# Door to Door Outreach



## scottmaciver (Nov 15, 2011)

Have any of you been involved in door to door outreach for your congregation? 

I would be interested to hear your thoughts as to the value or otherwise of such outreach. I would also be keen to hear how you went about it, the purpose if it and the results of the outreach, at least as far as you are aware


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## Pergamum (Nov 15, 2011)

I don't value it much in the West. 

I think many other ways to reach out might be better than this one at this time in the West.


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## Josh Williamson (Nov 15, 2011)

I've been involved in door to door evangelism in Australia and England. In both countries we saw great success. I've done this form of evangelism about four different ways, and I guess you can't really have one set method for door to door. The three ways I've engaged are:

1) Church Pack - What I mean by this is, that we made up a zip-lock bag with church details, a gospel of John, a tract etc. And then went door to door telling people we are from the local church and how we just wanted to give them some details. The majority of people I found received the pack, and we had a few great follow-ups as a result of this ministry. 

2) Survey - I made up a survey form and went door to door asking people about their religious beliefs, and then asked a few spiritual questions. This was done to get a feel for the religious make up of the community. During the survey I'd ask something like, "Are you familiar with the Christian message?" Most people said "yes", which then led to a few more questions about the gospel and then I worked at presenting the gospel to them. After this, I'd leave them with a tract and church details. Also, the final question I'd ask was "Would you be interested in learning more about Christianity?" A good number of people said "yes", so I collected their contact details, then went back and had one on one evangelistic bible studies with them. Out of this a few people started attending the church. 

3) Magazine / Booklet distribution - What I'd do is go door to door with an interesting gospel focused Christian magazine or newspaper. I'd tell the person what it was about, then ask if they'd like a copy. Most people say yes. In the magazine / newspaper I'd have a card with all the church details on it, and a form that people could send to us if they'd like to learn more. As a result we've had a few people contact us. 

4) Christmas Outreach - Each year the church I was attending would put on a Christmas carol event. What I'd do was make up a pack with the church details, a gospel tract, some candy canes, and a Gospel of John, and then go door to door telling people of the event. Probably 95% of people took the pack and many of them showed up at the carols (where the gospel was preached). 

__

Door to door witnessing is a hard, long, and slow outreach, but I think you can make some very good connections via it.


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## Rufus (Nov 15, 2011)

Reasons against it could be 1) People like there privacy and 2) Everybody (maybe not in Scotland) will think your a Jehovah's Witness. I don't think its necessarily bad though, it could actually be beneficial to the community.


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## Bill The Baptist (Nov 16, 2011)

It doesn't really work here in the southern U.S. because 99% of people claim they are already a Christian


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## scottmaciver (Nov 16, 2011)

Thanks for that response Josh. I was interested to hear of these experiences in door to door evangelism. Does anyone have any others, good or bad?

Pergamum what other ways of outreach are you referring to?

Our minister preached a sermon last Lord's Day on John 15:16 Go and Bear Fruit - SermonAudio.com where he referred to the growth of the Church. He said we are not to grow artificially and give the people what they want to hear to get them in the door. So as far as church growth goes, we would want to avoid man centred pragmatism at all costs. 

Yet there are folk on our own door step who don't darken the door of a church from one end of the year to the next and the concern is to reach them with the Gospel. How do we do that, bearing in mind our concern to avoid artificial growth?


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## Zach (Nov 16, 2011)

I've done some survey style Evangelism, not door to door but similar, and I think it can be effective if you find the right balance between asking their views on things and trying to share the message of the gospel. If you come on too "pushy" with the gospel most of them will certainly back off their willingness to open up and be receptive. If you never bring it up at all you're kind of wasting your time, and like Scott said in the above, the last thing you want to do is water down the gospel just to get people in the door.


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## Todd King (Nov 16, 2011)

I've done it here in southwest Colorado. If no one was home, we would leave a tract that had church information stamped on it. If they were home, then we would share with them the gospel, about our church, etc. We even tried the survey style once, but we didn't like it. In a heavily mormon community, we had to assure everyone that we were not mormon- which should have been obvious by our dress and ages- and had some ask if we were JW. We even knocked on the door of some JW's who were surprised to see us, and were actually glad that someone from another faith cared enough to be out knocking on doors. They were not, however, receptive to the gospel. For that matter, nobody else seemed to be either- we never had one appear at our church as a result of it.


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## CharlieJ (Nov 16, 2011)

I was raised in a door-to-door church and did that just about every week since I was 12 years old. I even taught a church class in it when I was in college. I don't do it anymore. Here are my thoughts:

1. Surveys: Bad. You're lying to people. Unless you're taking a representative sample, then collating and publishing your results, it's not a survey. It's just a series of leading questions to trick people into talking about what you want to talk about. 

2. Church packs: Good. I don't know how many truly unchurched people this will reach, but it certainly seems to make an impression on lapsed or cultural Christians. Face-to-face contact with a caring person will stick in someone's mind and provide a platform for future interaction. I like it when there is something non-religious in the church pack that potentially anyone would appreciate. It shows that you care about people whether or not they end up joining your church.

3. Invitations to special events: Good. My church is putting on Handel's Messiah over three Sunday nights, along with gospel messages. That would attract people, leave a positive impression, and perhaps result in some conversions.

4. Straight-up evangelism: Mostly bad. It's hard to say that giving out the gospel is wrong, but I just don't think that walking up to a stranger and forcing them to have a spiritual conversation is the way to go about it. I did this a lot when I was young, and looking back, I can tell that people were trying to get rid of me. Also, churches that operate this way tend to have a bad reputation in their community.


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## gordo (Nov 16, 2011)

Not something I would really be into. There is such a stigma in my area that anyone that comes to your door is either selling something, a JW or a Mormon. As soon as you see someone at your door you are immediately thinking "what now?"

Secondly, and I may be in the wrong, but when I hear my doorbell ring I am always thinking what I said above. "What now?!" I wouldn't want to become that what annoys me.

Not saying I am right, just my view on it. I suppose if you were just handing out a tract people might be impressed you didn't throw a pitch at them.


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## Pergamum (Nov 16, 2011)

CharlieJ said:


> I was raised in a door-to-door church and did that just about every week since I was 12 years old. I even taught a church class in it when I was in college. I don't do it anymore. Here are my thoughts:
> 
> 1. Surveys: Bad. You're lying to people. Unless you're taking a representative sample, then collating and publishing your results, it's not a survey. It's just a series of leading questions to trick people into talking about what you want to talk about.
> 
> ...




Amen to this comment:




> Surveys: Bad. You're lying to people. Unless you're taking a representative sample, then collating and publishing your results, it's not a survey. It's just a series of leading questions to trick people into talking about what you want to talk about.



It seems like Christians can be the sneakiest people when they are trying to slip Jesus into something seemingly seemingly unrelated. I think it helps cultivate a deep distrust of church groups when people are suckered into a presentation or bait-and-switched into a Gospel presentation.


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## J. Dean (Nov 16, 2011)

Door-to-door isn't necessarily bad, but to be honest I put more value on bearing witness before coworkers, friends, and relatives that see you on a more regular basis.


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## jambo (Nov 16, 2011)

I have been engaged in a lot of door to door evangelism in Edinburgh, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. I have found it a tremendous opportunity as you can visit every single house in an area or a town and talk to all. It is a big unknown as well as you really do not know the results of sowing the seed and I trust that much of the sowing lands on the good soil that yields a hundredfold what was sown. There is the opportunity for follow up and starting ongoing discussions and on a number of occasions this has led onto holding bible studies have started on a 1:1 basis or even with the person and some family and friends as well. Indeed there are numerous instances in the Irish Republic of such meetings developing eventually into new churches. The drawback is that people often confuse you with the JWs but a brief opening introduction dispels this. 

My approach was to carry NTs and today I was going round the area encouraging folk to read the bible. If the person did not have a bible I would offer them a free NT and depending on the interest I would decide whether the visit was worth following up or not. On average I gave away between 3-5 NTs each time. 

Having said all this, it is a hard work plodding on and there is a lot of people who just are not interested, but I always enjoyed it. It should also be said the majority of my door knocking was in the Irish Republic with towns 95%+ of the population being RC but was always well received. I have found the response amongst the Protestant community of Northern Ireland to be much harder, abusive and resentful of any such work.


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## Bill The Baptist (Nov 16, 2011)

J. Dean said:


> Door-to-door isn't necessarily bad, but to be honest I put more value on bearing witness before coworkers, friends, and relatives that see you on a more regular basis.


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## Pergamum (Nov 17, 2011)

scottmaciver said:


> Thanks for that response Josh. I was interested to hear of these experiences in door to door evangelism. Does anyone have any others, good or bad?
> 
> Pergamum what other ways of outreach are you referring to?
> 
> ...






> Pergamum what other ways of outreach are you referring to?



Great question...give me a day and I can list some things. Maybe some others will beat me to it.


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