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Our program at Coral Ridge grew out of the experiences I had in starting this church, which was a home-mission project and is now nine years old. I came here directly from seminary. Although I preached evangelistically, had taken all of the courses on evangelism offered at the seminary, and had read books on the subject. I found that the sophisticated people of Fort Lauderdale did not respond to my message from the pulpit. And when it came to confronting individuals face to face with the gospel, I was sadly lacking in both confidence and know-how. After eight or ten months of preaching, the congregation had dwindled from forty-five to seventeen people, and I was a most discouraged young minister.

Around this time I was invited to Decatur, Georgia, to preach during ten days of evangelistic services. I accepted, happy to get away for a while from my Fort Lauderdale fiasco. When I arrived the pastor told me I would preach each night, but more importantly, he said, we would visit homes each day—morning, noon, and night—to present the Gospel to people individually.

I was petrified. I knew I had absolutely no ability to do this. However, the next morning we went out. After about half an hour of my stumbling attempts at evangelism, the pastor took over the conversation and in about fifteen or twenty minutes led the man to Christ. I was astonished but did not realize the impact this was to have on my life. For ten days I watched this pastor lead one person after another to Christ, for a total of fifty-four. I went back to Fort Lauderdale a new man and began to do just what I had seen done. People responded. Soon dozens, scores, and then hundreds accepted Christ. I had received on-the-job training, and it had paid off.

I then realized that there was a limit to the number of people I myself could talk to, and that what I ought to do was to train others to do the same thing. What I did is the same thing probably thousands of other ministers have done: I organized a class on witnessing. I gave the class members six lessons and sent them out. They all went home terrified! I waited a few months and tried again. This time I gave twelve lessons. Again no success. A few more months and another series, more elaborate. Fifteen weeks—again no results. I do not know of one adult who was brought to Christ as a result of these witnessing classes.

Finally the truth struck me like a bolt of lightning. I myself had attended classes for three years and had not learned how to witness. Not until someone who knew how took me out into people's homes did I gain the confidence to do it myself. And so I began the program that has continued at Coral Ridge for the past six years. I took out one person until he had confidence to witness, and then another, and another. And so it has grown. After the people are trained, they can train others.

In envisioning an evangelism program, a pastor typically begins by preaching on the subject and then inviting everyone who is willing to take part to come on some specified night to begin. This is the way we tried at first to motivate and recruit people. It was not very successful. The basic motivation will no doubt begin from the pulpit with sermons on the responsibility, privilege, and necessity of witnessing for Christ. However, our experience showed us that the actual recruiting should be done on a person-to-person basis.

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September (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51