Door to door

Candidates weekend was great! There were 75 potential candidates/cadets there and there are some very good officers that will emerge in the next few years! The weekend was lots of fun meeting up with people from all over Australia! The Turners did a great job and the commissioners came down and spoke and they were both great!

But my favorite part of the weekend was going house to house door knocking. The idea was to promote the local corps. Heres a few thoughts on it...

Its terrible how many people did it and came back saying they had never done that before without asking for money. How crazy is that? Where do people live? In their homes. So where should we be trying to get them saved? It seems obvious to me that we should go to homes, thats where sinners live. It may be a surprise to some people but sinners dont go to church! (well some do...lol) So how are they going to get saved unless we go to them?

It made me angry, disappointed and filled me with a passion for souls because out of the 75+ doing the door knocking there was only a handful preaching the gospel. Others were just trying to get people to a program or a meeting. I had the privilege of leading a young man to Christ so it can be done because it happened. Praise God for his salvation!

BUT what sort of Salvation Army are we when our candidates, future leading officers don't preach the gospel? Heres a line from a Major, (it went along a bit like this...) "You can say you preach with your life, but be like Jesus! Even Jesus spoke! Use your words!"

Heres a great positive though. The experience made people think and challenged them to do more of this sort of stuff. Heaps of people came back really excited that people accepted them, welcomed them and opened up in conversation with them. So, although the gospel wasn't preached as much as it could have been, their were shadows of the gospel as people shared stories, had compassion, loved people and prayed with them. If only we could see that Jesus is the answer to their problems!

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This morning I read some more of a book by Catherine Booth and it just so happens it was on a chapter called, "Compel them to come in." The whole chapter is about door to door evangelism.

"Dear reader, here is a sphere for you! You have long wished to do something for your 'blessed , blessed master.' Here is work, boundless in extent, and momentous beyond an angels power to conceive. For it, you need no human ordination, no long and tedious preparation, no high flown language, no towering eloquence, all you want is the full baptism in the Holy Spirit on your heart, the Bible in your hand, and humility and simplicity of manner. Thus equipped you will be mighty through God to pulling down strongholds. You will find your way to many a heart long since abandoned by hope and given up in despair, and in the great day of account you shall have many a sheaf as the result of your labor, and the the reward of your self denial."