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Let me clear something up. I stated in an article that church leadership must get behind any attempt at door-to-door witnessing. This did not mean that the pastor or leadership should, necessarily, be out there doing the work. Pastors have their hands full enough as it is without doing our job, too. Leadership must, though, be supportive in every way support is needed. That being said, on with "Now What?".
That article received some responses. One response was to question what needs to be done after witnessing. This is a very important question which I'll try to address.
To increase the probability of success, follow-up is required. The type of follow-up depends mostly upon how they responded to your witness. Let's look at three responses and the follow-up to each.
They didn't respond at all to my witness!
Well, if they show no interest, what can you do? Move on! It makes no sense to tug at green fruit. You can, though, begin praying for them or turn them over to an intercessor. Even if you don't know their name, God does. Although they didn't respond, they have, at least, thought about God for a few seconds. That's better than not at all. They may, also, be unwilling to let you know that you got to them a little by hiding their response. If your church is fortunate enough to have several witnessing teams, I'd send a different team to their door 3 to 6 months later. The seed you may have planted could use a little watering. Having multiple witnessing teams brings home John 4:37-38, "And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labors." Unfortunately, due to the lack of enough interest in witnessing to establish a number of teams, you could find yourself sowing, watering, cultivating, and reaping. A very long journey and a lot of work. Ask your church if they would be willing to help. If they can't, just do what you can do.
They showed a little positive response. Great! Now you need to try and determine just how interested they are in pursuing it. Using your own intuition and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, feel them out. Maybe they have questions about your church, the Bible, Christianity, or other things. Would they like for the pastor or deacon to come to their home for an appointed visit? Would they like to begin a Bible study in their home? Would they be willing to read a book, listen to a tape, or watch a video that might help them along? Do they have a Bible? Are they interested enough to actually begin attending a church? If not, don't push it. Let the Holy Spirit do His work. Now, hopefully, your church has gotten serious enough about witnessing that they have established a number of different follow-up procedures and can back you up. If not, guess what? You'll have to do your own follow-up. Let's assume, though, that your church is into this. The pastor or deacon has already agreed to visit anyone that asks for a visit from them. You could accompany the pastor if you think it would be better. The pastor has recorded an audio tape explaining the beliefs of your church and anything else deemed important. You could have these tapes with you as you go about witnessing. Your church has been working hard on building Bible study teams while you were witnessing. These teams are equipped, ready, and willing to embark on a 4, 6, or 8 week home Bible study program. Your church could even go further. Let's say the person to whom you witnessed has some serious behavioral problems that they need help with. Let's say that they are struggling with homosexuality, pornography, alcohol, or the like. Your church could begin, now, putting together individuals that have a real heart for people trapped in specific behaviors. They could then be trained by professionals to work with these people. They could be "on call" and ready to move when required. If your church is capable of offering ministries such as this, the lost would greatly benefit and we would see terrific results from such labor. Am I dreaming? Probably. However, we are discussing types of follow-up. I'm just throwing some things out there and, yes, maybe dreaming. If you have such options, you can offer them to the person who has shown some interest but is not yet ready to make the leap or attend a church service. If you don't have these options, there are ministries to which you can turn for help or you can deal with it the best you can, yourself. The bottom line? You need to act on their positive response. You can, if you have the time, begin phoning them once a week for more dialogue or to monitor progress. You can also make return visits one or two weeks later. If you do this, you should put a time limit on a phone call or a meeting. If you don't, you could be tied up for hours. Take care of yourself and don't neglect your family. Don't overtax yourself. Part of the responsibility of witnessing is the readiness to take the person by the hand and help them along if they respond to your witness. If you offer help, you should back it up but protect yourself from burn-out!
They showed some very positive response. Great! Great! Great! Again, feel them out. If they seem ready, let them know that they can give their lives to the Lord right now. They do not have to wait until church service next Sunday morning. If they show that they are ready to make a decision but something is holding them back, ask them what it is. They'll probably tell you. Then you can discuss that with them. The Devil will begin lying to them and telling them they're not worthy of salvation or their friends will think they've lost it. Expose these things as lies and help them take the step of faith. Give a brief explanation of what it means to make that step. Make it clear that they are committing their lives and ways to the Lord. They're committing to following Him and being His disciple. Explain that, when they pray, they may feel nothing at all but God is listening. They are praying to Him and not just saying words. They must believe that what they ask, God will do. Give them 2 or 3 verses of scripture before they pray to build their faith. Explain that they can pray on their own or you can help them pray. Ask them if they are ready to take that step. If so, take it with them. Congratulations! You need, now, to read them a few verses that reassure them that their prayer was heard and answered (1John 1:9, 5:13, John 5:24). Remind them that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Now they need to get into a good church. If they don't want to attend your church, help them choose one. With their approval, you can even call the pastor from the church of their choice to pass their name along. They'll probably attend your church but, if not, don't just write them off as a waste of your time. (Continued on page 4)
Now, they may get up to that point of commitment and, still, back out. Don't lose heart. Let them know that they can pray after you leave. Phone them a couple days later to find out if they did, in fact, make the commitment without you. Either way, encourage them to be in church with you on Sunday. Pick them up if they need you to do so. It's a scary thing to walk alone, cold turkey, into a strange church full of strange (laugh) people. Once they commit, they should be discipled.
Again, if your church is serious enough to build discipleship programs and teams, you and the new convert are off and running. If not, you may have to do the work, yourself. Whether they pray immediately or not, do not leave them high and dry for months on end. The better the response, the more intense and frequent the follow-up. Left alone, they are like sheep among wolves. They need help to continue their journey in the Lord.
These are just a few possible responses and follow-up ideas. You and your church may have many more ideas. I just wanted to get you thinking about it. Follow-up is absolutely essential to witnessing success. As you read this, you may have been a little overwhelmed by the seeming enormity of the follow-up work. Don't let that stop you from witnessing. The ideas presented by this article are meant to be under ideal conditions. Conditions are, often, much less than ideal. If you have little help, do not try to do more than you can do. Do only what you are able or have the time to do. It's better to witness without proper follow-up than to not witness at all. My prayer is, though, that churches will take this to heart and get heavily involved in all the possible aspects of witnessing. As I've stated in previous articles, door-to-door witnessing opens the door to so many ministry opportunities, it's mind-boggling. You don't have to be the person knocking on the door to be involved with door-to-door witnessing. You do, of course, need someone making that first contact, though. The world is out there and, often, just waiting on someone to care. It takes someone who cares to knock on a door. It takes someone who cares to do follow-up work. It takes someone who cares to do the preparatory work. Are you someone who cares? Does your church care this much?
God does!
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