The Ultimate Phobia: Why Christians Fear to Witness

Why are good, normal, otherwise confident Christian people scared to death of knocking on a door?

I think I know, and it’s not just that we don’t know what to do or don’t love the Lord enough or lack holiness. Sorry, Henry Blackaby, my dear brother. I think it’s something else.

Recently in this blog and last week at our pastors meeting, we talked about fear in witnessing. I said that the fear is related to not knowing what to do, that I do many things frequently without a smidgen of fear because I’ve learned what to do, whether it’s driving in interstate traffic or sketching someone in front of a class or speaking before large crowds. And I might have left a wrong impression, that I no longer have to deal with the fear of approaching strangers with the gospel. Actually, I am a veteran of this kind of paralyzing fright.

Fear and I have walked down many a street together over my four decades of ministry, fighting and struggling all the way. Sometimes I won out, sometimes fear carried the day.

Here’s the rundown, as briefly as I can make it.

In college, I worked weekends near the railroad terminal in downtown Birmingham. I wanted so badly to share my faith and help people come to the Lord that at noontimes I would quickly scarf down my sandwich and get outside to walk the streets. In this seedy section of town one could expect to encounter drunks and vagrants on every block. Surely they would be the easiest people in the world to approach and begin a conversation with, right? You would think.

I did not have a clue how to begin or what to say. The lasting memory I carry from those painful lunch hours is the complete, total fear that engulfed me as I would walk up to a wino and stutter, “Uh, mister….are you saved?” That is as far as it ever got, because inevitably the bleary-eyed citizen would stare at this kid through his fog and say, “Yeah, buddy,” and stagger on his way.

It would have been comical had it not been so sad.


As a new student in seminary, I went visiting with fellow student Vaughan Pruitt who was also my pastor at Pontchartrain Baptist Church. Vaughan was confidence personified and how I admired him. But my fears were still on the job. I recall the day Vaughan and I knocked at the door of a lady who had been visiting the church. Now, this should have been the easiest call on the planet. No fear, she knows us, she will be glad to see us. Simple, right? Yeah, right.

“I don’t think she’s at home,” Vaughan said after knocking twice. I said, “Let me see if she’s around back,” and walked around the side of the little shotgun house. She was there, hanging out clothes. “Can I help you?” she said. I froze up and could not get a syllable out of my mouth. I was 24 years old and a reasonably bright human being, I had a college degree by then, and had already served two small churches in leadership positions. But fear was ruling my life. And threatening to ruin it.

I spun around and walked back to the front of the house, and she followed. “Why, pastor,” she called to Vaughan, and invited us inside for a nice visit.

I felt like such a failure. How can one share his faith when he can’t even say good morning and introduce himself? “Fear hath torment,” according to I John 4:18. Tell me about it.

But, as one might expect, God used those experiences to prepare me for the help He was sending.

One day, I ran across a little booklet in the Baptist Book Store (now Lifeway Christian Stores) entitled, “Here’s How to Win Souls.” You would have thought Gene Edwards had written that just for me. He laid everything out in detail, and even included pictures. I devoured it, then read it again and ended up memorizing it. By now, I was pastoring a little Baptist church in the Highway 90 West community of Paradis and eager to lead people to Christ. The morning after reading Edwards’ booklet, I went down the street and knocked on a door and led a lady to Christ.

Everyone ought to know such joy. My head was bumping the clouds. This was the greatest thing in the world.

Now, the fear was still hanging around the edges of every visit I made, still refusing to give up and go away, still convinced that it could reclaim the territory it had lost. But I kept knocking on doors, then taught our people how to share their faith–in the only method I knew: Gene Edwards’ plan. Which was a good one. No trickery, no gimmicks. Just your basic here’s-how-to-tell-people-the-gospel-story stuff.

As strange as it seems, in the 1960s Southern Baptists had no plan for helping church members share their faith in Christ. None. Now, to a young pastor serving in 2007, that must sound like the dark ages. He has his choice of a dozen proven plans that come complete with PowerPoint and printed materials and even gifted consultants available to visit his church and teach his people. We had none of that.

I recall the frustration from those days of hearing preachers harangue congregations from the pulpit about the Lord’s command to share their faith. But no one ever told us what to do. For me, Gene Edwards was the first.

That’s why I jumped all over the WIN Schools when Baptists finally got their act together. “Witness Involvement Now” they called this Home Mission Board plan for lay evangelism schools. Along with a hundred other people, I spent a week at the First Baptist Church of Doraville, Georgia, in a pilot demonstration of this material. Jack Stanton, SBC leader of mass evangelism for the old Home Mission Board, was the teacher, and what a charming man he was. I quickly learned to adore this man and loved him all the rest of his life, even emceeing his retirement dinner from Missouri’s Southwest Baptist University more than a generation later. (I thank Granville Watson for that honor.)

What we did was learn a simple technique for witnessing, one easily transferrable to our people. I came home to the First Baptist Church of Jackson, MS, where I was–of all things–the minister of evangelism, and started teaching the program. Life was good. We were learning how to get the job done.

No more fear, right? Very very wrong. That old monster never went away but crept around the edges of everything we did, every visit we made, every conversation. But we barged ahead in spite of him, and as the Lord gave us significant victories, we gradually learned to ignore the fear. “It’s lying,” I would tell myself. “There’s nothing to fear.”

I would remind myself that some of the dearest friendships I had resulted from my willingness to walk up to a door and knock on it and begin the conversation that would introduce someone to the Savior. “The person behind that door is no enemy,” I would coach myself, “just a friend I haven’t met.”

About the same time–we’re talking early 1970s here–Campus Crusade came to Jackson with its program called LIFE, “Lay Institute for Evangelism,” and I enrolled. I wanted to learn everyone’s techniques for presenting the gospel. For five nights, several hundred people crowded into the sanctuary of Parkway Baptist Church on West Capitol Street to receive instruction and practice sharing the Four Spiritual Laws booklet.

I’m no historian of these programs, but my memory is that LIFE came first, before any other witnessing plan, and that Southern Baptists’ WIN Schools were our adaptation of what Bill Bright had done. To give credit where credit is due. Much, much credit, Dr. Bright.

At the end of the LIFE week, we spent that Saturday knocking on doors. Cold turkey. Assigned to a street, paired with another learner or two, and sent out into the cold, foreboding world where the great unknown lurked just inside every home. Fear again, big time.

But we went anyway. I had learned that fear will usually dissipate once you face it and go forward. And it wasn’t just me, not by any stretch. Every person in the building was frightened out of his mind by what we were being asked to do. Invariably, some people could not take the pressure.

As we were forming our groups and picking up the materials and getting ready to leave, I recall a pastor calling down the hallway to a friend, “Bob, I’ll not be going. I just got word of a death in the church.” It was all I could do to keep from asking, “And just when did this person die?” I knew exactly what the preacher was doing: giving in to the fear. Everyone of us was fighting the temptation to join him.

LIFE’s method of getting you inside the house was to tell whoever opened the front door that you were taking a poll and could they spare a couple of minutes. You asked questions such as “How often do you go to church,” and “Which of these religious leaders do you know more about,” naming Buddha, Krishna, some other guys, and Jesus. You jotted down their answers, but the truth is you had no interest in anything they said. You were priming them for the moment when you asked if they could spare a few minutes for you to share the greatest thing in the world with them. That would be the Four Spiritual Laws booklet which began, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

Sometimes they let us present our message, mostly they didn’t. But even when they did, and even when they accepted everything the booklet said and prayed that little prayer with you at the end, even then you did not have the sense that we have done a great thing here, that this human has just been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the light. There was this nagging sense in back of your mind that you have just manipulated this person into doing something he or she had not given enough thought to, that you had maneuvered them down this corridor and now had trapped them inside this “decision room.” You felt like a user of people. I did, at any rate.

Big numbers flowed out of these meetings. So many hundreds “prayed to receive Christ,” they would report. To their credit, the leaders did not say this many were “saved” or “became Christians.” They told the truth: a certain number of people prayed that prayer. And no doubt, a lot of people were actually born again as a result of our labors. God is the record-keeper, the only One who truly knows, and as with all our labors, we will leave the numbers to Him.

As for me, I determined to resist any witnessing plan that smacked of manipulation. And plenty of them arose. Do this, say this, if they answer that, you’ve got them. Don’t leave them room to say no, keep them answering yes, then slip this one past them. No thanks. Not for me.

Okay, this is turning out to be not so brief. So, I’ll cut to the end.

Over the years, every time my churches would bring in an outstanding preacher, I would ask if we could make some home visits together. I wanted to hear his presentation of the gospel and try to improve my own technique. I was trying, and was gradually overcoming my lifelong bout with fear.

“We’re having an all-day Saturday witnessing training program called ICE, which stands for Intentional Community Evangelism,” Freddie Arnold announced to our pastors one recent Wednesday. “It used to stand for Inner City Evangelism,” he explained, “but they’ve enlarged the scope. This is for anyone anywhere.” All the pastors were urged to get their people to the February 10 training at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans. It was free and would be led by experienced leaders from our North American Mission Board, the successor of the Home Mission Board. Jack Stanton’s heirs.

We’ve said and have had said to us ever since Katrina that God is preparing a harvest for our churches. That we should go into the communities and present the gospel. Door to door. Whether by cold-turkey visitation or by taking surveys to find what the needs of the people are or by handing out gift bags of cookies or toiletries, whatever people need. Whatever would give us an opportunity to talk to our neighbors and present the gospel to those who were receptive.

About 50 people signed up. Why so few, I wondered? A plausible answer is that it was the eight hours the training would take. Begin at 8 am and after lunch, we would go visiting and witnessing for hours, then return to the church for a 3:30 pm report time. Our people are stressed and pulled in every direction and we’ve been careful not to schedule lengthy meetings at any time and ask them to attend. Was that it? Possibly.

Victor Benivides of NAMB did a terrific job explaining the C.A.S.T. approach to beginning a conversation with strangers. Make a “Connection” with them in conversation. Talk about “Activities” you might have in common. Then move to “Spiritual matters,” and quickly “Tell your story.” CAST, like “casting your net,” get it?

One of Victor’s colleagues shared the concept of prayer walking, and this was followed by an explanation of how to share the gospel using an innovative device called the “evangecube.” We broke for lunch, and then were put into teams and assigned to churches.

The idea was to go into that church’s neighborhood, and visit door-to-door, telling the residents you were from that church and asking about them, did they have any prayer requests, can we help you any way, and see if the conversation gives you an opportunity to share the gospel. No gimmicks. I like that.

Mark Yoho of Sugar Valley, Georgia, and I were assigned to Edgewater Baptist Church. Mark is a fine young man and has been a believer less than a decade. He specializes in jail ministries. (Incidentally, Pastor Kevin Lee had requested a team for his church, so we really were representing Edgewater. Plus, as the DOM, I’m unofficially a member of each of our 92 churches. Just for clarification here.)

Where was my old nemesis, the fear that had hounded all my attempts at door to door work over the years? Still alive and well, I must report. But no matter. “God has not given us the spirit of fear,” as Paul told Timothy. “But of power and love and a sound mind.”

We knocked on doors of FEMA trailers, one or two on every block in each direction of the church. Best we could tell, no one had moved back into his former home yet. Gutting out and rebuilding work was going on up and down the streets, not everywhere though. One house on this block, two houses on the next. People were nice, they invited us in if they had time, they explained what they were doing to their buildings, they talked about the Lord. We met atheists who were not interested, some people just returned from a funeral who assured us they were saved, and I met Donnie.

Mark and I had split up to get to all the trailers on that block. Donnie was about 50 and his face was polka-dotted with fine specks of white paint. He was a “good old country boy,” if you’ll allow me to say that–hey, I’m from rural Alabama; it takes one to know one–and he was grieving about his missing wife. “She’s left and I don’t know where she is.” He invited me in and was receptive to the message.

I sat there thinking, “Okay, this one was worth all the trouble. Donnie is going to find Jesus Christ today.” It was exciting.

Almost. Down to the end of my presentation when I asked if he would like to do this, he said, “Oh, I’ve been saved. In fact, I was ordained a preacher.” I said, “You just told me if you died, you were sure you would go to hell.” He said, “No, I meant anyone who didn’t believe in Jesus would.” Oh. So, let’s back up and start over.

Donnie was way, away from God. He admitted that. He found his Bible and we talked about how to get back in fellowship with the Lord. After we prayed, he promised he would be at Edgewater Baptist Church the next morning at 9:30 for worship. I told him to find Pastor Kevin and tell him “Joe sent me.”

Mark and I hooked up with Freddie Arnold and he gave Mark a ride back to First Baptist Church. So I missed the reporting-in session. Freddie called me later and said, “We had 22 people to pray to receive Christ and 1,024 contacts were made for the Lord.” Great.

I started out to tell why I believe God’s people are afraid to share their faith.

“Perhaps it’s the fear of rejection,” Victor Benivides told our group. “Or the fear of saying the wrong thing that keeps God’s people from sharing their faith.”

Maybe so, I thought, but I think it’s something else. Not just fear of the unknown, or fear of not knowing what to say, or the fear of ridicule.

I think it’s the fear of getting out of our comfort zone. We go to great lengths to avoid any effort to move us from that zone.

Consider how reluctant the average church member is to even pray in public. Announce to the Sunday School class that “we’re going to go around the circle, with each of us praying a short prayer,” and watch the panic on the faces of several in the room. And yet prayer is something these people presumably do all the time and they’re among close friends. Some of them would die a hundred deaths and risk heart attacks.

Now, ask those same church members to go down the street and knock on all the doors and tell anyone who comes about Jesus Christ. And to do it confidently and expectantly.

Good luck to you in that. Most are not going to do it.

Two quick remarks here.

One, we see a little house to house work in the New Testament. Paul said about his ministry in Ephesus, “I taught you publicly and from house to house.” (Acts 20:20) It’s there. But you don’t see a lot of it.

Two, what we see most in Scripture is a person telling his circle of friends what the Lord has done for him. Jesus healed a leper who went out and told everyone he knew about the Lord, resulting in crowds pressing in to the point He could no longer do His work. (Mark 1:45) Later, Jesus healed a demoniac who then volunteered to follow along on His itinerant ministry. “No,” Jesus said. “Go home to your friends and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how He has had compassion on you.” (Mark 5:19)

That’s always been Plan A. The only reason it became necessary for us to concoct elaborate plans for confronting strangers with the gospel is that God’s people have failed to do the easiest thing on the planet: tell your best friends your good news.

No wonder it’s so hard to tell strangers. We haven’t even told those nearest and dearest to us, which should be the easiest missionary work on the planet.

That’s why soulwinning is so hard for most of the Lord’s people and why we fear it so much: it’s Plan B, not the Lord’s original intentions. We’re like a bunch of third-graders trying to do high school work, memorizing a plan which we will employ in an unnatural situation and hoping we will not be found out as the impostors we feel ourselves to be. No one is more surprised than we when someone buys into the message we are spreading.

The day of witness training ends, we leave for home with an overwhelming sense of relief, glad it’s over, and hoping against hope we’ll never have to go through that again. Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture. This surely is not what the Lord intended.

Al Worthington said something once I’ve never been able to get out of my mind. This pitcher for the Minnesota Twins had come to Christ in a Billy Graham Crusade and then started phoning his large family to share the good news. An older brother told him, “Why, Al, I’ve been a Christian for eight years.” Al said, “I don’t believe it. If you had, you’d have told me about it before now.”

Gray Allison used to tell our seminary class: “If you’ve got it, you’ll tell it. Do you have it?”

2 thoughts on “The Ultimate Phobia: Why Christians Fear to Witness

  1. Joe,

    You taught me how to share the gospel throw the W.I.N. method. I think I attended a training session at FBC Jackson. Or maybe you came to campus. Do you remember taking us M.C. students to the Jackson airport to practice what we had learned?

    Then about 21 months later, I trained some other college students in the method at Parkway Baptist Church. I ended up marrying a Miss. State man in that group.

    Mary

  2. Just thanks for sharing and pinpointing why I have been so sporadic, at best, in sharing the Gospel throughout my 25 years as a Christian. May God forgive me for not obeying and trusting Him enough. Please pray for me Brother. I truly do not want see others perish because of my cowardice. And now I’m going to do something about it and truly be a witness for Jesus Christ! Thanks be to God for your words and actions.

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