mercy on their souls and to allow more opportunity for the Gospel to be spoken in their lives.

Evangelism is easier than you think. You need not have a special gift. (as this article will attest http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2011/02/01/what-if-im-not-a-gifted-evangelist/). You do, however, need to be willing. Every second and fourth Thursday we venture onto the street to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with anyone that is willing to listen. Please join us.

blessings,

Allen