Why is the Big Picture so Successful?

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. This is so wonderful to see so many people mingling and visiting and getting ready to be here for our uh evangelism workshop on the big picture of the Bible with Brother Brent Hunter. Brother Brent Hunter comes to us from the Tampa, Florida area, and he has been preaching the gospel for many, many years and also specializes in marriage counseling, family matters, and also sharing the big story of the Bible, the gospel message with people all around the country. He is a wonderful preacher and teacher. I’ve listened to him speak a number of times in various venues in church buildings and also in uh lecture halls around the nation. We’re very glad and grateful to have Brent Hunter with us. And uh we’re going to begin in just a moment.

I’m going to hand out a few uh workbooks. And if we can take these workbooks, as I will call Aquila and Priscilla style. Take them if there’s a couple, keep them together, maybe one workbook per family. If you do need more, they’re easy to be printed more. And we have the Big Picture of the Bible book. We’ve got about a handful of them here with us this morning, and there should be about 20 more being shipped to my house right in currently right now that we’ll have tomorrow. And so if you’ll if you want a copy of the Big Picture of the Bible, if you’ll sign up with me after the sessions or in between the sessions, I have a sign up sheet where you can get a copy of those.

And also a number of you may have the book already. I saw uh Kimberly and Wally have a copy of the book already, so you may already be studying the material, which is great. So without further ado, we’re going to ask uh one of our dear elders and shepherds, brother Ralph Klein, if he will direct our minds in prayer. And following that prayer, we’ll give the uh time to our dear brother, Brother Brent Hunter. Please pray with me.

Our dear Father in heaven, we once again come humbly before you to offer our praise, to offer our thanksgiving for all that you do for us, for the blessings we have even as we begin this new day. We praise you as the true and the living God. We thank you, Father, for your word that has been revealed to us that leads us to salvation and eternal life. We’re thankful, especially, Father, for your precious Son Jesus, who you sent to be our Savior, to be our redeemer from the bonds of sin. Father, as we begin this special study, we just pray that you’ll be with uh Brother Hunter. Help him, give him recollection of the things that he has prepared, the thoughts that he is shared prepared to share with us from your word.

Father, we pray that we will drink deeply of these things, that we will meditate upon these things, that we will glean from the workshops today and the lessons tomorrow. That you will help us to be more evangelistic in our individual lives, that you will help us always, Father, to hunger for and to seek an understanding of your word so that we can share it with others. We know, Father, this is a charge you have given to us to go into the world and preach the gospel to all men. Help us, Father, to take that seriously. Help us to recognize that we all have responsibilities to do such. Father, continue to guide us in our Christian lives and our Christian walks. We know there are many distractions out there.

We know there are temptations. Help us, Father, to stay strong, to stay rooted and grounded in your word and in your ways. And Father, please forgive us when we stumble. Once again, we just ask your blessings upon us as we begin the this workshop. And we ask, Father, that you’ll again guide us in all parts of our lives and above all forgive us of our sins. We give thanks, we praise you, and we ask all in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you, Brother Ralph. So glad you all are here. Got lots of material and not a lot of time, so I’m gonna jump right into it here. As you know, we’ve been looking, we’re gonna be looking this weekend at how to use Tim Craig’s. Whoops, this says low battery. Uh it’s giving me an error message. Can you plug in?

Your mic is not on. Uh green lights on.

Move the mic up. Move the mic way up. Is that better?

Oh no, no. I didn’t name the mic to staff. This is giving me a little better. Probably just needs to be plugged in here. We good? Great. Thank you. You know, I love the new technology, but uh early church didn’t have these issues, right? Imagine Paul going into the synagogue and having to worry about the PowerPoint working and the battery being charged. But anyway, we’re going to look at how to use the big picture of the Bible effectively in evangelism. And I think a good place for us to begin is just simply why has it been so successful? And why did I about 15 years ago shift over completely my approach? And I want to encourage you all to consider doing the same if uh you’re not familiar with this particular one lesson approach.

I think it’s always helpful for us to begin with a little bit of a maybe a genesis of the big picture. Um this is the book or the booklet that uh was published in 2009, sold over a hundred thousand copies. It’s uh kind of swept the globe. It’s seven different languages that it’s been uh translated into, and it’s especially had a very, very positive impact evangelistically. The author is Brother Ken Craig, who is a good friend of mine. You can see a picture of Ken right there. Um is really not a preacher. He is a businessman. He is an elder in the Lord’s Church in Helena, Alabama, near the Birmingham area. Um I knew him way back when back at Florida College. We were classmates. And this is his first and only book.

And uh I want to tell you a little bit about the uh origin of this. This is Ken’s favorite picture. This is a picture of him teaching the gospel in uh Tanzania. And uh you’ll notice the lady in the center, she’s very intently listening to Ken teach the gospel through this medium, through this big picture of the Bible. And she’s Muslim as well as everyone in this village in Tanzania. And she’d never heard the gospel before. Remember, in a lot of these Islamic countries, it’s illegal to try to proselyte and to share the gospel. And so he just went back into the, you know, boonie, so to speak, in Tanzania and went to all these different villages. And here he only had an audience of like four.

But they were very receptive. And Hashnah, who is the lady here in the center, that’s a Muslim name. She was so moved by the gospel, never heard it before, that she said, Yes, I want to become a Christian. I want to die with Christ. And so he baptized her into Christ. She came up out of the water grave of baptism and said, I don’t want to be named Hashna anymore. That’s a Muslim name. I want to do something that honors Jesus. And so right then she began telling everyone and call me Maria, and she actually had her name legally changed to Maria because that was the mother of Jesus. That’s a neat story. You know, when I think about talking to somebody who’s uh from an Islamic background, you know, I would think I’d need to talk about the Koran versus the Bible and Jesus versus Mohammed and you know, do all this background information.

And Ken says, no, just teach them the gospel. And that in and of itself, oftentimes is all they need to be convinced. Which leads me to uh the real genesis of the big picture. Back in 2005, Ken was studying the scheme of redemption with his high school class. And he was working on this and teaching, you know, about 10 or 12 of the teens there at Helena. So he really had this on his heart and on his mind. And this is really the beginning of this presentation that we know is the big picture of the Bible was him putting together this class material for a high school class. Anyway, and so he was at a business gathering, and he started talking to an evangelical couple there that was uh hosting the gathering, and you know, a bunch of people sort of gathered around, and uh the the host said, Why don’t you just ask anybody who’d like to hear more about this discussion uh after we’re we’re done with the dinner party?

And so he made an announcement that after we’re done, I think they got done about 10:30. Any of you who’d like to stay, I can present in like one hour the big picture of the Bible. And he didn’t have anything written, he just had it in his head, and without notes, he went ahead and presented this to the four takers. There was this evangelical couple, uh, an older teenager and a young single guy who said he was agnostic, but he was curious to hear about the gospel, and so he presented this to them across the kitchen table. And uh when he got to the end, they were obviously all moved by the gospel presentation, and they all said they wanted to die with Christ in baptism.

And Ken was rather shocked. He said, Wait a minute, I thought you said you were an agnostic. And he said, Well, I was an agnostic, but I’m not anymore. And he said, Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is true? And he said, Yes, sir, now I do. He said, This really makes sense to me. It has to be true. And so Ken went out in the backyard and baptized four of them into Christ at about midnight. Isn’t that a great story? And Ken told me that as he was driving home that night, he said, you know, I used to try to start to talk to people about the one true church and about the Bible and authority. I realized instead of trying to bring people to Christ through the church, what I needed to do was to bring people to the church through Christ, that I needed to start with Jesus and the gospel and this basic scheme of redemption lesson that he put together.

And so with the encouragement of me and many other people, he finally put this together in 2009 in the booklet that you have before you.

And in the um 80s, 90s, I had some good success with that. But as people became busier and busier, and as they became less comfortable making long-term commitments, I found it almost impossible to get somebody to agree to sit down with me for six Tuesday nights in a row. And I was rather frustrated. So I was looking for something that might be more practical in our busy 2000s plus age in which we live. And I think that’s one of the reasons why this presentation is proven to be so successful, it’s not that difficult to get people to agree to a one-hour presentation. Even if they’re just curious, they’re willing to sit down and listen to the big picture of the Bible. There was a fellow I know who was doing uh evangelistic work in the prisons Monday through Thursday.

It’s been over about 32 hours a week in the prisons, sharing a traditional five, six-lesson approach with these folks. And he had a captive audience, obviously, and uh so he didn’t have any trouble getting people interested and being willing to listen. And at the end of all that effort, he typically would have three or four conversions in a given year. And then he started um saying, Well, let me try something different. So he took the PowerPoint files that I’ll be sharing with you on Sunday morning, and he started using that. And uh he was able to talk to five times more people because he’s only doing a one-lesson approach instead of trying to study with them five lessons in a row. And uh he said it was like turning the light switch on.

He went from three or four to seventy-five people that responded to the gospel in his first year. There’s another friend of mine who was a preacher in a small little town in Chillicothe, Ohio. He started a little church there with about 15 people in his home. He went around the community and just said, Can I have an hour of your time to share my faith with you? And he had these PowerPoint files that I’m going to be going over with you Sunday morning. And he’s very personable and he got a lot of yeses and just converted hundreds of people. And it’s a church now there sits over 200, seats over 200 people, and within five or six years they had a building. It was just amazing.

And the thing I loved about it is very few, if any of those people in that church were move-ins. These were conversions. These were people coming out of darkness into light.

1. See Yourself as a Soul Winner

And that’s exactly right. The question is, what are the first steps we need to take? Now, what I’d like to do is first talk about some of the first steps we need to take, give you some testimonials, and then in this end of part one, I want to talk about a little bit more about why this is proven to be such an effective tool. Now, we can have a whole sermon on each one of these main steps, and maybe J.R. and Sean can consider preaching on some of these topics after I leave to kind of follow up this evangelistic push. But let me say first and foremost, the first thing you need to do, if you’re going to be effective in this work, is you really need to see yourself as a soul winner.

If you look in your material on the very back page, it says the portrait of a soul winner. And I really love this. And let me start by reading this to you. Their ears are open to the cries for help from a lost and dying world. Their eyes are ever searching for a receptive heart in which to plant the word of God. Their lips are always ready and willing to proclaim the glory of God. Their hands are always turning the pages of God’s holy word, seeking his will for them. Their feet are on the move to carry out the words of Christ to preach the gospel to every creature. Their hearts are beating and breaking with urgency to reach the lost before it is too late.

Their heads are bowed in a prayer to the Father in heaven to give them wisdom to carry out the mission. Their faces glow with the hope that is in them. Their lives are like the light of the city set upon a hill that cannot be hid. They are the light of the world. In Christ they live and move and have their very being.

You know, I was at the Kirkland Church for about 10 years, and there was a gentleman there, Chase Miller, brought a friend of his from work. He was in his early 20s to our worship assembly. And I started talking with Chase about some things he might do to try to shift the conversation over and to help teach his friend the gospel. He goes, What? You expect me to do the teaching? That’s your job. I said, No, he’s your friend. He’s your responsibility, much more so than mine. And he just kind of seemed surprised. And I thought to myself, wow, no wonder so many churches aren’t growing when they act like it’s just the preacher’s job to teach the lost. Listen, a preacher needs to be a good example of evangelism.

If he’s not a good example and interested in the souls of others in that way, then the church typically is not going to be either. But I can’t do your praying for you. I can’t do your worshiping for you. I can’t partake of the Lord’s Supper for you by proxy. And I can’t do your soul winning and your teaching for you either. We all have people that God has put into our lives, and they’ll talk to you and listen to you because you’re their friend, you’re their neighbor, you’re their co-worker. They’ll listen to you and they’ll be intimidated by, quote, a preacher. You know, being a preacher opens up some doors, but it closes a lot of others. Because it’s such a strong label, and they kind of feel intimidated.

But they’re not intimidated by their neighbor. So God’s plan is for a ministry of all believers. We’re all a part of a royal priesthood, right? That’s men and women who do what priests did in the Old Testament. They studied the law and then they taught the people. That’s what the priest did. And we’re supposed to study God’s word to be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling the right the word of truth. Then we’re blessing people with the gospel so they can be saved. That’s the plan. And so everybody comes a time when they know enough that they ought to be a teacher. So you need to see yourself as a soul winner. And I don’t know why, but brethren have not done a very good job, it seems to me, in the discipleship process of sticking with someone long enough until they are comfortable to duplicate themselves.

2. Have Assurance of Your Salvation

Evangelism is not complete until the evangelized become the evangelist. Everybody needs to be interested and involved in doing their part. And this the most important work of all, increasing the population of heaven. So we could talk more about this, but everybody needs to see themselves as a soul winner. And secondly, everybody needs to have assurance of their salvation. I am absolutely amazed how many times I talk to people. If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven? How many Christians, faithful Christians, are not sure. Well, maybe, or I hope so. How pitiful is that? This isn’t something that we ought to wonder about. These things are written that you might know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5 and verse 13. You’re supposed to know it.

And when you have that joy in your heart, and you know you’re heaven-bound, you just naturally want to share it. And so I’m convinced that sometimes the reason why people are not evangelistic, Christians, is because they’re not sure they’re saved themselves, not deep down. I mean, you can’t sell a product if you’re not sold on it, folks. And so, first and foremost, we have to have joy in our hearts about where we’re headed. I love to tell people that the gospel is sins forgiven, purpose for living, hope for heaven. That sounds like good news to me. People say, where are you going? I’m going to heaven. Where are you going? Well, well, I meant where you’re going now. Oh, I’m going to run some errands now, but that’s only a pit stop on the way to heaven.

I mean, there are so many different ways that you can present that mindset to other people as you talk with them and you meet them. And this joy just ought to be something that just sort of bubbles out of us as we are filled with zeal for the Lord and joy in our hearts of what Jesus means to us and where we’re headed. So I’ve got a lesson I sometimes do called blessed assurance. And, you know, I know some of your very capable preachers here could talk about that and make sure that people here at South Bumby have obeyed the gospel and they’re in Christ. And Romans 8 and verse 1 says, for those that are in Christ, there’s no condemnation, right? So that’s you, there’s no condemnation.

3. Get the Proper Tools and Training

You have to believe in your heart that you’re saved to be an effective soul winner. And thirdly, you have to get the proper tools and training. Again, brethren are pretty good at having men’s training classes where they teach the men to come together and to learn how to be more effective and making announcements and waiting on the Lord’s table and giving short talks. I’m in favor of that. That’s all well and good. More and more brethren have been having singing schools, and uh those are very helpful and edifying. But very rarely do we have time dedicated to what we’re doing today, and that is fencing lands and how to wield the sword of the spirit effectively. Very rarely do we teach people and provide for them tools and training as to how they can be more effective soul winners.

You know, before, you know, we got involved in World War II, everybody signed up for the draft is gonna go and you know get those Nazis and those Japs, right? But before they were out on the front line, they had to go to boot camp where they were given their weapons and taught how to use them and taught how to be effective out on the battlefield. You don’t just put somebody out on the front lines without giving them training first. Same thing is true when we send people out in the world, which is the field that we’re supposed to cultivate and look, lift up our eyes and look into the fields for their white unto the harvest. So I’m convinced that uncertainty often leads to fear, and fear people not to do anything.

And in a typical congregation, 95% of the members will tell you in a given year they have not shared their faith, not even once. That’s kind of the norm. Well, no wonder we’re not bringing in the sheaves and having a great harvest if we’re not planting a lot of seeds in the ground, which is what we need to do to have results, right? So we’ve got to make sure we provide the proper tools and training. And I want to, you know, commend the elders here for their desire to talk about these things practically and to provide the members with the tools they need to not feel so uncertain. We need to think before we act, and we need to think about what works best in the 21st century.

You don’t change the message. The message can never be changed. But the methods certainly must be changed to meet the times and the culture. And you know, you’re wise to have invested a lot of effort in a good website that is attractive because so many people today will first, before they visit, they’ll check out the website. And if they don’t like what they see, they won’t come. So you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. There’s a lot of things I could say about that, but we don’t have time. But I will say this. If we want to go beyond where we have been, we must be willing to do things differently than we’ve done in the past. And what I’m talking about there is just expediencies.

And in my judgment, having a one lesson approach that a good percentage of the members learn that they can share with others, is what you need to have available in the 21st century if you’re gonna, you know, talk to as many people as possible and sow the seed among the lost in a way that is impactful. And once you kind of get a taste of it, it’s just you’ll never be the same. When I first really started learning the big picture and working with Ken Craig on this, uh, I had moved to uh a congregation in San Diego in El Cahome. It’s where Barry Kirchhoffille preached for 17 years. Some of you may know the Kirchavilles. But at any rate, so I started sharing this, and I had 13 yeses in a row.

I had never had that experience in my entire life. Now, a lot of them were low-hanging fruit. They had had some problems, and the preacher there before had left under unfortunate circumstances, and people weren’t following up on their visitors. And so there were a lot of people that were visiting that were interested that I could start following up on.

His name was Barry Smith, and I said, Can I share the big picture of the Bible with you? You’ve been visiting with us for a while, and I’d like to share something with you in one hour or less. And he goes, Sure, come on by. So I shared it with him, and I said, So would you like to die with Christ? And he says, No, I don’t think so. And I what? Are you sure? I mean, I went from sort of being pleasantly surprised when people said yes to sort of being surprised that somebody said no. That was just an amazing paradigm shift for me. And by the way, about two years later, I got word that Barry Smith thought about it all this time and eventually became a Christian.

So you might say I had 14 yeses in a row, but some of them were delayed. And that’s the way the seed lays upon people’s heart. That’s the way things work. But you know, I’ve never had anything near that kind of positive stretch since. But it doesn’t matter. I mean, I see the potential that’s out there. Don’t think people aren’t interested. They are, they just have to be approached in the right way. And we’ve got to figure out some way to approach people that is not offensive to the prospect and not really that uncomfortable for you. And so that’s what we’re going to be dealing with today. You need to think big, you need to believe big, you need to act big, and the results will be big.

I read the book of Acts and I see all these people constantly being baptized, the church just growing exponentially, and I say, that’s the church I want to restore. That’s the church I want to be a part of, don’t you? Now the church was bold, and some people got mad and some people got glad. There wasn’t any question what the truth was. And people were willing to go out and boldly and consistently and in love, share it, and then they taught people to take what they had learned and then share it with others, who share it with others, who share it with others. That’s what we need to restore, folks. That’s the way the church is really going to grow. And what an exciting thing it is to be a part of a church that’s having just an evangelistic culture and where you’ve got a big percentage of the people working together to save souls.

Years ago, when I was in San Diego, one of our members, he had a girlfriend, Chrissy Bottomly, and he was trying to talk to her about the gospel. And we had a little small group meeting at my house where I was going through this and trying to train people in the big picture of the Bible, just getting started in this method. And I said, Yeah, bring your bring your girlfriend. And so we had about seven or eight people around the table, and Chrissy sat there. I got her salvation experience. We talked. I shared this with her in about 55 minutes. And afterwards it was just like the light bulb went on. It’s amazing how many times people will stop in the middle of the big picture presentation and just wow, this is amazing.

So many people have never really heard the true gospel. I think the problem is you and I have kind of grown up with it. And so if it’s not careful over time, it kind of becomes stale, kind of trite. But there’s people out there, man, that they connect the dots, and suddenly they realize why Jesus had to die and the love and grace that He’s bestowed upon us and how we need to respond to that appropriately, and how that can just change our future in eternity. And people just there’s this aha experience. Well, that’s what happened to Chrissy. She says, it only took 55 minutes, and my whole purpose in life was changed forever. The big picture is truly genius. I personally had little Bible knowledge, but I desired to know more about coming to Christ and what the Holy Bible is really all about.

Wanted to understand it, know it, and apply it to my life. When I opened the Bible, I was often confused by the language and misunderstood what the message were telling me. Sound familiar? However, the big picture explained all the key main points of what the truth is. I’m living proof that when you keep things simple, short, and sweet, like the big picture, the message that is taught to you is going to have an everlasting impact upon you. I’m truly grateful to the big picture message. I didn’t think I could ever hear about the Bible’s truth in such an incredible way. So we all left, went down to the building. We had this text message system where we would text folks because once you start doing this, you start baptizing people at all hours, and then everybody meets down at the building if they’re able to drop what they’re doing, and we had about 20 people there, I think.

And it was just an exciting way to introduce her into the kingdom of heaven. Listen, beloved, everybody deserves the opportunity to either accept or reject the gospel. Don’t you think? 1 Timothy 2 and verse 4. God, our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. And a second corollary to that, if you think of yourself as a part of the priesthood of all believers, is every Christian should be able to explain the gospel. I mean, you all have been saved. Can you start there? What did you do to become a Christian? And what is the source of your confidence and joy? Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

Listen, obviously, Christ did not convert everyone, but he reached out to everyone that he could. The problem is not with the harvest. The problem is with the laborers. And that’s what we want to do this weekend. We want to increase the confidence in really good-hearted people to help them to know what to do so you can be more successful, saving souls in Orlando, Florida. I’m convinced the problem with most people is not motives. I think when we sing the song I want to be a soul winner for Jesus, I think brethren mean it. The problem isn’t motives, but frankly, the problem is motivation for most of us. And the problem then isn’t want to, but know how. And so now we’re back to having kind of training classes.

4. Five Stages of Evangelistic Maturity

Talk to people that have been successful at this and help them to train others so they can be successful as well. Because the harvest is plenteous. Pray ye therefore that the Lord of harvests will send forth laborers into the field. That’s what Jesus told his disciples in the first century, and we ought to be praying that prayer even today. Archimedes was a Greek philosopher, scientist. He said, Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. Isn’t that an amazing statement? And it’s amazing what a difference the proper tool and approach can make in evangelism. Okay, now let’s back up just for a minute. Before you can figure out kind of where you need to go, maybe you need to first assess where you’re currently at.

And so I call this five stages of evangelistic maturity. The first, I’ll just simply call avoidance. And this is where somebody really never shares the gospel with anybody. It’s just not a part of who they are. They’re scared to death. Their attitude is let others do it, or let the preacher do it, right? If the subject comes up, they they sort of retreat, they’re unprepared and unwilling to share the gospel, and they often have the attitude that’s what my money is for. Avoidance. Isn’t that pitiful? Then the second stage is I call this reluctance. This is where you occasionally will discuss religion with someone, and if they bring it up, you certainly aren’t going to not try to say something. Usually only when backed into a corner, however, you don’t feel that prepared, and you kind of have the attitude, that’s what my preacher or preachers are for.

And then there’s the person that’s equipped. Occasionally will share the gospel with someone, and they’ve had classes on this, but they tend to need a church program or a push. They’ve spent some time in preparation, they prefer to assist someone else, and they’re still really afraid of rejection. Now, Lord willing, I’m going to come back on February 8th, and the Sunday morning sermon is going to be how to overcome the fear of rejection. Because that’s the key that most people need to kind of get their arms around to be equipped and empowered, not to let fear cause them not to apply some of these principles. Then the fourth is confidence, ready, willing, and able to share the gospel with anyone, will go for it when the opportunity presents itself.

They spend significant time in preparing, they’re comfortable with the message, but the truth were known, they lack zeal, and they’re kind of guilt motivated. You know, over the decades, back in the 80s, I wrote this book about evangelism, and used to go around the country and I’d have weekends similar to this. This is before I learned about the big picture. And I came in to have a weekend on evangelism for a church up in Ohio, and I walk in the door that first Friday night, and a lady says, Oh, Brother Hunter, I’ve been dreading your coming. I said, Thanks. I love you too. And she goes, Well, it’s nothing personal. It’s just, I’m just, I don’t know, it just kind of came out. She said, people come in and they talk about evangelism and they don’t tell me how to do it, and I made to feel guilty, and then I go out and I try to do it, and I mess up and I feel bad, and I let I kind of get over it until someone like you comes along to make me feel bad again.

I said, Wow, I appreciate your candor and your honesty, but I’m not here just to make somebody feel bad. I’m here to give you the tools. I’m here to give you the motivation so everybody can work together. And you can have a congregation here that has a culture of evangelism. That’s what I’m looking for. Listen, programs don’t work. 95% of programs start off with a bang, and then by the end of the year, things fizzle and they go back to quote business as usual. This isn’t some program. This is a part of who we are. We’re a part of the redeemed, and we’re very serious about trying to reach out and save the souls all around us. The Lord’s Supper is not a program. It’s who we are.

It’s what we do every Sunday as Christians. And we need to see soul winning as not a program, but who we are as a part of a royal priesthood. It’s what we’re supposed to do when we’re following Jesus. We’re fishers of men. And we’re serious about making this a very important priority in our life. And then you’ve got stage five. This is the committed, where you actively pursue sharing the gospel with anyone, anytime, anywhere. You passionately are consumed with the mission to sow the seed. You seek opportunities to share. You’re constantly asking God to send you seekers. And you encourage and try to help others. And here’s the key you’re joy motivated. I have shared the big picture of the Bible, I don’t know, probably over a thousand times.

Never get tired of sharing it. A little different each time you kind of tweak it. But someone’s soul is on the line, somebody I really care about that I want to see go to heaven. And yes, let’s get together and let’s take an hour of our time and let’s talk about the saving gospel. That’s where the power is.

You know what I hope and pray that you will have is that shortly after I leave, I hope a number of you will look for opportunities and have some early successes. And then when people start seeing other souls saved and becoming vibrant members of the local church, that’s where people who were skeptical suddenly, hey, this does work, you know. And where things can really be turned around. When I first went up to Kirkland, the church had kind of plateaued and declined for the last 15 years. They were discouraged and kind of down. And they were going to sell their building because it was too big and they couldn’t pay for it, and they didn’t need one that big anymore. And I said, no, no, no, no, don’t sell the building, please.

Let’s fill it up. And they go, well, that’s easy for you to say. And so I went up there on some trips before I became their evangelist and was able to do seven big picture presentations with folks that I met, and four of the seven became Christians. These were all people from the community, not members, kids. And so suddenly the elders and other people thought, hey, we can grow. This does work. And they canceled the contract and they kept the building, and in the next ten years or so, the Lord helped us fill that thing way up to the brim. That was an exciting thing to be a part of. And a lot of it had to do with just giving people the tools they needed and the confidence they needed to understand that even in the Pacific Northwest, churches can grow.

You have to work a little harder, but they can grow. Here’s a 64-year-old lady, she’s a deacon’s wife, or was a deacon’s wife there. This is what she wrote after she learned the big picture. She says, it was simple and started exactly where I have started when I teach the young children’s classes. I was amazed at the simplicity yet conciseness of presenting God’s plan of salvation. There is a lot of material to cover, but manageable with study and practice. The affirming power of my own faith each time I go through the presentation is indescribable. I came to a much deeper understanding of the price of sin, the meaning and purpose of the animal blood sacrifices. More importantly, the sacrifice Christ made for us and why baptism is more important.

More importantly, this gives me a tool to set myself aside and simply present the gospel of our Lord God to anyone who was willing. It freed me from feeling responsible for converting anyone and allowed the Lord to simply use me as a tool to plant seed. In that respect, it took much of the apprehension out of sharing the good news. Here’s somebody I grew up with in Southern California as a kid. Her name is Kathy Adams. And uh little over ten years ago, I had an opportunity to go and work with her at the West Ventura Church of Christ where they were members. She says, My experience with the big picture of the teaching tool began in April of 2013. The big picture presentation, the flip chart, the business cards, and Kim Craig’s booklet were all made available.

I found this method of reaching the lost was understandable and relatively easy to learn. For years I’ve tried to invite friends, neighbors, coworkers to hear the gospel at a church service or attend a home Bible study with little success. But I learned the big picture presentation and was eager to share it. I presented the PowerPoint slideshow from my laptop. The young college-age woman, her name was Lauren, who’s somebody we met at Applebee’s while I was there in a meeting, and I asked her with one of those business cards, would she be interested? And she said she’d been praying for someone to help show her the truth. Thank you. She was so excited. So here was a seeker, and the very next week, after you know, doing a cram study, she learned the big picture, and this lady Lauren heard the message, and two weeks later she was baptized into Christ.

She is now faithfully attending services and attends a weekly class to help her as she grows in grace. I believe this is a scriptural way to teach the lost in a form that is comprehensive and is easy to follow. I believe that any willing Christian can learn the big picture of the Bible and teach it to others. I will never be the same again. I finally have hope. Our congregation can grow. I am 72 years young. Well, now she’s about 82, but still an active soul winner. Here’s another example of a lady who learned the big picture and started teaching it to others. She said it was the easiest conversion class she’d ever had. Now I have begun a class teaching the ladies at our congregation how to use the big picture, and the men and our preachers saw what we are doing, and the men are now studying it together in hopes our congregation can all be trained in how to win souls.

You know, most of the churches up there in the Seattle area were kind of discouraged, hadn’t been growing, the difficult area in many ways. And uh so once Kirkland started growing, it was like some of the area churches said, hey, we can do this too. And it’s exciting when you can be an example to congregations around you. After 40 years of trying to convert people, the big picture is by far the best medium. We we will have another baptism on Sunday. That is too in just the last two weeks. Jack is presenting to another person tomorrow, so praying for a third conversion. I’m now convinced that the only limit to success is the limit we place on ourselves due to fear. Thanks again for presenting this method to us.

5. A One Lesson Approach Is Biblical

We are making it our own and it is working well. That was the Sunflower Congregation in Fresno, California. All right, I need to wrap this up quickly. One of the things that I sometimes have is I get pushback from well meaning folks, some of my preacher friends, who just don’t feel like you can teach somebody enough in one hour for them to know enough about what they’re doing to respond to the gospel. And I understand that. I would prefer that I could have five or six weeks of their attention before we they make that commitment as well. The problem is it’s very difficult to get people to make that kind of commitment, as I said earlier. Now, the book of Acts is made up of about 40% of sermons to nonbelievers.

You want to learn about what you need to tell nonbelievers, look at the book of Acts. 40% of it’s a book of sermons. And what do you find in the book of Acts when you look at Acts 2 and Acts 8 and Acts 10 and Acts 16, and then at the end of Acts 16, the Philippian jailer, how many sessions, how many sermons did all those people hear in the book of Acts? Just one. So you may not prefer to have a one-lesson approach, but don’t tell me it’s not biblical. This is exactly what we read in the book of Acts. And you don’t have to know a lot to be pricked by the gospel and recognize what you need to do to be forgiven of your sins and to begin the process of being a babe in Christ.

This is not a one-shot approach. That is unscriptural. It’s not where you just dip them and leave them. This is a one lesson approach, and yes, follow up is absolutely critical. And results demand respect.

And there was a great response rate of about 38%. I kept pretty good records. Close to 40% of the people I shared the big picture with responded. So once you equip people and teach them kind of how to win souls and gives them some tools to use, you pray for seekers. And God will answer that prayer. I want to encourage you every service to pray that God will send you truth seekers. Because I believe God’s in the business of getting trained, equipped soul winners and seekers together, because the Bible says seek and you shall find.

Now, here’s the very first congregational photo we took. I highly encourage the church here to consider once a year, maybe in the fall when the kids come back from summer vacation. You take a congregational portrait, and you see the whole family together. So you can put this up on your website. A lot of times people put up, this is the church, and then they show a picture of the building. Wait a minute, the church isn’t the building, the church is the people. Why not show the people? That makes a whole lot more sense to me, folks. So, welcome from the Johnson Avenue Church family. This was what the church family looked like in 2010. Pretty good sized group. This was a little over two years later.

And almost all of those, because of a retention rate of 55 souls, almost all of those from the community, the church grew dramatically. Now, I don’t know about you. I mean, that picture is okay, but I like that picture a whole lot better. And that was just in a little over two years. Don’t tell me the church can’t grow today. So in 2013, I told the elders about the idea of a congregational portrait, and they liked the idea. And so here was our first congregational portrait. We had about 90 to 100 people that day. September 8th, 2013. Church just outside of Seattle, Washington. And so every year we would have an updated congregational portrait. This is September 21st, 2014. This is the next year, 2015. It was raining that day, so we had to do it inside.

This is 2016. You see what kind of growth the Lord is blessing the church with? This is 2017. Next is 2018, and this is where we came up with our theme of stepping up spiritually, stepping in relationally, stepping out evangelistically. We had to get a wide angle lens. We were just growing. It’s so exciting. You take all the new members that are on the new member board, and then they’re in the congregational portrait, and then you start the new member board all over again. And uh it was just so encouraging. And this was sort of our peak right before COVID. We kind of had some challenges with COVID. Did you? I mean, that was a tough time. But we had prayed that in 10 years the Lord would give us a double, and he did it in six.

6. The Focus Is on Where the Power Is

He’s able to do exceedingly abundantly, even more than we ask or think. And it was just wonderful to be a part of something like that. And I hope you have a vision for that kind of growth here at South Bumby. So the focus is on where the power is. Again, I don’t have any problems with talking about the authority of Scripture and the importance of trying to restore the New Testament church. All those things are true things and they matter, but that’s not where you need to start. That’s not where the power is. Where’s the power? Powers in the gospel. It is contagious as the measles and it’s powerful as dynamite. It discusses who and what God and Jesus have done and why he had to die first.

And it lays out the importance of the true baptism and its connection to baptism in a way that is really appropriate. You don’t convert people to baptism, you convert them to Christ. And the approach, as I said, is so much more practical because it’s not that difficult to get someone to agree to a one lesson presentation. And it’s duplicable. Other people are successful soul winners and they know the Bible well enough, they can kind of wing it. The problem is that’s not duplicable. And so this is something that I can equip the saints with, and the church here can equip the saints with this tool, and then they in turn can equip others with that tool. It’s duplicable, and it’s not necessary to be eloquent of speech.

Ken Craig’s a good guy, but he’s not particularly eloquent. He gets a 50% response rate over the years that he has shared this. I don’t have that. Mine’s probably 30. 50%. That’s pretty impressive. It’s because he shares it with passion. That’s what matters. You know, you take these booklets and you just pass them out to people and ask them to read it, you don’t get much response. But you take this and you learn how to share it with passion and concern for this person’s soul and your heart and a love for them and the Lord, and it has tremendous impact. The gospel is meant to be shared, not just here. Read this track. Think about it. God chose Moses. He chose Paul, and yet both of them said they what?

Conclusion

They weren’t eloquent in speech. I love that. Why? So it wasn’t about their eloquence. It wasn’t about their, you know, professional salesmanship. It was about them sharing the gospel, even though they weren’t that eloquent. And so don’t worry about being polished and perfect in your presentation. Worry about loving people’s souls and recognizing that the harvest is plenteous, but the labors are few. And if you’ll just think big and believe big and act big, I can guarantee you you’ll start to see something that looks a whole lot like the book of Acts, which is exactly what we’re trying to restore. Okay, you guys have listened really well. Thank you so much. Let’s take about a seven or eight minute break, and then we’ll come back for session two, and then the time we have left, we’ll have question answers.

Is that a deal? Now it’s really important you get up, go to the restroom, you know, get something to drink. Take your break so you’ll rejuvenate your attention span, okay? So come please get up, move around. I’m gonna give you a grade on how you do on your break. So I need you to move around so we can get back for part two. Thank you.