Over the holidays, we have been working on a new web site which will unite congregations for evangelism. This web site will also help churches grow.

Please just click here to see what it’s all about! I pray you and your church would join in!

For the furtherance of the Great Commission!

Julian and the ESI team.

On the way there, just south of Wellsford, I rounded a bend and there in front of me was a man coming out from the deep bush which lined the road.  As soon as his feet hit the road, his thumb went out. It was 7 am.

After a positive experience picking up a hitch hiker a few days ago, I immediately pulled over for this man too.  Let’s call him Mike.

Wow! What an interesting story he had to tell!

He was 32 and European. He had spent the night sleeping in the bush, warming himself around an open fire.

Making a bed for himself out of punga fern leaves, his pillow had been his tiny bag.  His only clothing was what he had on him, which amounted to jeans, tee shirt, sweat top, shoes and socks. No sleeping bag or blanket for him.

I asked him if he’d been cold overnight, and he said ‘a little’.   Overall, he said, it was a beautiful experience: shooting stars, only the sound of the crackling fire, and the unique smell of virgin bush.

He was headed to Paihia for the new year, en route from Raglan. Mike had a seven year old son called Andrew.  For the first five years of his life,  Andrew had lived with his mother. Year five was a bad one.

Mum got into drugs, particularly P, which led to depression.  During year five, she turned up at Mike’s door, with Andrew, saying she couldn’t cope looking after Andrew any more. So, now Andrew was living with Mike.

To look after him properly, Mike left his job, and started receiving a benefit from the government.  He’s lived like this for the past two years. He and Andrew, he told me, had become very close.  Over the new year period, Andrew’s Mum had agreed to look after him, allowing Mike some ‘time out’.

Now this is where it get’s interesting.

About an hour after pick up, I turned the conversation around the spiritual things, and showed Mike the gospel presentation on my iphone that you can see at www.biblein11.com.  I was able to plug the iphone into the car’s stereo system, so the sound was like a movie theatre!

As he watched it, I did the usual thing, which was to stop it after the section on the Law. I asked him three questions, and he admitted he was a thieving, lying, murderer, as I was. I then explained how he could be forgiven in my own words. To see what I said, please click here.

After the explanation, Mike watched the second half of the gospel presentation on my iphone. In effect he was now watching on video what I had just explained verbally.

At the end I asked him where he would go if he died tonight. He said hell, and this disturbed him – so he said.  He then asked me how to turn and surrender, which are the conditions for forgiveness.

I explained these to him so that he understood what it meant to be a Christian. At the end of my explanation, I asked him if he wanted to turn and surrender right now.  He said yes, so I led him through a prayer of forgiveness. I prayed, and he imitated what I prayed.  At the end of the prayer, he gave me a beaming smile, and we shook hands.

I gave him the follow up booklet HOW TO BE SURE OF GOING TO HEAVEN WHEN WE DIE’ pointing out the web address www.biblein11.com at the back, the genuineness test on page 26, and ‘what he must do now’. To read this booklet, please click here.

Then Mike said some more interesting things.

When he left Raglan yesterday, he told his Mum and sisters he was going up north to do some soul searching. Seriously, this is what he’d told them!

He then told me another side to what he’d been thinking in the bush overnight. He told me he’d asked himself ‘what the #@$% am I doing!  I have no money, I am sleeping in the bush around a camp fire, I am cold and hungry, I am separated from my partner, I am have a seven year old son, and I have no car or money, and I am living on a benefit.  What the #@$% am I doing! I am going no where!’

He then expanded on his money situation. ‘Payday’ from the government was Thursday. This encounter was happening on Monday. I asked Mike what he planned to do for meals and accommodation between now and Thursday. His answer? ‘I have no idea’.  His  last meal was lunch time on Sunday. He was now very hungry.

He also told me that during his 32 years on earth he’d ofter asked the question ‘what is life all about?’ and various variations of this question such as ‘what’s the point of being born?’

Until today, he’d never thought about heaven or hell, or what happened after death. The gospel ignited these realities into life.

What’s really interesting is that he went to St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton for five years, an Anglican school. Here he’d sung hymns and listened to the bible being read regularly in chapel times, but it meant absolutely nothing to him because he couldn’t understand it. My experience of talking with teenagers who have been to denominational schools is that ‘the religious program’ in these schools has often unwittingly inoculated them against Christianity. Far too many leave school thinking Christianity is non-comprehensible and therefore irrelevant.

This is a tragedy without parallel.

For Mike,  5 years in a religious school did not light his spiritual candle. The bible in 11 minutes video did.

This is a crucial point for all of us who are in the business of communicating Biblical truth (e.g. denominational schools, Christian schools, pastors with their sermons on Sundays, youth group leaders etc etc), not just those engaging in evangelism.

In Matthew 13, in the Parable of the Seed and the Soil, the abundant fruit came from the person who heard the word and UNDERSTOOD IT!  I can’t emphasise the importance of this strongly enough. It’s crucial we communicate the gospel (indeed all biblical truth) succinctly, logically, accurately, and meaningfully. This is why I am such a big proponent of the gospel presentation at www.biblein11.com.

A big reason why non-Christians don’t respond to many of our gospel messages is that they don’t understand them!

It took literally years to write the script for www.biblein11.com.  The research and study which was required to decide the content was enormous. The testing on non-Christians was endless.

There was no point in producing a presentation which was biblically accurate if it didn’t capture and hold the attention of non-Christians.

Likewise, there was no point in producing a presentation which captured and held the attention of non-Christians if it wasn’t biblically accurate. Both considerations are crucial.

It’s not enough to spout bible verses at people. It is crucial to package our message in terms and ways non-Christians can understand.

When we arriving in Whangarei, we stopped at a cafe and enjoyed a ‘big kiwi breakfast together’.

Among Christian friends, I would have said that in buying a meal for him, I was ‘watering’ the gospel just planted. I got such joy from doing this.

I had ‘ploughed’ the spiritual soil in Mike’s heart by learning about his life in the first hour of our journey, just listening and taking an interest.

Then I planted the seed of the gospel and harvested.

So, there’s the whole process: ploughing, sowing, watering, harvesting and discipling. The discipleship started with the follow up booklet. He said there were churches in Raglan and he would connect with one.

When I finally did drop him off on the side of the road, I also gave him $20, with the proviso he didn’t use it to buy cigarettes.

It was an incredibly life giving and rich morning for me and for Mike, making the festivities and pomp of Christmas pale into insignificance.

The cost to me personally? $15 for his breakfast, and $20= $35. This is absolutely nothing compared to what Christ did for me. And you know what? It was by far and away the best experience of the day, even though I love my Mum and her and I had a great time as well.

So, should Christians pick up hitchhikers? You know the answer.

What are the lessons here?

(1) Without taking risks (e.g. picking up hitch hikers) for the sake of evangelism, the Christian life will soon become meaningless.

(2) God is sovereignly at work in the lives on non-Christians. Mike was ‘soul searching’ and God used me to pick him up. If I’d been thirty seconds earlier on a two hour trip, I’d have missed him. All we need to do it join in, and find out what He’s up to! And in doing so, we’ll discover joy unspeakable.

(3) Our money, cars, time, resources, belong to the Lord. They are not our own. We are stewards of them for His glory. They is little point in having them if we don’t use them to get involved with non-Christians to further the Great Commission.

(4) Meaningfulness is absolutely crucial as we try to communicate Biblical truth with non-Christians.

p.s. I know the bible says ‘don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing’ and here I am in these testimonies appearing to glorify myself.  In order to encourage the church into evangelism there is no way around this. I don’t mind losing my reward if it encourages and helps other believers.

He was a Maori, mid 30′s, unshaven, rough looking, pony tailed, with a small bag (not like the guy in the picture at left!).

As soon as I saw him I started the classic ‘would I, won’t I’ dialogue in my head. I looked over at my passengers seat and it was covered with bits and pieces. As I drove passed him I decided it was ‘No’.

But driving away from him, the account of the good Samaritan came to mind. In that parable, all the characters who passed the man on the road had an excuse not to get involved. With that, I braked, did a U turn, drove back a KM or two,  and picked him up.

He was ecstatic – and smelly. I drove the rest of the way with one of the windows down a bit, and we just chatted about everything and anything. Let’s call him Jim.

Naturally, I guided the conversation onto spiritual things and showed him the gospel on my iphone which is what you can see on the web site www.biblein11.com.

Because we had so much time, we were able to talk about various aspects of the gospel message in detail, answer questions etc. It was bliss! There was no pressure for time.

Now, this is where it got really interesting.

It turns out his wife is a Christian and so are ALL the rest of his immediate family.  They have been so for many years. He told me quite a bit about them, and how Jesus had changed their lives and he could see the change.

I wondered if people observing my life would give the good report Jim gave about his family!

I was reminded again of the importance of ‘ploughing’ the soil in the hearts of non-Christians around us though our lives, attitudes and behaviours.

After hearing Jim speak so positively about this Christian family members, I felt convicted to raise the bar in this area of my own life.

Yet, even though his Christian family were a good example to Jim, none had shared the gospel with him.

How interesting.

The family members probably thought that my being kind and loving and Christ-like around their brother Jim would bring him to faith.  Yet, as Jim and I discussed the gospel message he’d just seen, it was obvious he had not a clue about what Christianity was REALLY all about.  Prior to hearing the gospel,and our discussion, literally everything about Christianity was a mystery for Jim. The only thing Jim was clear about was that one became a Christian to become a better person.

He had reasoned, prior to hearing the gospel in my car,  that if you tried to become a better person  in your own strength and succeeded, you had become a Christian!

This was one of the reasons Jim had not converted up to this point – he felt he had too much baggage to complete the clean up job his family had succeeded with. He had reasoned that they had done it, but that he couldn’t.

This whole encounter with Jim re-inforced to me again why we must preach the gospel AND walk the talk.  Both are commanded by Jesus. Both are critical elements of our walk.

The gospel message alludes to so much that could never be figured out just by observing the good lives of Jim’s family: that God made the world, that he is a God of Justice, and one day all of us will be judged by him, that his death on the cross was sacrifice for sin (opened the way for justification), that through Adam and Eve the whole world stands guilty before God, except those who are acquitted through repentance and faith, that Jesus is Lord of all the created order, that real change comes through the power of the Holy Spirit, not through self effort alone,  etc etc.

When we got to Auckland, I asked him where exactly he wanted to go.

It turned out that it was quite a long way from where I was going.  Here was another challenge. Was I just to drop him off near my home wave good bye (smiling and saying ‘bless you’), leaving him to hitch hike through Auckland as night time neared? Or was I to go out of my way. I started to feel anxious.  I had things to do before nightfall, petrol is expensive, I was hungry, etc etc I’d already spent two hours with Jim – is this not enough?

At this point some clear thoughts came into my mind: my time is not my own. Life itself was given by God. I was born by virtue of his sovereign grace and goodness. My life is sustained by the same. My car is not my own. I am just a steward of it. My petrol is not my own. It was provided by God through faithful supporters. Not even my body is my own – I have been bought with a price, and now belong to the Lord. I am a slave of Christ, left here on earth to do his work.

These thoughts calmed me down and helped me pull myself together.

Then I thought about the seminars I run.  I teach a lot about ‘watering’ the seed of the gospel planted i.e. providing conditions favourable for the seed of the gospel to grow. Here was an opportunity with Jim. By going out of my way with Jim, taking him where he wanted to go, I was ‘watering’ the seed of the gospel he had just heard on my iphone. Was I going to just talk about ‘watering’ and teach about it, or was I going to live it?

You know the answer.

Well, as I drove through Auckland taking Jim to where he wanted to go, he wanted to talk more about the gospel. Just before I dropped him off, he asked me to lead him through the sinners prayer.  I gave him a follow up booklet.

So, what do you think is the answer to the question ‘Should Christians Pick Up Hitchhikers?’

Ask each of Jim’s family members now, especially his wife.

What are the lessons here? There are at least six.

(1) Each time God ‘spoke’ to me, he referred me to scripture. Some scripture or thought from scripture came to mind. What’s the lesson here? God speaks through scripture. But we need to read the Bible in order for the Holy Spirit to guide us. Those who don’t read their bibles limit their usefulness to God.

(2) God really does care about non-Christians. He loved Jim so much he arrested me to help him. He overruled my selfishness in order to set Jim free.

(3) We need to walk the talk. Thank God for Jim’s family. Unwittingly, they have been ploughing Jim’s heart. What they didn’t realise was this is only half the job. The other half is proclaiming the gospel.  We won’t get a harvest from a field which is only ploughed.

(4) Selfishness is a cruel master. My natural instinct was to not pick Jim up. I would have justified it, sure. But if I hadn’t picked him up, my trip to Auckland would have been pretty boring. Picking Jim up was the best thing that happened to me all week! I might have missed this. How many other blessings are we missing every day by living selfishly?

(5) The gospel really is ‘the power of God for salvation’ (Romans 1:16).  What Jim’s family couldn’t achieve through many years of good works, the Holy Spirit wrought in a matter of hours through the gospel. When are we going to get this?

(6) God answers prayer. Imagine how Jim’s family would have been praying for this lost sheep in the family! We can all be the answer to someone’s prayer. God works through people to answer prayer. Spurgeon said ‘action without prayer is presumption, but prayer with action is hypocrisy.’ If we pray for the lost but never go to them with the gospel, what does that make us, according to Spurgeon?

If you can think of more lessons, please write in. I’d love to know!

As I began reading it I became more and more discouraged.

I read that many years ago there were many youth workers who did evangelism but as time went on, there were fewer and fewer.

Eventually only one young person was out there evangelising.

I also read that the churches in my area were the only ones attempting to train young people for evangelism.

Sales of true gospel tracts had dissipated so far,  that the ship which used to transport evangelism resources had gone rusty and was up on dry land. Now there was no way of getting further resources. In my dream I could see the ship.

As I read the pamphlet,  I found myself in a state of drifting into a state of evangelism paralysis.

A great grey cloud engulfed me. I felt desperately lonely and discouraged, as though I was the only one in the whole world active in evangelism.

 Would all these people who had not heard the gospel really be going to hell? Surely not!?

So discouraged, I eventually came to the place where I decided to give up doing evangelism.  I convinced myself that my my time would be better spent on other things, like good works.

I also became convinced that hell was not a real place. Yet, at the same time, I had this nagging feeling that by not going into the world and proclaiming the gospel, I was being disobedient to our Lord.

Would I be judged by God for my disobedience?  Surely not!

Surely God would look on the good things I was doing and He’d overlook my withdrawal from evangelism.

My dream ended with the strong thought that all these people who were exhorting us to return to the priority of the church (i.e. to the evangelisation of the world) were simply making noise. They were not from God at all!

This was my dream.  When I awoke, I began to process it, and these are the thoughts about it which came to mind.

The dream I had was from the enemy, sent to discourage me from doing evangelism.

I wonder how many others in the Christian community have had thoughts (not necessarily dreams) planted in their minds to discourage them from doing evangelism?

Every church wants to be effective in evangelism, yet very few churches actually have a strategy for it.

As the saying goes ‘if we fail to plan, we plan to fail’.

So, to avoid failing with evangelism, we need to formulate a specific strategy.

The dictionary defines the word ‘strategy’ like this:

“a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim”

So, what’s the overall aim of your church in evangelism? What’s your plan to get there?

What does the Bible say we must include? Exclude? Where does one start? What are the crucial components of a effective evangelism strategy?

The following four on-line videos will, step by step, help you formulate a successful, God glorifying, sustainable, evangelism strategy for your church. Enjoy!

Part one: http://youtu.be/qOjKYG2lfs4

Part two: http://youtu.be/GdqcoPxYR-4

Part three: http://youtu.be/YgQz25bPvAw

Part four: http://youtu.be/BMc08Buae-I

Please take a few moments to watch this video.

Bless you guys and keep up the great work of evangelising the world!

http://youtu.be/F31grNuRTV0

Hi, my name is Iain Dickson. I am the minister at Te Puke Presbyterian Church.

I thought I would write to you about the encounter we had yesterday – I’m still buzzing.

Three of us were out and about sharing the gospel to six households in Te Puke yesterday. 

I was teaching two Christian ladies how to give the gospel by using the survey. Both were very apprehensive about knocking on doors and said they would only listen. So I had one of them praying in the car, while I took the other with me (three can be a crowd).

Our first encounter was with a Jehovah Witness, but found we had to part with differing positions.

However, door number 6 was the most memorable. 

A Maori lady in her early twenties, who had a couple of preschoolers at her feet, answered. I found out that her family had recently moved in six months ago; it was a Habitat for Humanity house. I said, “Hello, I’m Iain from the Te Puke Presbyterian Church. We are doing a brief survey in the community to find out if we are still being relevant to those who might need us. Can I ask you a few questions to see what you think? She said yes.

She said, “just look around you, have been something to create the world we live in”. I then asked my Christian friend, the one who wanted to just listen, to go through the ‘Good Person Test’ with her (She had used this evangelism tool many times before and had it in her handbag).

At the end of the test, I then asked if there was any reason stopping her from accepting Jesus as her Lord and Saviour from sin.

She said no there wasn’t, and invited us to come inside. We then knelt down on the lounge floor, and I asked her to repeat after me, and then proceeded to take her through the sinners prayer. We then prayed for an infilling of the Holy Spirit. 

My Christian friend had a word of knowledge that concerned her childhood and she burst into tears asking , ”how did you know? ” We then prayed for healing for the emotional trauma, and then arranged a time to meet again to disciple her in her new found faith .

Later on that afternoon my friend accidently met her as she came out of the bank in town.

She was beaming all over, thanking my friend for taking the time to share to her about Jesus and what he did for her – how incredibly exciting.

Wouldn’t it be great if all our congregational members were having encounters like this? How did this happen for me? It all started when I attended a  ’Getting Back to the DNA of Jesus conference’. They are life changing. If you can get to one, I believe the Holy Spirit will do a work in you too! Just step out in faith and believe. Just visit www.churchdnachange.com to see where one is happening near you! Go for it!

Hi Julian,

I hope you are well. Today, I paid for the evangelism resources I bought from you. 

Also, today, I used the red laminated booklet (one of the tools your produced for delivering the gospel) for the first time .
This morning, I went to Botany Shopping Centre (a suburb in Auckland) to have coffee with a friend, then I sat down and read the red laminated booklet and the thin black booklet (called ‘How to Be Sure of Going to Heaven When we Die), after reading them, I prayed God would lead me to people who need to hear the Gospel.

Then, I walked in the shopping centre for a few minutes and saw a couple seated on a bench, and I thought “Here are the people I’m going to talk to.”

So I went their way, greeted them and asked them if they wanted to answer a few questions and they said yes!

Great, so I sat beside the lady and off I went.

These two people seemed very intersested in what I was sharing with them.

The lady even laughed several times because of her answers. I hadn’t finished the first part of the booklet that the rest of the family came along, the grandmother, two few young people including a mother and her little girl.

I greeted them, told them what I was sharing about, and asked them if they wanted to hear the message I was sharing with the couple, and they said yes!

So I carried on. I had a very good time with them. The grandmother knew her Bible very well but she said that if she died today she wouldn’t go to heaven, because she drunk and swore.

I kindly answered her that Jesus could forgive us ALL our sins if we admit, turn away from them and follow his ways. I cannot remember what she replied to me. Then, they told me “What you are saying is really good! You should talk to our aunty.

She is a Christian but she is in the bar over there gambling.”

A few minutes later, the aunty came out of the bar and arrived where we are were.

 I greeted her, explained what I was doing, she sat down beside me on the bench, and I asked her if she wanted to answer a few questions.

She answered that she was a born again Christian, that she was exhausted and she wanted a coffee. I asked again if she wanted to answer a few questions and hear about what it is to be a Christian, she said she didn’t want to answer my questions, so I started reading her the message. She said that she knew all that stuff and finally she said she wanted to go and have a coffee so I let her go.

But before I went, I encouraged the whole family to turn away from the wrong things they do in their lives and to surrender to Jesus. Then I said goobye, they smiled at me and farewelled me as well. 

I praise the Lord,  for the time I spent sharing with this family. The booklet is wonderful and God is great! 

I pray that God will use the tools you have produced to turn many to Christ. 

In His love, 

Benedicte

Benedicte: I am so proud of you. You had the courage to go out there and try and reach the lost with the gospel.  I can only imagine the size of the smile you put on the face of Jesus doing this.  It takes faith and courage to do what you did. And the Lord in His wisdom gave you people who were receptive and open on your first attempt.  Most people would have been terrified when the whole family turned up but you invited them to join in, and they did, and you carried on! Brilliant.  Let’s believe that the Holy Spirit will now grow the seed of the gospel you planted.  This is the whole point – without your going, and your courage, they may never have heard! As it is written, ‘How will they hear unless we go? Who will tell them unless we speak? As it is written ‘how lovely are the feet of Him who brings good news!’  Don’t stop Bene – your adventure has only just begun.

Just because South Africa didn’t win the rugby world cup does not mean God is not at work in their country. In fact, quite the contrary. God has exported some of their finest church leaders to New Zealand.

Whether they are spies planted here by the South African Rugby Union we don’t really know.

Suspicions were raised when Henry and the coaching staff were approached by SA pastors residing in NZ, offering to pray for the All Blacks in their dressing rooms prior to test matches.

Once in the All Black dressing room, the word is that these pastors were planning to secretly record last minute coaching tips with devices hidden under their ecclesiastical garb, relaying them to the South African dressing room under the guise of ‘prayers’.

Apparently, the SA union allows clergy to enter the South African team dressing room prior to games to pray for the team’s victory.

According to a leaked memo from the NZRU,  Piri Weepu was asked by Graham Henry and Steve Hansen to tap into the phone calls made by these South African pastors residing in NZ, to verify the strategy, but he gave up on the first attempt because he couldn’t understand Africaans.

(the picture on the right shows Piri at the end of his one and only phone tapping session).

Asked by Henry what he found out, Piri replied ‘Na bro…I think they were talking in a secret code. It wasn’t like we talk bro. Every now and then I would hear familiar names like ‘Richie McCaw’ or ‘Henry’ but all the words around those names were coded. Like another language. They are too smart for us bro!’

Secret documents and photos sourced from the NZRU reveal that two years ago the entire All Black coaching staff were planning to enter South Africa as pastors, copying the strategy of the South African Rugby Union.

The scheme was called off last minute due to technical difficulties with recording devices (the temperature under the cloaks became extreme the nearer the date to the cup kick off in 2011), but not before each coach had been fitted out. The picture at right shows Henry testing the recording and transmission devices.  He is on the field picking up a test signal in his implanted ear piece from a dressing room under the stands where Steve Hansen is located.

Spies or not, I have met some of these South African pastors this year, and they are  leading thriving churches in New Zealand.  God is really blessing their work here in our country and the kiwis sitting up their ministries are flourishing.

And what’s more, a couple of them have come to the DNA change conferences and this is what they had to say.

The first couple are Cobus and Anita Van Rooyen who are leading Katikati Community Baptist Church in the Bay of Plenty.

Please click here to hear their endorsement.

Then more recently, I met another fantastic pastor who is built very much like one of the stars of the South African’s team back line, and even looks like one of them. This only fueled the spy rumour. His name is Kobus Storm, from Hamilton.

To listen to Kobus’s endorsement, please click here.

Let’s put to rest any of these vicious rumours that these South African pastors are spies. I reckon it’s a lie from the enemy. Anyway, if it was for real, it didn’t work. Look what happened.  They fell over at the semis. If they are spies, Scripture proved itself to be true again ‘God works all things for good’ (Romans 8:28). We won the cup in spite of the evil schemes of the SARU.

Thankfully, these awesome spies pastors are hear to stay.

Seriously, South Africa’s loss is our gain (no play on words intended). Praise God that the Lord has sent these leaders to our shores. They are awesome! I see them bringing a strong and fresh prophetic edge to what God is already doing in our nation. They are a gift from God.