Tale of a Repentant Soul-Winner

Millions of people who consider themselves Believers in Jesus have been saddled with guilt and a feeling of inferiority because they aren't quite the "soul-winner" they feel pressured into being. I used to rent a room with two devout German women who, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, ashamedly confessed to me they had never prayed a prayer of salvation with anybody in all their lives. So, we immediately went out knocking on doors and, within a few hours, had gotten 17 people on our street to pray that prayer. 

Others folks are in bondage to the notion that "soul-winning" has been relegated to the "professional" Christian, the ministers and the evangelists. These folks may toss a bit of money in the collection plate in order to keep things moving along smoothly, they presume, never coming to the realization that it shouldn't take so many millions of dollars per soul when the early Church, and the persecuted Church today, have and are doing it at little or no cost per soul won. 

Twenty-some years ago, I was a Soul-Winner First Class. I was tossing Gospel tracts in open car windows, placing them in vacuum tubes at the bank, placing them in garments on the clothes at the mall, mailing them to strangers out of the phone book. I was a Saturday door-knocker, one day leading 89 people in the Salvation Prayer. My example came not from Jesus or Paul, but from Charles Finney - the most famous revivalist of America's 2nd Great Awakening. Finney was responsible for what we now refer to as "the altar call" (he called it 'the anxious bench') and the "Sinner's Prayer." He was my idol, having single-handedly prayed the Sinner's Prayer with 50,000 people in a single week at his meetings. 

But something happened. As I studied about Finney, I came to realize that he eventually repented of his techniques, though still being utilized today, because he saw so little fruit coming from those who had responded to his emotional appeal to pray the prayer. For all the good things Finney accomplished in his life, especially with women's equality issues and resisting slavery, I don't believe soul-winning was his greatest contribution, neither did many ministers of his day.

So, I began to ask Father to break my heart for people, cause me to love them and see them as HE sees them. One night, after feeling led to get out of bed and anoint my own head with oil, as soon as I returned to bed, He showed me a black and white vision on the wall. I saw lonely, hurting, desperate people, one after the other, all races and creeds, ages, shapes and sizes, I wept. I got out of bed, washed my face and the "movie" started all over again.

I refer to this as the night of my "heart surgery" - the night God replaced my stoney heart with a heart of flesh.

Additional revelation came to me as a Halloween "Hell House" gathering where I served as a "Prayer Counselor." It became apparent to me how so many churches were merely "punching tickets" to Heaven when a young Mormon girl said to me, "Can we hurry it up? My mom is waiting for me so, let's just say that prayer so I can go." What?!! On the second night, I recall a tall, bearded man and his family impatiently waiting, finally ordering them, "Let's go!" as they robotically turned around and left. Later that night, I noticed a teen boy I had prayed with the previous night, back again, praying with someone else. The Billy Graham ministry has kept great records of those who have responded to their altar calls and have concluded there are many people who walk the aisle again and again over the years. Apparently, it doesn't always "take."

Jesus said we will know them by their fruit. As a Workplace Chaplain who has too often fended off the "Separation of Church 'n State" objection to what I do, I'm convinced it is the love of God "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost," (Romans 5:5) that will turn us from Thermometer Believers into Thermostats, setting the temperature and changing the environment rather than merely fitting in. If we belonged to a group of people from varying denominations and religions, including Satanists and atheists, all working for the same company, I am convinced it is God's love and compassion in operation THROUGH us IN THE WORKPLACE that would have the greatest impact on our co-workers. Some of them would, literally, become jealous of what we have found in Jesus and desire to know Him more deeply.

Instead, we either say nothing, minding our own business, quietly exchanging time for money, or we try our hand at breakroom conversions, attempting to argue our way into a conversion. We call it "defending the faith" or "apologetics." We may even attempt to invite them to church so the "professional" ministers can convert them. There's an old expression that goes like this: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." When a coworker is sick, who rallies the staff to provide meals? If they're injured and can't work, who spearheads a collection for them? If they're in the hospital or in jail, who visits them? If all the Believers in Jesus are sharing gifts, who will remember them with a card or gift? 

If those who claim to follow Jesus aren't sensitive to the needs of those with whom they spend up to 70% of their lives, who will be? Better yet, who will shame us by doing that which The Church overlooks? I'll always remember, in the early days of my online ministry, hearing from a pagan whose mother was an Anglican in Great Britain. When she was ill, the gang down at the pub sent flowers and cards to her hospital room. Her church "family" paid her no attention at all while witches and pagans blessed her. He wanted nothing to do with Christianity.

I can't say that I blame him.

In many years of Relational Counseling, I have used the Gary Chapman teaching called "The 5 Love Languages" and have seen many relationships salvaged and strengthened. I'm convinced that, by speaking the proper "Love Language," we are most likely to win over the mind, the will and the emotions (that is, the Soul) of another. Proverbs 11:30 tell us, "He who wins souls is wise." I don't believe this has a thing to do with praying a Sinner's Prayer, especially considering when it was penned.

These days, I am more apt to encourage people to strive to deepen their relationship with their Creator - nurture a Relationship - than I am to persuade them to repeat a prayer, nothing more than a Religious routine. If you, or anyone you know, has been feeling condemned for their lack of Evangelical Soul-Winning, be thou loosed! Instead, make it your goal to flesh-out all the one another" verses of Scripture, especially all that "love one another" stuff.

How will they know Jesus? Through us, His followers. 

How will they experience His love and kindness? Same way. 

How will anyone encounter the living Christ? Jesus said, "When we've seen Him we've seen the Father." Well, when they see you and me, shouldn't they see Jesus?

Do they?

No matter how "Good" we are, good is the enemy of best. Let's resist the urge to compare ourselves with ourselves. Jesus is our standard, after all.

Every blessing,

Michael Tummillo

Founder, The Church at Work