Encouraging Words from Cary Schmidt » soulwinning

Done—Free for the Amazon Kindle!

caryschmidt — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 05:21:36 +0000

This post is all about sharing the gospel with friends, family, and co-workers. If you know someone who doesn’t know Christ, read on:

Perhaps you are familiar with the little book I wrote several years ago entitled “Done—What Most Religions Don’t Tell You About the Bible.” It’s a small book (about 100 pages) that shares a simple, clear presentation of the gospel. It’s been a tremendous joy to receive emails every week from people around the world who trusted Christ after reading “Done.”

I’m happy to report that this little book is now available for free at both Amazon.com and Apple’s iBookstore in ebook format for the Amazon Kindle and for Apple devices. The Spanish version is also available for free on iBookstore. Normally, I would not make a request like this, but in this case I feel it’s appropriate…

May I ask you to consider sharing this witnessing resource over social networking with friends, co-workers, and family? More and more people are reading books on electronic devices, and this free book gives you a great reason to share the gospel and an easy way to do it.

The book is written in a friendly tone, contains much scripture, and a clear explanation of God’s truth. For friends and relatives that have refused to “hear you” regarding your faith, this may be a simple and disarming way to help them consider the gospel.

Hardcopies of “Done” are available from Striving Together Publications in English, Spanish, and Korean. Also an audio version and free PDF copies of the book are available on this blog (also in Chinese and Romanian.)

Again, consider sending a link for the Kindle of iBook edition over email or on Facebook or Twitter. Who knows how God would use your simple effort to spread the gospel in this way.

Here are the links if you want to copy them:

http://www.amazon.com/done-religions-about-Bible-ebook/dp/B002RS66HE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1320037498&sr=1-1

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/done./id460210609?mt=11

Developing a LifeTouch Database

Cary Schmidt — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:22:01 +0000

Have you ever wondered who you are ministering to well, and who you are missing? Whether it’s a class, a group, or a church family, it’s easy to minister to many but miss some—especially those who are quiet.

Some years ago, as our youth group grew larger, we became burdened about who we might be missing in our regular week to week ministry. It occurred to us that we had no reliable way of tracking who was being visited, called, written, or given personal time in ministry. And our heart in ministry is personal relationships—making sure that every student has an opportunity to be mentored and loved one on one.

The answer was what we called the “LifeTouch” database. It’s a simple concept that requires some administrative oversight, but is well worth the effort. It began as an excel spreadsheet which we sorted as needed to generate reports. That led to a man in our church helping us develop an online database accessible from the internet—which means all the LifeTouch information was accessible from anywhere—including a smart phone. Here’s what a lifetouch database is all about:

First we imported all of our student ministry names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, birth dates, age, grade, etc. into our document or file. We separated these by class/grade and gave each worker access to their class roster in the database.

With this database, we decided to track four types of regular contacts or personal ministry. They are as follows:

Visits – personal visits to the home of a class member. (Doesn’t count if they were not home)
Calls – this is a simple phone call of encouragement
Notes – this is a written for of communication, including email or Facebook
Appointment – this would be a time when more than 15 minutes was invested into a life over lunch, a coffee shop, or even after a church service.

Then, we created a column or field for each of these types of contacts in our database. From that moment, we kicked off the effort and asked our workers to report weekly on every visit, call, note, or appointment that they had for student ministry. At first these reports were filled out in Sunday school each week. Our secretary would collect those reports and enter the information. This gave us a good record of everyone who was being ministered to and how.

From there, we began to print lists weekly and distribute them to the teachers and workers. We called them the “No Contact” lists—this was the list of students who had not received any contact yet. Then we could custom print lists showing those who had not been visited, not been called, not been written, or not been taken out for an appointment.

This system helped us, as a group of workers, to make sure we did our best in contacting and ministering to everybody. Unfortunately, it’s not a system I can just put on a disk and give to you. It requires that you have someone on your tech team who understands how to program and maintain an online database. If you have such a person and would like more information about our system, please feel free to email me and I’ll put someone in touch with you.

The system needs to be re-kicked off annually or seasonally as you see fit. We have since reworked our database into a more user friendly format and now our workers are able enter their reports online, and access data including visitation maps and email addresses online. We are preparing to kick this off soon.

The heart of this LifeTouch concept is what’s important—not how you achieve it. The heart is— “Let’s not miss anyone! Let’s make sure we’re ministering to everybody God has given to us!” Whether it’s a simple hand written list, an excel spreadsheet, or an online tool, I encourage you to employ tool to make sure you don’t miss someone. As I said in the beginning of this post, we began with an excel spreadsheet and just sorted columns to print the no contact lists.

It’s simple, but very helpful! The best part of the LifeTouch effort was that it really motivated our team to reach out to every body! Perhaps it will do the same for your team!

Overtime Rally with Michael Redd

caryschmidt — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:47:20 +0000

God gave us a GREAT weekend—one of the greatest of my life! Here’s the story.

A few months ago, the Lord intersected Pastor Chappell’s path with NBA basketball player Michael Redd (shooting guard for Milwaukee Bucks, NBA Allstar, and Olympic gold medalist.) It was a “chance” meeting at an airport. Michael was sitting reading his Bible, and he and Pastor Chappell were able to share testimonies and strike up conversation about ministry. That led to an invitation for Michael to come and be a part of a student ministry outreach at LBC.

This Saturday was the culmination of many weeks of work and preparation by our youth team. They did a fantastic job! Larry Chappell led the effort, and our entire team labored so fervently for the Lord. We prayed, we invited, we planned, and we eagerly awaited seeing what the Lord had in all of this. The week before the rally, our Senior High teens went to every public school campus in the valley and boldly passed out gospel invitations. Their passion and courage was awesome!

Saturday morning, Lance, Larry, and I picked up Michael Redd and his kind friend, Michael Powell, and enjoyed breakfast together. It was like we had known each other for years. Michael and his friend are two of the most humble, sincere, and passionate Christian men I’ve ever met; and instantly they were an encouragement to our hearts. I was immediately struck by Michael’s genuine walk with God and authentic passion for souls. Over breakfast and throughout the day, he shared story after story of sharing Christ with NBA players, his personal walk with God, his love for his family, and his hunger for God’s Word. Sprinkled throughout were also some interesting NBA/Olympic stories and amazing accomplishments that God has allowed in his career.

Early in the conversation, Michael said, “I’m the least likely candidate! God just raised me up and helped me play better so that I might lift up Christ.” He is genuinely humble about all that God has done. Pretty amazing! In the midst of a personally challenging week for our family, God allowed us to be greatly encouraged by this good man.

At about 10:30am we went over the service cue card and had a word of prayer with Pastor Chappell. The rally began at 11am on Saturday morning, and the spirit of the teens was awesome! The lower floor of our auditorium was filled with 1,400 teenagers—students from our valley and surrounding areas. I would estimate that at least 400 of these were first time guests. It was a joy to see parents bringing their teens, coaches bringing their teams, and LBC teens bringing their friends.

For the first few minutes we had some fun, including a shooting contest, a highlight video of Michael playing ball, some basketball advice from Michael, and then an NBA Q&A featuring questions that the teens submitted. After a special song, Michael shared his testimony and love for Christ. He challenged the kids to come to Christ, to build their lives around the presence of God, and to live holy lives. Their hearts were fixed on his every word.

After the testimony, Evangelist Bryan Samms stood and preached a fantastic gospel message, and then conducted the invitation. Approximately 150 people (teens and adults) walked the aisle, having responded to the call to trust Christ as Saviour. It was just awesome to see God work in hearts. It was an overwhelming joy to see God answer the prayers and bless the labor of our students! Later that evening, we enjoyed great fellowship with our student ministry staff and Michael Redd at Pastor Chappell’s home. The day came to a close with a lot of anticipation for what God would do on Sunday.

On Sunday, God once again blessed Michael’s testimony and the clear gospel preaching of Pastor Chappell as dozens walked the aisle for salvation in the morning services. The day ended with Pastor Chappell preaching one of the best Sunday evening messages I’ve ever heard—challenging the church family to disciple, encourage, and love the new Christians that God brought to Himself this weekend. It was awesome!

At the close of the service, Pastor shared my health diagnosis with the church family—the only “heavy” moment of the weekend. (Bummer) Then, Dana and I were greeted and encouraged by hundreds of our church family members—those we love to serve and serve God with! Our prayers is that we encouraged them as well. We love our church family and do not want our trial to be a burden to them.

As I write this post, my heart is overwhelmed and amazed. God is too good! In the midst of a very strange moment in my life, God just reached out of Heaven and poured out two of the greatest days of ministry and family memories that I have ever experienced! I will never forget this weekend—what God did, how He encouraged our hearts, and how He changed so many lives for all eternity.

I will never forget our students and their courage to reach the lost. I will never forget how our student ministry team stepped up and got the job done administratively! I will never forget Pastor Chappell’s gracious kindness to let me be a part of such ministry opportunities! I will never forget Michael Redd and Michael Powell and their godly encouragement in my heart and to my sons. I will never forget seeing hundreds of people come to Christ in a single weekend. I will never forget God’s overwhelming goodness in the midst of personal uncertainty!

There is nothing in life as wonderful as serving God! To God be the glory for His marvelous works at Lancaster Baptist Church this weekend! Thank you for praying that God would bless our open house weekend.

SL Podcast: Opening the Front Door

Cary Schmidt — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:12:28 +0000

The audio file above is the newest Spiritual Leadership podcast from Pastor Paul Chappell.

This lesson is entitled “Opening the Front Door.” In this session, Pastor Chappell shares some biblical and practical insights on how to welcome more visitors into your church. The Spiritual Leadership podcast is a free resource from Striving Together Publications (a ministry of Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College).

You can subscribe to this podcast through iTunes and listen on your computer or iPod. You can also receive the complimentary outline with each lesson. Click here for more information about subscribing.

We pray that this resource will strengthen and equip you in God’s work!

Welcome, Guests—Meet Mystery Babylon

caryschmidt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:56:25 +0000

Breaking the church growth rules, the Bible works once again!

How would the seeker-sensitive, church growth experts and the leaders of the emergent church movement answer this question:

What passages would you not preach on when you have the most first time guests at your church?

Certainly, on that short list would be Revelation 17—The Great Whore of Babylon! Save that one for much later.

Staying in his series on prophecy, Pastor Chappell preached this week on “The False Church or the True Saviour.” His message to a room of first time guests was from Revelation 17—the coming one world church. As we prayed before the service, we even marvelled a bit that the Lord would lead him to such a weighty approach to the gospel on this day.

I learned three lessons from Pastor Chappell’s message at this week’s Open House Sunday:

1. The Holy Spirit Must Be Obeyed—weeks before the first guest was invited to Open House, Pastor Chappell felt the Lord leading him to this passage and this topic for his gospel message on Open House Sunday. I love being a part of a church where the Holy Spirit’s agenda comes first. The Holy Spirit always trumps surveys, statistics, church growth experts, and human logic.

2. People Need Truth, Not Merely Wit—As the message unfolded, the first two points were literally about mystery Babylon. Amazing! Dr. Chappell did a great job of explaining and teaching through the text, and the crowd was listening intently and following their notes carefully. Sure he could have kept it light and pithy—but people were responsive to the preached truth.

3. Hard Truth Can Be Preached with Love—the tone of the whole message was positive and compassionate. The final point was simply—The Invitation of the True Saviour! While the first two points set up a dire picture of one-world compromise and deception (the wide road that leads to destruction), the final point shared the one way of salvation (the narrow path.)

The aisles were backed up with people responding to the gospel during the closing invitation. It was a great lesson and reminder that God’s ways are not our ways! He still does His best work when we step out of the way and let Him be God.

10 Highlights of LBC Open House!

caryschmidt — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:48:08 +0000

Many of you have been praying for our annual Open House at Lancaster Baptist Church. Today was amazing, so I thought a quick report was in order. Here are the highlights:

1. The church family knocked on approximately 80,000 doors. What a delight it was to see church members going out soulwinning all week at various times. There was a great team spirit! God has always blessed the fact that we don’t set “attendance goals,” but we do set “work goals.”

2. Many were saved during the week. Before Sunday ever arrived, we were able to share the Gospel with many in the community and see them come to Christ. Pictured above is Karl and his daughters. We had lunch together at Open House, and we are praying for their continued spiritual growth!

3. We prayed all week. During several church prayer times and then much at other times, we asked God to bless the efforts and the preaching of the Gospel.

4. Spiritual battle is always a part of the process. There were many ways we sensed Satan fighting the outreach, and we asked God for a hedge of protection.

5. Pastor Chappell preached a tremendous Gospel message and broke all the rules. Staying in his series on prophecy, he preached this week on “The False Church or the True Saviour.” His message to a room of first-time guests was from Revelation 17—the coming one-world church! While the seeker-sensitive philosophies of our day might avoid a passage like this, Pastor Chappell stood and warned the lost not to buy into the “all roads lead to the same place” philosophy of our day. He contrasted the coming false church with the one way of salvation—Jesus Christ. It was a fantastic message that proved two things—hard truth can be preached with compassion, and God always blesses truth! (This is worthy of its own post… coming soon.)

6. The aisles were flooded with people coming for salvation. For the invitation we had to sing seven verses of Just As I Am as people were literally lined up down the aisle, waiting for a counselor! It was just awesome to see. The preached Gospel and public invitations still work—even when the message is from Revelation 17!

7. The courtyard was filled with people being led to Christ. As I walked through the hallway, it was overwhelming to see all the people in the back hall and in the courtyard being led to Christ. For me, the great highlight was seeing Dana and Lance both dealing with people who came forward.

8. Hundreds of first-time guests came and were responsive. As we sat at lunch with our guests (even the ones yet unsaved), they were fascinated by the message and the accuracy of Bible prophecy. We look forward to seeing others saved during the follow up in the coming weeks.

9. Souls were saved at lunch. As our guests left, Dana and I enjoyed meeting others at the lunch. As I looked around the room, I noticed Pastor Chappell sitting at a table with one man and an open Bible. He was leading him to Christ at the luncheon. These two pictures were a blessing!

10. It’s a joy to serve the Lord with my family. One of the greatest blessings of this day, for me, was seeing my children get involved with Mom and Dad and their church! All week we enjoyed serving God together—soulwinning, praying, hosting, counseling, serving lunch, giving people rides to church—it was just fun. I’m thankful to see my children developing sincere hearts for the Lord and others.

Much more could be said! To God’s glory, it was a blessed day. Pray for the continued follow up and discipleship of new believers.

Done—Free eBook in Chinese, Spanish, Romanian

Cary Schmidt — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:14:06 +0000

The Free eBook – DONE – is Now Available in Chinese and Spanish

Thanks to the help of a wonderful team of burdened volunteers, the minibook DONE is now available as a free eBook in Chines, Spanish, and Romanian. The Spanish version, “HECHO” is also available in printed form through Striving Together Publications.

The Chinese version was translated and placed in parallel with the English—something we thought might encourage a Chinese person to read it. Many Chinese desire to learn and practice English.

These three eBooks present the gospel in Chinese, Spanish, and Romanian with many Bible verses. This eBook contains a clear explanation of God’s plan of salvation.

Perhaps you know of someone (a friend or missionary) who could use these resources. Please tell them to use them freely. They can be downloaded and passed on from the links below. Please pray that God will bless these resources and use them to bring souls to Christ.

If you have a story about how the Lord has used DONE, consider sharing it below.

A Must-Read Soulwinning Story

Cary Schmidt — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:28:10 +0000

While on vacation with my family last week, I received this email. It powerfully encouraged my heart on many levels. I pray it will encourage you that soulwinning still works.

Dear Pastor Schmidt:

I just finished reading your book “done.”. I thought you might like to know how I came upon the book.

I live in Alabama. About 11 am yesterday (Tuesday, July 21), I received a knock on my door. I am usually never home at 11 am and was in fact actually headed out the door when I heard the knock. I am a Life Insurance Agent with a national company and my late departure was due to a morning spent thinking about some difficulties I am going thru at work.

On the other side of the door, a gentleman introduced himself as Toby Weaver and explained his reason for being there. We talked for about 15 minutes or so and I accepted Jesus as God’s gift of eternal life.

What is truly amazing is that a man from thousands of miles away was interested enough in me to take the time to go door to door, ask questions, listen to my problems, and offer a solution to them. Of course, in 15 minutes you can only learn so much but I was just impressed that someone would even bother.

The result was that I went to church last night for the first time in 8 years. At the service. Dr. Weaver gave me the book “done.” I also bought “Church Still Works” by Dr. Chappell as well.

You know, hurting people are not looking for nifty sermons with stage props, lights, and rocky music. We are looking for someone to knock on our door, ask, listen, offer a solution, and invite us to church.

Oh, and the girls from the college were fantastic! You can tell they love to sing about Jesus.

Sincerely,

Tyler

Tyler later wrote Dr. Weaver asking about some good books to read—as he was planning to trash many of his books on philosophy. He is a voracious reader and has a hungry heart to grow. I was also touched by his response to me in an email today. Here’s what he said:

…Maybe in the future I can enter into discussion with you. It seems I have more questions than answers. But for now…”it is finished”…seems like it means “final” and “for all time”. Everything else I guess is in the details!

You gotta love that spirit! “It is finished!” Thank the Lord that’s what matters the most! The spirit of this new Christian encouraged me. I hope it encourages you as well!

Click here to download “Done” or share it with a friend!