Rev. Stephen Apt (Liberty Hill, TX)

We orchestrated a Praise and Proclaim campaign for Palm Sunday weekend. To be completely honest, I’m not sure how many of our people were looking forward to it. It was definitely out of their comfort zone. However, we had a good group show up to knock on doors. They soon realized that when you have the right “tools,” it really isn’t that hard at all. That’s what Praise and Proclaim does so well. They give you the tools to make an easy proclamation of the gospel. Another thing Dave does is he gives the people a correct understanding of outreach. Too often we put all the pressure on ourselves to get people into the doors and to believe. Only God can do that. All we can do is plant the seed, and every seed that is planted deserves celebrating.

Afterward Praise and Proclaim Ministry’s outreach initiative was over, I was thinking of different ways to use this same approach to keep it fresh in people’s minds. So, what we did was we used the same training and the same idea at our 4th of July booth. In addition to having a prize wheel for kids to spin, we also passed out postcards to a sermon series we were starting entitled “Freedom”. While the children were spinning the wheel waiting for their prize, our members were talking to their parents inviting them to our new sermon series entitled freedom. It’s a series based around the freedom that Jesus gives us from sin. Over 4 hours, we planted over 150 gospel seeds. What a night! (Rev. Stephen Apt, Peace Lutheran Church, Liberty Hill, TX)