1000

On Sunday we got out another 1000 door hangars.

If you are interested in 100 door hangars to distribute in your neighborhood please let me know.

If you already received door hangars from us, then please post a comment with how your distribution went.

Second day of door hangars

Today was the second day that I went out to hand out our new door hangars. I went with six members of First Baptist Hebron in Carrollton. First Baptist has set a goal to take the Gospel to every house in the 75010 zip code. We marked off one neighborhood that has 225 houses. With seven of us we were able to cover each house in about 45 minutes. Five of us continued to another neighborhood and covered another 136 houses. So that is 361 more houses that have received the Gospel. Please pray for the people who receive these door hangars to read them, reach out to us or First Baptist, order the DVD and above all, repent and trust Jesus.

While we were out handing out the door hangars, I had a text from a friend whom I had given some door hangars a couple of days ago indicating that he and his boys had just walked around the block and put out door hangars. Praise God. What a great activity to do with your sons!

If you are interested in receiving a shipment of 100 door hangars to get started with door to door in your neighborhood then please let me know.

94 door hangars distributed!

They're here
The door hangar shipment was finally located. Turns out that UPS delivered them to my address PLUS 10. But, fortunately, the woman who received them called last night and I went and picked them up from her.

Shipped 1600 door hangars
We offered 100 door hangars to anyone who would go hand them out in their neighborhood to get them started with door to door. Today at lunch, I mailed 1600 door hangars out to those who had requested them. another 300 are being labeled by a local church for distribution on Saturday. I got three more requests for door hangars today. Those will go in the mail soon. It's not too late. If you'd like some door hangars to get started with a door to door ministry in your neighborhood then let me know and I'll mail them out to you.

First Distribution
Since I've been waiting for a long time to receive the door hangars, I was anxious to go and distribute some. So tonight, I spent about 45 minutes distributing them. I reached 94 houses. One thing I noticed is that it seemed like no one was home. So the fact that I was simply leaving something on the door turned out to be a good thing. While I walked and distributed the door hangars I was praying for the neighborhood. The picture at the right is the first door hangar distributed to a house in Carrollton, TX.

Strategy
I plan to canvass a few neighborhoods in order to get a sense of what percentage of people are likely to request the door hangars. I don't plan to only door canvassing. At some point, I will go back to my previous door to door method (food drive, prayer request and sharing the Gospel) with the change being that I'd give them the door hangar or leave it on the door instead of the Good News / Bad News tract that I have been using.

Resources
There are a couple of resources that are handy for mapping your progress with door to door. The first is to use maps.google.com to map an area. Print the map, then use a highlighter to mark where you have been. The second resource is something I've been using in my running. It is www.gmap-pedometer.com and it allows you to map paths. For example, the path that I walked tonight to hand out door hangars is here.

Sorry for the delay

For those of you waiting to receive door hangars from us, there has been a delay. The first order has been lost by UPS. We are trying to get this located. I'll post an update when we have a better idea of when we will have the door hangars to send out.

Milestone

⁴Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. ⁵And Joshua said to them, "Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, ⁶that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, 'What do those stones mean to you?' Joshua 4:4-6 (ESV)

This verse came to mind as a reminder to remember significant events. On Saturday, I reached a milestone in my door to door ministry when I completed door to door in the neighborhood where I live. Granted there are still nearly 39,000 more houses to go in Carrollton. But, it is good to remember the steps and milestones.

Since July 25, 2009, I have been to 968 houses. I had 239 one on one conversations.I gathed 153 prayer requests and over 750 cans of food. I clocked 48 hours of work. Much of the time I was by myself. But, when others were with me it brought the total man hours to 68 hours.

So, what's next? I'll move on to another neighborhood and keep going. I would also like to encourage you to get involved going door to door in your neighborhood. We have a new resource coming next week. Please consider requesting some and getting started with a door to door ministry in your neighborhood.

I must say, that going door to door can be very tiring, difficult and discouraging. But, it can also be incredibly rewarding. Let me just share a couple of thoughts from Saturday. When I started out, I went nine houses in a row before anyone even answered the door. At the tenth house was a man who welcomed prayer as he was leading a group of teens from his church on a mission trip the next day. The next door after that I spoke with a woman who did not know Christ. But she was very open to the discussion. She did not say she repented and believed while I was there, but she agreed to consider what we had talked about.

At another house, possibly one of the saddest experiences I've had door to door. A woman pastor told me that everyone goes to heaven and that they don't even have to repent. I reminded her that the Bible says that "a man must repent". At that she was offended because she thought I was saying women could not be saved. I merely was just referring to mankind. It was really sad because this woman is leading her whole flock astray.

As I reached the home stretch in my neighborhood, I had one short street to go with just ten houses left. At the first of those houses, I was greeted by a man who was a strong believer in Christ. After talking to him, I asked a favor - to refill my water bottle - and he agreed. At the next house, another Christian greeted me. After talking for a few minutes, he invited me in. He asked about the ministry so I briefed him on what we are doing door to door and with the tract club and training. He offered me water, but I just had some from the house next door. So he called to his wife to come and pray over me. That was a tremendous blessing and encouragement.

So, yes, it might be tough out there. But, you must not quite. In the words of Tony Miano, "Don't Quit!" There are people out there that are destined for hell. We must take the Gospel to them and give them a chance at heaven. Will you join me?

What lies ahead

Having been doing door to door for nearly a year, I've been continually praying about how to do this more efficiently and also help others get started. In about two weeks we will have the following available:

A door hangar - the door hangar will be 11x4.5 inches. It will have an expanded Gospel message (more than twice as many words as our typical business card sized tracts). It will have an offer for a free DVD. The DVD that we will be using is "The Big Question" by Wretched. You can watch a preview below. The thought is that each group will stock the DVD themselves ($1 a piece in a spindle from wretched.tv). In the event you can't stock them, then we may be able to help by providing you a smaller quantity than Wretched sells. Finally, the door hangar will have a place where you can affix a label with your personal or church contact information.

Prayer Cards - we will be making pads with 50 prayer request cards on each pad. We will also be providing the PDF to make these yourself via the web site. With the PDF you can either contact your local Office Max (or similar) and have them make pads for you. Or you can just print them and use them on a clip board without making them into pads.


Food Drive sheets - up until now, I've been using a sheet about the food drive that comes from the food pantry. However, in order to provide a level of indirection with the food pantry, I've contacted several other food pantries that I can donate food to. I've also made my own flyer about the food drive which lists the various food pantries we are working with. The food drive sheets will be available as a PDF with a place to put a label about the food pantry (or pantries) that you are working with. I may make these into pads, or simply just print a few pages out as I need them. I don't typically go through very many of these sheets as I generally only leave one behind when the people are interested in making a donation later.

If you are thinking of getting started with a door to door campaign in your neighborhood, please check the video and information on the web site. Then let me know if you would like a starter pack of door hangars. What I am thinking is that we should be able to mail about 100 of them in a flat rate envelope. I wont know the exact logistics until I receive the door hangars. I am working with the printer to get pricing on these door hangars for you. So my thought is that once we send you the initial set, you'll be able to order more direct from the printer.

Let me know your thoughts. I pray that these resources will be valuable.

900

Yesterday I had Brian's company as we went to another 35 houses door to door. We only collected about six cans of food. However, we had some wonderful one on one conversations. Tracts were left at each door where no one was home. We met a fellow believer in Christ who was very encouraging to our mission. And we met a man who had converted to Christianity from Hinduism! Praise God. With these 35 houses completed, I have now visited over 900 houses. I am estimating that in 2-3 more hours I can wrap up the houses in my immediate neighborhood.