A few months ago I was asked about doing an outreach at the State Fair of Texas. After praying about it, I decided to create a Gospel tract for the event. Since the Texas State Fair is the self proclaimed “Fried food capital of Texas” we decided to do a tract which said “Can you name ten things fried at the fair” on the front. The back of the card listed ten things and then had a message on the that included the Law and the Gospel. This would allow conversations to start with naming ten things and then swing to the spiritual by asking people to name the Ten Commandments.
Once the tract was developed, we incorrectly assumed that it could be of general use at fairs all around the country and therefore we included them in the September Bezeugen Tract Club mailing.
While we hold Jesus Christ and the crucifixion in the utmost and highest regard and respect, there was one line on the tract that several people pointed out both privately and publicly that was disrespectful to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Because of this, we are “recalling” this tract.
While it is impractical to actually retrieve each of these tracts from those that we sent them too, we are asking that you would honor our request by simply disposing of these “fried at the fair” tracts and not distributing any more of them.We are truly sorry to have offended anyone by the message on this tract. Our only intent is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost and bring glory to God alone.
The True or False tract originated from an idea that I saw in an article discussing the Bible, Book of Mormon and Quran. The article was pointing out statistics that most people believe the three books say basically the same thing. With the idea for a tract to refute Islam and Mormonism all at once, I contacted Tyler McNabb, Director of Apologetics for Jeremiah Cry, to see if he would be interested in helping me with the idea. He was!
The text that Tyler came up with for the back of the tract was a perfect fit to the concept we weer going for. But also with the tie to reality TV, many people will relate to what the tract is saying.
When the tracts arrived I was anxious to hand some of them out. The first time I took them out with me, I was at the mall with a friend sharing the Gospel. We had a good discussion with the first guy we talked too. As I was handing him a tract he said, “I’m a Mormon”, so I took that tract back and handed him one of our new True or False tracts. He took it. We had a brief discussion from there about the difference of the Jesus and Heavenly Father in Mormonism than in the Bible. Please pray that he reads the tract and seeks the truth which he heard from us.
A short time later we were at the sunglasses kiosk talking with the guy who was working there. When we asked about spiritual things he said he was a Muslim. He said he did not have time to go into things much more because he was working. So I handed him True or False tract and told him he could contact me through the web site on the back and we could set up a time to talk more. Please pray that he will contact me.
It was really encouraging that the first time we took this tract out, we were able to give one to a Muslim and one to a Mormon. Both said “thank you” when we gave it to them. Since then, I’ve handed out many more of these tracts to Mormons, Muslims and others. Even if the person is not a Mormon or a Muslim, the message is still appropriate because it helps educate them that these three books are not the same.
This tract will make its way to the tract club in November 2010!
Mark Cahill’s book One Heartbeat Away is one of my favorite resources to give to someone who we have witnessed too. The book provides a wonderful blend of apologetics and Biblical references to present a logical case for Christ. I love to give these books to people after we have witnessed to them.
Custom Tract Source has a post card sized tract that offers a free copy of this book. In order to encourage our tract club members to engage in one on one conversations and offer people this book, one month, we provided a few of these tracts from Custom Tract Source in each club member envelope. However, due to the size of the cards, it made the envelope heavier and inflexible. That meant that the cost of pricing was nearly twice what it was without these cards. We had intended to send more of the Custom Tract Source cards, but the shipping issues made it impractical.
Then one night, I was talking to Chris Salter on the phone. He suggested that we inquire about making a business card sized version of this tract. So I emailed Mark Cahill and asked if we could promote his web site on our own tract. He graciously agreed. We had Marv at One Million tracts design the tract, got them printed and put them into the tract club.
I don’t advise just handing out the Where will you spend Eternity card by itself because it does not have a Gospel message on it. However, it makes a great follow-up for a one on one conversation. I like to provide people with free resources. We often give out Bibles, DVDs and other items. In this case, I like the idea that the person has to actually go to the web site and request the book. By putting some effort into it, it is my prayer that they will take the book seriously and read it when they get it.
We kicked around several ideas for a Valentines Day tract including a “be mine” from Jesus, but settled on this tract. If you have ideas for another Valentines Day tract for next year, let me know.
Finally, a “tract” to give to your friends that don’t think that Evangelism is for them! Sadly, many people who call themselves Christians don’t see the need to share the Gospel even though Jesus has commanded them too. The Get Out of Witnessing Free card is a subtle reminder that is actually an ad for Bezeugen Ministries. On the back is a Spurgeon quote and a Bible quote and the web site where people can find Evangelism training and resources.
These cards have not been sent out in the tract club but have been made available on request to those that wanted them. Additional, quantities can be ordered from the tracts page.
Virgil Stuck made a video about using this card. Thanks, Virgil!
We try to send seasonal tracts in the tract club. We also have found that getting people to name “ten things” makes a quick way to lead into asking if someone knows the Ten Commandments. This tract also taps into what nearly everyone is thinking about around New Years Day – New Year Resolutions.
One thing about the Can you name ten of the top New Year Resolutions tract is that nearly any answer for the question is acceptable. We did list some popular choices on the back. But the whole idea is to get people thinking about ten resolutions so that we can explain the Gospel and then suggest that getting saved should be first on their list!
For the last four years we have witnessed at the Dallas Children’s Christmas parade. One year we printed a couple thousand of the Living Waters Christmas Trivia tract that can be downloaded for free and printed on standard paper. The next year we got tracts from One Million Tracts. Since there are a lot of people coming to the parade year after year, we wanted to have something new for 2009. So, we designed this Christmas Trivia Tract. We handed out about 7,000 of them at the parade along with another 7,000 of the Naughty or Nice Santa tract.
The tract also went into the tract club in December 2009.
We found the tract to be popular with the parade goers as well as people who we witnessed to one on one at other occasions. The Trivia Questions promote curiosity and cause them to read the back. Plus at Christmas it is a great time to share the Gospel because you can simply tell people why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.
I’ve known about Reverend Fun for years. I’ve always enjoyed reading the comics. So many of them are so funny. As I was looking at the comics one day, I realized that for a low cost we could purchase the rights to an image and put it on a tract. I began looking at the comics with an eye on finding some that could be used for tracts.
This one really struck me. Easter was in mid-April in 2010. So it made it possible to put a single tract together that would be applicable for Easter and tax day.
If you choose to order more of these tracts, then please be sure to check the royalty schedule and send money to Reverend Fun to pay for the use of the image.
Having already printed out Easter tract using a Reverend Fun comic, I was looking for artwork that could be used on another tract featuring Reverend Fun. I found one that really communicated the Gospel well. A picture of Jesus receiving a bill for lies, cheats, steals, etc and saying “I’ll get this one.” I beautiful picture of the Gospel!
I decided to post the image on my Facebook profile. When I did, a Muslim commented on it and what broke out next was a thread of over 125 comments of people commenting on the picture and witnessing to this Muslim.
I figured that if the post on Facebook could create that much attention that it would get much attention when handed out as well. What is unique about this tract, is that the message on the back is entirely made up of scripture strung together to make a Gospel message. There are none of my own words on this tract at all.
One night I was spending some time on Facebook exchanging some messages with a friend, Tim. He sent me a message saying that he had been thinking of creating a Gospel tract that just said “why?” on the front. I told him I thought it sounded like a good idea. After praying for a few minutes, the Lord gave me an idea of how to word it. So I jotted down my thoughts in a private message on Facebook and sent it to him, ending the message with “you mean something like this?”
He replied back and said, “yes!”
Over the next couple of days we refined the text and then sent the tract off to be printed.
When I hand out the Why? tracts, I will use the question “why?” in terms of “why do you think I am handing these out?” or “why do you think Jesus had to die?” or “why did Jesus have to be God?”
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