THE WAY TO VISIT, CONTACT, AND GAIN GOSPEL CANDIDATES
Actually, there are many ways to visit, contact, and gain gospel candidates. Here I would like to mention some of them.
You do not need to go out to knock on cold doors. You can visit people by making appointments with them. You must do this not only continually but also continuously, day by day.
We also need to have a practice and a habit of inviting people to have dinner with us. We should do this regularly. Brother Eugene Gruhler Sr. was an example among us of a brother who was always taking care of people in this way. Nearly every Lord’s Day this brother’s home was prepared to receive people for lunch after the morning meeting. He would oversee the meeting and invite certain ones to come to his home afterward to eat with him.
[You] must learn one thing: to contact people. The best way to contact people is to invite them to your home for dinner. This is the most effective way to gain people. Something can be impressed into people in this way. After many years they may still receive the help and even be saved by your one contact with them in your home.
According to our present situation, we do not have the new material for the building up of His Body. We may go on year after year in the church life without many people being baptized. The new ones whom we do baptize may disappear from our midst after a while. They did not survive due to the shortage of proper and adequate care. If a mother delivers a child and does not take care of it, it will not survive. We need to follow the example of the apostle Paul, who said that he cared for the new believers “as a nursing mother would cherish her own children” (1 Thes. 2:7).
We also need to write our gospel candidates periodically concerning their salvation. We may write a particular person once every two weeks. Thus, within a whole year we can write to this one twenty-six times.
When we write people, we should also mail them gospel tracts and spiritual booklets.
We should not pray for too many people. Instead, we should pray concerning the spiritual welfare of certain definite ones for our whole life. George Müller had a list of people for whom he prayed on a regular basis. Eventually, all of them except one were saved before his death. After his death this one also was saved by the Lord.
Whatever way you take, you should do it persistently with patience and endurance and not expecting to have a quick reaping…After a period of time, you will gain some new ones as remaining fruit. This will be a recompense to your persistent labor in the gospel.
We also need to learn how to use biblical verses and tracts…This will help to open up the situation with the ones whom we contact. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and Practice of the Vital Groups”, ch. 3, pp. 288-291)
The church in Zamboanga 