Bezeugen Tract Club

The idea for the thank you tract was originally posted as a comment on the As You Go BLOG by one of our tract club members. This video provides the details.

We pray that the Thank You tract will be used to share the Gospel to the glory of God!

For years we have used the same Halloween tract in the tract club mailing. This year we decided to make a new tract. But we did not have a specific idea in mind. We asked our prayer team to pray about what to put on a new Halloween tract. As we prayed, we came up with not one, but two new tract ideas!

The “name ten” idea always sparks interest as people like to show how much they know. And once you name ten of something, it leads naturally into asking if they can name the Ten Commandments and into a Gospel presentation.

When it comes to Halloween costumes, as we researched it, we found there were categories for adults and children. We found there were some difference in what is popular based on age. So we decided to make this a children’s tract focusing on the children’s costumes and leveraging a message that is suited just for children. The Name Ten Children’s Halloween Costumes tract was in the October 2013 tract club mailing.

The second new tract is titled Happy Halloween and makes a play on words with the true meaning of hallow – set apart as Holy. With a witch on the front and a little history of Halloween on the back with the transition to the Gospel we pray that the Happy Halloween tract will be used to share the Gospel with many people!

You can find some examples of uses of the new Halloween tracts in the As You Go BLOG. Halloween is a great opportunity to share the Gospel. What other day do you have so many people coming right to your door asking for hand outs? Why not give them a tract along with a treat!

While going door to door to share the Gospel we have come up with a number of ways to transition from the natural to the spiritual. One of them is to ask a simple questions that goes something like this, “If it was 2AM, you are asleep in your house and I drive by and see that your house is on fire, would you want me to wake you up?” I can’t think of a single person who has answered this question with a no. The picture was found on the internet of a sign that someone had on their house. You can see that they don’t want to be disturbed, except in three circumstances, the most important of which is their house being on fire. We can also follow this from the other perspective and ask them, “If it was 2AM and your neighbors house were on fire, would you go and wake them up?” Again the answer always comes back yes.

So we know that they would want to be saved from danger and that they would also save others from danger!

This simple example shows people why we are out sharing the Gospel and why they would also warn people of eminent danger. We then bridge the gap to the spiritual by explaining that their spiritual house may be on fire which leads to a discussion about the Gospel.

We have discussed making a door hanger for door to door evangelism with the “house on fire” idea. So, we decided to put it onto a tract first and then use the cards and see the responses that we get.

So far in handing these out, I have not had a single person tell me that they would not want to be awakened from their sleep.

The It’s 2AM tract will first appear in the August (2013) mailing of the Bezeugen Tract Club.

While some friends and I were out witnessing at the mall  during lunch one day, we were talking about different ways to transition a conversation from the natural to the spiritual. We often do this by asking people questions. One friend suggested the question “On a scale of 1 to 100, how sure are you that you would go to Heaven when you die?” The question is right to the point and covers a number of scenarios. Even professing Christians that go to church every Sunday might answer less than 100. And the unbelievers most certainly would answer less than 100. Regardless of the persons answer there is always a follow-up question to consider. Let’s look at the possibilities.

If the person answers 100%, then we can follow up with something like “WOW! You really sound confident. What makes you so sure that you will go to Heaven?” Now at this point the person can profess their faith in Jesus. If so, great, we are talking to a brother (or sister) in Christ. I like to ask some follow-up questions like if they are reading their Bible regularly, what church they attend, how they got saved, etc. Most true believers will be encouraged by these types of questions.

If they answered 100%, but then when we ask them why they come up with something about religion, or anything other than repentance and faith in Jesus, then it leads to a Gospel presentation. Similarly, if someone answers anything less than 100%, then you can ask them if they’d like to be sure and you can share the Gospel with them.

We have found that this question is a good conversation starter. We have been using it effectively for some time now, so, we printed the question on the front of a new tract which is in the July 2013 mailing.

When handing out Gospel tracts, one of the simplest ways to get people to take them is to ask “did you get one of these” and hand them the tract. Most people will take the tract and say Thanks! At many large events like ball games or concerts, we will often stand someplace where there is a line of people streaming buy and hand out the tracts asking over and over again “did you get one of these?”

As people walk past taking the tracts, sometimes you’ll hear someone who has already passed by ask “what is it?” as they have walked past. If they are still within ear shot we might reply “it’s a Gospel tract!”

That gave me an idea. Why not just print on the card on one side “It’s a Gospel tract” and then hand them out. People would be asking them self “what is it” and then look down and read it on the card and realize that it is a Gospel tract.

As I continued to pray about this idea the Lord gave me the idea to make the tract look like a smart phone with a text message dialog on it. This lead to the card that we have released.

Our experience handing out this card has been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, we can use the line “did you get one of these?” and I have had people ask that, look at the card and answer it for them self. So, it has accomplished its intended purpose.

However, the card can also be handed out in a manner of asking someone “do you have the world’s thinnest iPhone?” Or, you can ask, “with your phone can you call God?” We have used that to say with this one you can because “anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!”

We pray that the texting tract will open the door to many one on one conversations to share the Gospel. You can read about other witnessing encounters with this tract in the As You Go BLOG.

Each month it takes more than 50 man hours to pack the tracts to go into the mail. This includes ordering the tracts, counting them into stacks of 7, writing a letter, editing it, and printing it. The final step before going to the post office is a group of 10-15 people meet to pack the tracts into envelopes. This video is a time lapse of that process. It starts with dinner and fellowship and runs until the envelopes are nearly completely packed. This 4 minutes of video compresses nearly two hours of real-time!

One time I was sharing the Gospel at a park near my house. We like to do this by handing out bottles of water and Gospel tracts and then striking up conversations with people by saying “there is a warning that comes with the water, when you drink it you will get thirsty again.” Normally this would stop people in their tracks to consider that warning and a conversation would follow. On one occasion I got to talking to a guy and when the subject of religion and eternal life came up he said that would take to long to discuss. I said, that my beliefs were simple enough to explain in one minute.

He said “go” and started looking at his watch – the second hand.

I then provided him the Gospel and was done before he reached one minute!

On other occasions we have used a transitional line with people because they seem to think they will live forever. They won’t want to talk about death because they think it will happen years from now and they will have plenty of time to prepare. So if we are at a train station we might say, “what if you got run over by the next train and you were dead, do you know where you’d go?” Sometimes even reminding them that the news report indicated that someone had died recently at that very train station helps.

Ray Comfort has sermon called Three Minutes to Live that goes into more detail on this approach.

This tract uses the three minutes to live and the clock to draw the persons attention and then presents the Gospel on the back such that it can be read in less than three minutes!

To read about some examples of using this tract you can see the As You Go BLOG posts about it.

Nearly two years ago, the Lord placed it on my heart to write a book that could be handed out to people we witnessed to. I invited my friend Todd to co-author the book with me. We made a plan of how to split the writing up. After praying, writing, and editing we had a booklet that was ready to be printed. We researched many options to print the book and found that it was not cost effective to print for it’s intended purpose which was to give away. Mande and I took the book to Kinkos and printed a small run to at least be able to try and hand them out. While they were not polished(just a copy stapled) we were able to use them as an effective tool.

In May of last year while visiting some friends in the Houston area God led us to an old high school friend of mine who works for an on demand printer. As we talked more we discovered that his company was the perfect fit for printing our book. We could print 1 copy or 1,000’s of copies on demand at a reasonable price. WOW! God is Amazing.
I submitted a copy of the book to the printer (Snowfall Press) and had a couple of copies printed. I received them in the mail pretty quickly and was very impressed with how they turned out! Over the Christmas break I made a few edits and we now have a second edition ready to print. We also have the book as a PDF download and MOBI format for Kindle.

Please download a copy of the book The Truth May Impact Your Opinion and read it. The primary audience of the book is the person whom you are witnessing to, but the book also has serves as useful training for the believer who is witnessing.

The tract has a free book offer on it for this book. You can give the card out and the recipient can either download an electronic copy, listen to the audio or request a printed copy to be mailed to them.

To read the book yourself, listen to the audio or request your own copy now, you can go to
www.AfterLifeCatalog.com/truth/.

January 22 is the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the case that legalized abortion in the United States. We don’t want to “celebrate” the anniversary per se, but rather use it as a segway to the Gospel. I hand people this tract and ask them what they think of the quote. Most say something like “that’s interesting.” Other times I’ll hand someone the tract and ask them who the guy is in the picture. Most will say Ronald Reagan correctly. Then when I ask them who Ronald Reagan was, a smaller portion identify him as the 44th President of the United States. Either way, it functions as a segway to the gospel. Point people to the 180movie.com site on the back as well to see a Gospel presentation and a thought provoking message about abortion.

We hope and pray that the Ronald Reagan quote tract will bring awareness to the national sin of abortion. Even more than that, we pray that it will bring people to repent of their own personal sin and believe the Gospel!

Several months ago we released the Biggest Gamble tract. After sending it out, I received a call from one of the tract club members indicating that a new casino was opening near his favorite fishing hole and wondered what I thought of the idea of making a new tract for poker. We discussed it and prayed about it and came up with the idea for the Four Aces and a King tract.

The only thing that can beat Four Aces and a King is a straight flush. The odds are well into the 99.9’s that Four Aces and a King will win. The idea is simple. Find out if people like to gamble. If so, how much will they bet? For some, a couple dollars is exciting. For others it needs to be bigger, with more to risk.  Some people even gamble with their soul.

The reality is if someone is trusting in anything other than Jesus Christ to get them to eternity then they are taking a big gamble.

The first time I took some of these tracts out to the streets of Dallas, the conversations were mixed. Some thought I was promoting gambling. I explained that I was not promoting gambling and was able to have some conversations. One guy claimed that he had Four Aces and a King before and got beat so therefore if he got it again he would fold. I am not sure that I believe that!

Most people said they would bet something and that would lead to some discussion about how much they would bet. Five Dollars? Ten Dollars? Your job? Your house? Your soul? Most would stop short of betting with their soul.

So then I would ask them what happens when you die? If they say anything other than 100% confidence in going to Heaven because of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, then I would explain to them how they are gambling with their soul, taking a chance that they “might” go to Heaven.

I pray that you will have fun sharing the Gospel with these Four Aces and a King tracts.