Category: Witnessing Stories

Last weekend Sarah and I spoke at a young ladies conference which our friends Taryn and Mirren Martin organized.

Conference attendees… “As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Prov 27:17

“There is gold and abundance of costly stones, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” Proverbs 20:15 I feel that this verse describes the Marins very well! Wisdom just flows out of them, and our talks with their family was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Dr. Jobe Martin (Mirren and Taryn’s dad) has been teaching about creation, apologetics, prophecy, and many other topics for many years. Many of you have probably seen his DVDs called “Incredible Creatures.” They now have two new ones — “Creepers and Crawlers” and “Flight and Spike.” The Martins are faithful servants of the Lord and they have been presenting powerful messages. 400 moms and daughters attended the conference last weekend. It was a day and a half event and included a free lunch.

Doggy saying his prayers…

Tayrn, Jolynn, Sarah, Mirren, and me. I first got acquainted with Tayrn and Mirren while helping at the Answers in Genesis booth at the NEA convention last year. I have so much respect for them, their depth of conviction, humility, love for Christ, and for the selfless life of ministry they live.

On our way home Delta overbooked our flight and offered us free air miles if we stayed overnight in Detroit and took the next flight in the morning. We were each given a voucher worth $400 of air miles that we can use on future flights. Not a bad way to make money. 🙂 Plus we were given a free night in a nice hotel with my sister and $48 worth of “meal vouchers” to spend in the airport.

I admit, it did take a while for my dad to decide whether he thought staying overnight in Detroit would be safe (have I ever mentioned he is VERY cautious? :)) and the lady at the gate was getting annoyed with all my questions. Eventually Sarah told the lady, “I think we are going to take the offer and stay.”
“Well, you can’t say ‘THINK.’” She said, “It’s either ‘YES’ or ‘NO.’”
(Lol. She had gotten to know us well.)
“Ok, yes we are staying,” Sarah clarified.
After that she became very friendly again. She really appreciated the tract we left with her and as she began looking at it, she said, “I like it already!” 🙂 She even told me she was going to e-mail me after she read it.

Two other ladies, Becky and Doris, were also staying overnight and we immediately became friends. Then, as we were shuttling over to the hotel, I noticed another girl in the shuttle who was traveling alone. And we noticed that she was in the room right next to ours.

“Should we ask her if she wants to go out to eat with us?” Sarah and I wondered.
It won’t hurt to ask, we concluded and knocked on her door.

She seemed anxious to join us, so we went down to the little hotel restaurant. It was about 9pm. She told us that she had just come from her grandpa’s funeral, and it had been a very hard time on her family. She mentioned how she cried the first 15 minutes of her flight. Then we learned that she had converted to Mormonism two years ago.
“What were some of the reasons you were attracted to Mormonism?” I asked her.
“When the [Mormon] missionaries came to my door,” she explained, “They told me that I should pray and that if what they were saying was true, I would feel it in my heart—the spirit of God would confirm it to me. And that’s what happened.”

Sarah and I realized that we needed to be especially sensitive as we reasoned with her because she was already having such an emotional time. Plus, she seemed to be basing her conclusions on feelings instead of logic.

We talked about who Jesus is, having a relationship with our Creator, how truth is narrow, the problem of sin, etc. We asked her some more questions about Mormonism and tried to be as sensitive as possible as we challenged a few of the points she made. We actually talked for about two hours! I think it went well. And God provided in a neat way: Becky and Doris (the other ladies who had also taken the free voucher) were also eating with us in the little restaurant. Becky asked, “Aren’t all religions basically the same?”
This gave Sarah and me a perfect “in” to thoroughly answer Becky’s question in a way that would communicate truth to our new Mormon friend (Sara) indirectly.
In the morning we got the chance to see Sara again and gave her this Heaven booklet, by Randy Alcorn. We felt that it was the right thing for her at this time. Please pray for her. She has my e-mail so I’m hoping she contacts me.

This conversation reminded me of the effectiveness of door-to-door evangelism. She became a Mormon because of the “missionaries” who came to her door. What if they had been Christian missionaries instead? Door to door evangelism is still an effective approach to sharing the gospel today and it’s also Biblical. (Acts 20:20)

The next morning as we sat at our gate (again) we talked with Becky and Doris about the conversation the previous night with Sara. I think they both found it quite interesting as well.

Praise God for the way He directs, provides and orchestrates.

Life is an adventure. And thankfully, when God gives assignments, it’s an adventure with great purpose.

A few days ago I noticed a girl sitting on a bench by herself in the entry way of our library. I sat down next to her, and our conversation went something like this:

“Hey, how are you?” I asked as I sat down.
“Good, how are you?”
“Good. Did you just get out of school?” I asked.
“Yeah”
*Little pause*
“So do you come here a lot after school?” I asked.
“Yeah”
“So what are your favorite subjects?”
“Music and Art,” she said.
“Really? Those are probably mine too. What do you play?” I asked.
“Piano and Guitar,” she replied, “I used to play flute but my parents don’t have money for band,” she said.

“So do you guys have any Easter traditions?” I asked.
She lit up a little and said, “We usually go to my grandma’s house for lunch. They live by a lake so then we go boating and things….”
“Really? Aw, that sounds like a lot of fun. And grandmas are usually pretty good cooks,” I said.
She agreed with a smile.

“So do you know very much about the real meaning of Easter, the resurrection and all that?” I asked her.
“No not really. I mean, I hear a little bit in youth group, but not very much.”
“Oh what church do you go to?” I asked.
“New Covenant,” she said.
(New Covenant is a good gospel-preaching church here in town.)
She said that a friend had brought her and she had only attended three times.

“Here let me explain what this tract means,” I told her, showing her our tract about the resurrection (link below). I briefly walked through each point with her. She was interested as I emphasized how we can know for certain that what the Bible says about Jesus is true.

She said, “I once learned the story about this guy named Peter who actually saw Jesus, and then Jesus let him walk on water. And then he began to sink and Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. I thought that was pretty cool,” she said with a little sparkle in her eye.
I smiled… “I know, it is pretty cool” I agreed. “There are a lot of other neat stories in the Bible too. Do you have a Bible?”
“No…only a picture Bible that my little sister has…”

“So you learned that story in youth group?” I asked.
“Yeah”
“What else do they talk about in youth group?” I asked.
She named a few things, including “our sins.”
“What about our sins?” I asked.
She didn’t have a very clear understanding of sin, so we talked a little more about that.
“We may think we aren’t that bad,” I told her, “but we’ve all sinned. Even if we just tell one lie, that makes us a sinner. Or if we dishonor our parents, that’s sin—like if we talk back or disobey them…so that’s a really easy one to break…”
“Yeah I do that a lot,” she said and began to tell me about how hard it is with her step dad. Then she began to expound on the complicated situation of her broken family, about relatives who have died, and about her near-death experience in the hospital last year.

“Do you ever wonder why God allows bad things to happen?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Well you see, it’s because of sin that there are so many problems in this world. It all goes back to Adam and Eve. Do you know that story?”
She said she did.
“God didn’t make Adam and Eve robots,” I explained, “He let them choose to obey or disobey. Before they sinned, they had a really close relationship with God. But after they disobeyed there was a separation between them. Things went downhill from there. But even at the very beginning God promised that a Savior would be coming.”

“The Bible says that God is love. Do you believe that?” I asked her.
She said she did.

“Do you know why Jesus died on the cross?” I asked her.
She said something about how “He was doing it for others…” but she didn’t really get it.
“It was a really horrible death being nailed to the wood and hanging like that,” I explained.
She agreed.
“So why did He do it?” I asked.
I think her curiosity was aroused a little at this point, so I explained, “If Jesus hadn’t died on the cross there would be no way we could go to Heaven. We would each have to be punished for our own sins—which would mean being separated from God forever. But because God loves us, He made a way to rescue us. God said that the punishment for sin is death, but because Jesus died for us we can be free! And we can have that close relationship with God again.”

We talked for about 45 minutes. She was going the right direction, but she just needed more teaching. It was exciting to have the opportunity to build on what the Lord is already doing in her life.
I left her with a little pink New Testament and explained how there are lots of interesting stories in Matthew that she’d enjoy reading.
“I’ll read it,” she told me and seemed pretty pleased to receive it.

April is such a great time to witness, because just bringing up Easter and the Resurrection opens a door to ask others about their religious beliefs.

Sarah and I put this tract together last year. If you’d like to print some to give out, click HERE.

I’d also encourage you to read Josh McDowell’s artical on Evidence for the Resurrection here, and consider printing some out to pass out as well. It is very interesting and helpful.

(If you’d like, you can also see last year’s post here for more ideas about sharing the gospel on Resurrection Weekend.)