Connect09

Surely there are better ways to “connect”

I imagine door-knocking is not for everyone...but don’t write it off just because it’s not your own preferred method. Different people will use different methods.

Another example of cold contact, happened on Monday - a pair of members walked up to a guy in the park and asked if he wanted to chat about God. He said, “It’s funny you should ask that, because I’m thinking through all that stuff at the moment. My girlfriend is a Christian, and I’m wondering if I should become one too.” So they went through 2WTL live with him, answered a lot of his questions, now we are praying. True story!

Also, as far as I can tell, most syd ang door knocking efforts aren’t about providing some company to lonely people, it’s about drumming up interest in whatever event/mission their running and trying to get them into a gospel conversation within 60 seconds of meeting them. To equate mission-driven door-knocking to looking after lonely older people is very dubious indeed. You are right, I’m sure there are lots of lonely, elderly people out there who would like some company, but random, surprise door-knocking to try and get them along to church is a very poor substitute indeed.

I agree. Secondly when I worked at my local RSL I noticed alot of those lonly old ladies did visit the club to met and talk to anyone in a comfortable enviroment as aposed to their door steps.

I would love to have so many Christians knocking on my door trying to tell me about Christ that I got really annoyed by the sheer number.  But the sad fact is that I’ve never been ‘door-knocked’ by an evangelical Christian, a local minister or church member.  If they came by, I would be shocked, but I would certainly send them on their way with a warm blessing and a prayer.

I certainly wouldn’t berate them for annoying everyone.

I’m all for cold-contact evangelism. That’s how I and several others I know became Christians while at uni. It also gets me out of my comfort zone and causes me to depend on God with greater urgency. Every step and every breath taken and every word spoken is with an incredible sense of God’s sovereignty.

I’ve also reversed cold-contact evangelism. When charity volunteers, esp those from overseas, come to our door we invite them in for a drink and some have stayed for either afternoon tea or an early dinner. While we haven’t shared the gospel we’ve mentioned our faith, our church and TEAR Australia as the Christian charity we support.

Go for it Craig and Annandale Community Church!

Angela Crittle - 07 August 2008 07:17 PM

I’m all for cold-contact evangelism.

I am too. Our culture seems resistant to such contact but I think it is a good way to put our faith into practice. What can be wrong with talking with people we don’t know about what we believe, and finding out what others believe.

A Bible study leader in our church became a Christian through someone handing out pamphlets to passers by when she was at uni.

One thing that came up often in the debrief sessions was the importance of listening. By giving the other person a chance to talk for a while about fairly non-threatening subjects (eg. “Have you ever been to church? What was your experience?"), you establish a level of trust, and you are able to ask more pointed questions later, without it being threatening.

One woman we spoke to spent about 15 minutes telling us about everything that had ever turned her off religion. I thought that we were never going to get a chance to say anything. But by the end of that period we were all having a really comfortable conversation. At about the 20 minute mark I was able to say, “So who do you reckon Jesus was?”, and that wasn’t at all weird.

There’s a book called “Questioning Evangelism” that I want to get hold of. It’s been recommended to me, and I am guessing that it’s approach would work very well with door-knocking.

My couple of experiences doorknocking in Gladesville have been great. If we ever ran into an irritable Luke Stevens type, we just smiled and said thanks and moved on, but more often than not when we mentioned that we were from the local Anglican church, the one that had the preschool (where I was a parent and committee member), people were friendly and polite. We even happened to door-knock a preschool family that I knew and that was great, said a quick hi.

On the last couple of Saturdays our church at Carlingford did door-knocking (I couldn’t because of Saturday sport stuff, but would have otherwise) and the reports back were that it was a pleasant experience and nowhere near as bad as anticipated. It seems to me that doorknocking for local good causes is an accepted part of Sydney culture, and I can tell you now that we are a darn sight friendlier than your average mobile phone or electricity provider salespeople.

Because I have been involved in a couple of Moore College missions both as student and minister I have probably doorknocked slightly more than the average congregation member, in a few different suburbs around Sydney over the years, and although some of that experience has been uneventful that is about as bad as it gets. Just occasionally you get a really lovely conversation, sometimes on gospel matters.

We had a Celebration night at Church 10 days ago, where a lady in our Church testified to how God had sustained her as she went door knocking in pairs.  She had been trained, and went with an experienced person.  She was amazed at how many people she could relate to, and with whom they had opportunities to preach the gospel.  This week we have the “Start the Ultimate Relationship” week, with all sorts of events happening connecting with the local community. 

Her enthusiasm has kindled an interest with me...(not that I have done it yet....at least not for years and years).
Gill.

Gordon Cheng - 08 August 2008 12:42 PM

If we ever ran into an irritable Luke Stevens type

I should make it clear that I am a mostly deaf 84 year old man with a zimmer frame who spends most of his day yelling at kids to get off my darn lawn, while shaking my fist in an angry fashion. I then retire to my rocking chair on the veranda where I chew on some wheat with my shot gun on my lap.

... just so you know :P

Sounds like one of them there Rolling Stones, who used to sing

Hey, Get Off My Cloud

but now
sing

Hey, Get Off My Lawn

and used to sing

Angie

but now sing about

Angioplasty

and who also used to sing

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

which has now become

You Can’t always Eat what You Want

The line from Sympathy for the Devil is now

Pleased to meet you
But I don’t recall the name

They are great friends with a band that was known as

Gerry and the Pacemakers

Geriatrics with Pacemakers

A friend prepared the following door knocking guide for our church. Hope you find it interesting…

General Points to Remember

* being clear, confident but comfortable comes with practice.
* introduce yourself upfront.
* make the householder feel at ease in your introductory comments.
* let the householder talk about what they want to talk about if they have a burning issue.
* ask don’t tell.
* have material in your hand to leave with the householder at any point that they might need to leave.
* have a notepad and pen, because you never know what requests might come up.
* find exact words that suit you and the way you feel comfortable presenting.
* don’t dress up, but don’t look scruffy either.
* remember with the elderly or disabled to mention you can organise transport to church if they are interested in attending.
* guide younger people to check out the website (when explaining the brochure).

Knocking on doors ... it’s like a stream train. Only a small percentage (maybe less than 10% or one person in every street) are going to go to the last stop with you. The rest will get off at progressive stops along the way. Make sure that no matter what stop they get off on you have made a polite, confident and comfortable impact on them and have you given them the information brochure if they might like to privately explore further what the church and Christianity has to offer.

Station 1 - Knocking

(50-70% aren’t home)

* Knock twice, but don’t waste any more time than you have to if you don’t hear movement inside.
* Many people will not be home. Gently slip under the door the information brochure together with a calling-card to show that you’ve been around.

Station 2 - Introduction

(20-40% are too busy or not interested)

* In a relaxed but confident manner introduce yourself: “G’day, my name’s and I’m a member of the local Annandale Community Church around the corner/up the street ...”

Station 3 - Welcome to Church

(40-70% may find it difficult to talk about religion with a stranger)

* If they are not too busy with conference call / looking after a baby / food on the stove / etc then take the time to introduce them to the programmes being run by the church that are benefiting the local community: “… and I’m coming around the old-fashioned way, door-to-door, to see if there is any ways you think we can better help the Annandale community and to welcome you to the activities we’re already running that you might be interested in ...”
* at this point briefly go through with them the range of programmes on the brochure. Highlight that they might be interested in Introducing God or morning or evening church if they’re interested in investigating faith.

Station 4 - Discussion Faith

* Bridge the discussion about church to personal faith with: “I personally go to the local church because I’m a follower/believer/influenced by Jesus Christ, but I’m interested in ...”
* followed by something like: “what sort of things have influenced your spirituality/spiritual journey/spiritual thinking?” or “how would you describe your spirituality / spiritual journey / spiritual thinking?”
* Listen intently to their personal spiritual story and find an opportunity to briefly share your personal faith story (maybe at a point of similarity or difference with theirs).
* At this point allow the conversation to flow to the issues the householder wishes to talk about, but continue to guide the conversation with positive (not negative) directing questions.

FINALLY, AT ANY POINT WHERE THE HOUSEHOLDER INDICATES THEY WANT TO ‘ALIGHT FROM THE TRAIN’ ALWAYS PROVIDE THEM WITH THE INFORMATION BROCHURE AND POLITELY SAY SOMETHING LIKE:

“Sure that’s fine. If you have any more questions, comments or are interested in coming along to any of the programmes run by the church just give me a call anytime on my mobile. Its been a pleasure talking to you and I’m sure I’ll see you around Annandale shops sometime. Bye.”

You know - I think those who say door-knocking is dead are living in a dreamworld.

Over the last three weeks I have had the following people door-knock me.

1) A couple of nice ladies telling me about the new messiah - female - who has come.  Quoting from Genesis and Revelation.  They didn’t convince me.  Left muttering under their breath something about those who have eyes that don’t see, and ears the don’t hear.

2) A couple of beefy blokes from a baptist church out Campbelltown way.  I of course engaged them on the important issues - infant baptism, full immersion baptism, and how many angels fit on the end of a pin.  42 is the answer. 

3) My local greens council representative - wanted to discuss development of an area nearby (and I suspect an upcoming election).

4) A guy offering me 2 weeks free if I signed up to a “we’ll mail you DVDs” thingy.  He gave me a fridge magnet.

5) A french art student selling paintings he had painted.  Looked awesome to me.  Of course - I had no money, but appreciated the art-show.

6) A bloke from some “Green Energy” thing offering to replace my light globes with energy efficient ones.  Being cheap, I said yes.  Being cheap - I already had energy efficient globes - but he gave me new ones.  funky.

No Anglicans though. 

Never-the-less, they were all nice conversations.  All polite.  And all reasonable. All left when appropriate.

Door knocking is live and well - culturally relevant, and certainly all these people thought it worked.

Just thought I would share.

Mike

In cccold Bathurst, we get invariably friendly Jehovah’s Witnesses, polite people collecting for Red Cross and the Heart Foundation, rudish people trying to get us to change phone companies, neighbours kids selling stuff for their school, the occasional Mormons, and the next-door’s cleaner who got locked out of their house, where she left her car keys ...

I am expecting to see Tony [the current Jehovah’s Witness bloke] for the 4th time on Thursday. Still wondering if meeting with him is worthwhile, as he has counterarguments [usually very unconvincing] for every thing the Bible is saying [or so it seems to me].

But I keep telling him that we don’t cease to exist when we die. How could we if Christians have eternal life now?

I am always a bit hard on JWs when they come calling. They will offer to explain how Jesus is not God from my translation of the Bible, so I go and get a Greek New Testament and put it in their hands, explaining that my Greek is not particularly good but I would love some help.

After a bit I offer to pray and ask that the Lord Jesus would come in fiery judgement to cause all those who won’t acknowledge him as Lord and King to be hindered from their work and to fall under his curse, or to repent.

Then we chat about whatever Bible verse they still want to talk about.