Most of us are familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB) knocking on our doors, hoping to share their version of the Christian gospel with us. If you are anything like me, you find such intrusions into your privacy to be irritating. These God-bothers mean well — thoroughly convinced that they are right. “Hell is real, death is certain,” their thinking goes. I knocked on countless doors in nondescript rural communities as an IFB pastor. I hated the practice, but I was taught by my pastors and college professors that it was essential for me to knock on every door where I pastored. And so I did, for years, taking a handful of loyal church members with me. Spring, summer, winter, and fall, we knocked on doors, hoping to share the gospel with sinners. I taught classes on soulwinning, teaching congregants the most effective way to knock on doors and evangelize people. I even had “specialists” come in to teach church members tricks they could use to reach people with the gospel. Year after year, we knocked on doors, without success. Oh, people would listen to us, and even get “saved,” but few of these converts ever walked through the doors of the church, and those who did rarely stayed.
Fortunately, I eventually outgrew Baptist Fundamentalism and its evangelism practices. In the late 1980s, I became a Calvinist. This change in theology delivered me from the need to bother people with my version of the Christian gospel. “God is sovereign, and he alone saves,” I believed. While I still preached on the street (please see My Life as a Street Preacher — Part One, My Life as a Street Preacher — Part Two, My Life as a Street Preacher — Part Three, and Bruce, the Street Preacher), my focus was on the message instead of evangelism techniques. While there were still people “saved” as a result of my preaching, my focus had changed. I saw that it was my duty to preach the Word and let God do the “saving.”
Did you knock on doors as an Evangelical Christian? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I did knock in doors once as a kid. This must have been in the early 80s. The Southern Baptist Convention had some sort of formula regarding the number of active members in the church vs. the number of prospects and inactive members. Our church had too high a number of active members vs prospects/inactive members, so we were instructed to find more prospects in the community. This led to one or two Sundays where we were supposed to go knocking on doors and getting names and addresses of prospects. I don’t know what the quota was because I was a kid (11 or 12), but we met our quota, turned in the cards, and that was it. I remember as a kid feeling superior to the people at home in their shorts on a Sunday instead of at church or knocking on doors. They were clearly backsliders who needed to go to church. 🤣 That was the only time I knocked on doors.
I never knocked. However, as I read about your knocking I realized, though I never knocked, I always opened. I opened the door to the knocking JW’s. (Even had them in to pray and that traumatized one dear ex-Presbyterian, converted JW, into shock.) I chatted with the Mormons before they got to my door. Anyone who asked me what it was about me. I’d tell them “it’s Jesus.” Always ready to open the door if they knocked first.
Forgot to mention, the two Mormon boy’s at one point said ” I believe you know Jesus! It was actually rather cute. I guess they figured with all the Scripture I quoted, how in the world could I be anything other than a believer. 🙂
Oh and re: the JW’s. Just pray them off the street. 😀
‘….pray them off the street….’ it’s a kind of tradition in my welsh village for many of us to go for a long walk along our nice seaside promenade every xmas day afternoon. Kids try out new bikes, scooters or skateboards or push new dolls in their new prams. Some dress in new superhero costumes or wield new light sabres and enjoy showing these to friends or classmates they haven’t seen since school ended before xmas. And there’s always 2 JWs with their stand of leaflets. I’d love to ask them why they think this is a good time to proselytise. ‘Now kids, if you become a JW, no more birthdays or visits from santa. And relatives who’ve given you such lovely thoughtful gifts, will have to stop. Oh, and if you fall off that new bike or skateboard, be prepared to bleed to death, blood transfusions aren’t allowed.’ Guess irony is lost among JWs…..!!!
The promenade walk sounds lovely Maltilddaa.
I can imagine myself saying something like: What is it you hope to accomplish here today? One could always begin by saying: Let us pray . . . and see if they up and leave. 😉
Ha ha, might try ‘let us pray!’ An ex-JW said that at Sunday meetings you got a round of applause for recounting how many hours you’d spent door-knocking in the week – or presumably since Covid, standing in the street with your display of leaflets. It didn’t matter that not a single punter responded….just being there was praised and was doing their god’s will. An admission they didn’t seem to everrecognise, it was a futile exercise year in, year out.
When people evangelizing came to our door, my father was irritated, but he got rid of them quickly. He was a large man about 5 foot 10 inches and weighed about 190 to 200 pounds. He would make himself look as large and intimidating as possible, and them growl at them I AM GOD. This got rid of evangelizers quickly.