What Benefits Does JD2D Offer?
It Equips Your Congregation to Share the Gospel.
JD2D trains your people to share the gospel. They will not only use that training when they canvass the neighborhood, but that training will remain with them in all their day-to-day activities. There are many stories of people who attended a JD2D event and then found themselves using this training at work, at school, and with neighbors or family or friends. This is the #1 benefit by far.It Creates Opportunities to Share the Gospel
By going door-to-door with the gospel, you create an opportunity to share the gospel. Instead of waiting around for the “perfect opportunity” to present itself, JD2D creates the opportunities. Evangelism is often associated with “missions.” Think about the word “mission” for a minute. When someone goes on a “mission” do they wait around until it’s convenient to carry it out? No! They plan, they practice, they anticipate resistance, but they go. That’s what JD2D does. It pushes you to “go.” Satan is working overtime to make sure no good opportunities to share the gospel present themselves to you. That means you need to create the opportunity yourself. Go!Long on Action
Lots of “evangelism programs” are long on theory, short on action. JD2D is the opposite of that. With focused training, you can be equipped to share the gospel with a neighbor in 90 minutes or less. And then JD2D actually goes out and does it. We don’t just “talk about” evangelism. We actually “do evangelism.”Corporate Action
A congregation prays together, sings together, and worships together. We confess in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in the “communion of saints.” Evangelism should be done corporately also. Jesus sent them out “two by two” in Luke 10. Instead of training people how to share their faith and then hoping they do it individually, we go out corporately. We send out teams of people, all on the same day. It’s valuable for evangelistic outreach to be a corporate action.Uniquely Respectful
When we go knock on a door and ask if someone wants to take a short religious survey and that person says “No.” Do you know what we do? We thank them for their time and walk away. When we’re halfway through a survey and ask someone what they believe where they will go when they die and they reply, “I think the survey is done now.” Do you know what we do? We say, “Thank you for your time” and we walk away. When someone has a “No Soliciting” sign on their door, we respect that and move on to the next house without even leaving literature at the door.Why is this?
We can take this approach because faithfulness to God’s Word frees us to do so. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convert people. Not ours. If they don’t even want to hear the gospel as we go door-to-door, that’s ok. That’s not our problem. That’s the Holy Spirit’s problem, and I assure you, He’s a big boy. He can handle it. He will just need to reach that person with the gospel in some other way.
It’s Diagnostic
Sometimes when you do door-to-door evangelism you knock on the doors of your own members. Just because they are your own members doesn’t mean they can get by without answering the questions. Trust me, you’re going to want to know what your own people think. I once knocked on the door of a house, and LuAnn, one of the church’s shut-ins answered the door. She agreed to take our survey. When I asked her, “Where do you believe you will go when you die?” And she said, “Heaven.” And when I asked her “Why do you believe that?” This woman who was baptized, confirmed, married, and now living in her 82nd year as a member of the same church said, “Because I’ve never done anything wrong.” That’s diagnostic.Encourages the Faithful
When you’re doing door-to-door you’re going to encounter other people who also share faith in Jesus Christ. And when you meet them, you’ll be glad to have met them, and they, in turn, will be glad to have met you. It’s not that rare for them to thank you profusely for your work and offer to pray for you before you go. Faithful Christians are encouraged by your work.Embodied Practice
Door-to-door evangelism is a bodily practice. It trains the body and the tongue. It develops habits and dispositions to respond automatically in certain situations and environments. Make no mistake, the gospel-sharing muscles that are exercised in door-to-door evangelism are frequently put to use in other conversations. Door-to-door evangelism is so embodied it’s on the schedule. We pray for it in corporate worship two weeks before we go. We pray for the gospel seeds sown the Sunday after it occurs. It happens in community with other people. We can actually talk about it precisely because it’s embodied. It’s hard for people to complain about how our church doesn’t “care about the lost” when you can literally point them to an activity you’re doing to reach the lost.It Serves Word and Sacrament Ministry
Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching. You know the Great Commission well. Jesus says at the end of Matthew’s gospel that the two ingredients for making disciples is baptizing and teaching. Well guess what? Door-to-door evangelism does no baptizing, and almost no teaching. Your congregation, however, is the very locus of such things. No matter what size of community you serve, you and your congregation are vitally important, because you’re the place where baptizing and teaching occurs. God works through Word and Sacrament ministry, and JD2D connects people to congregations, which are places of Word and Sacrament ministry.It Encourages Church Work
The church is mightily understaffed and in need of pastors and teachers and other church workers. JD2D helps fosters a commitment to seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ reach many others. This desire is well within the spirit of church work. OAFC (the organization on which much of JD2D is based) produced a huge number of church workers. That was never the goal, it was just a natural outgrowth of the work. JD2D will likely see similar fruit over time.It Gathers Current Data on Community Beliefs/Trends
What percentage of the people in your community are without a church home? JD2D canvassing will help you discover the answer. What percentage of the people in your community are even aware that your congregation exists? JD2D canvassing will shed light on that question. The data gathering is an important part of JD2D and will show you in no uncertain terms that the mission field is in your backyard.The Lost are Found
You might expect this to be the #1 benefit, but it’s not. This is beyond our control. But, our Father, who sent His Son to seek and to save the lost, is a good gift giver. One of the greatest gifts is the gift of watching someone who doesn’t know Jesus get connected to a community/congregation that does. There are SO MANY STORIES. Here are a few.
In September of 2021, A pastor took this door-to-door evangelism stuff and went out in three teams among his community. He was talking to a gentleman and asked him, “Where do you believe you will go when you die?” The man replied, “That’s a really good question, and honestly, it’s one I’ve been thinking a lot about recently.” Goodness gracious. Has a door ever been propped more wide open for the sharing of the gospel than that?It does happen.
I was in Portage, Michigan in the summer of 2021. I knocked on a door. I said, “Hello, we’re from St. Michael Lutheran Church here in Portage and we’re taking a short religious survey, can I ask you a few questions?” The man’s eyes lit up. He called his wife over to the door and said, “We’ve been meaning to visit your church for a couple of months now. We’re so glad you here, can you answer a few of our questions?” Within two hours I had the pastor of the congregation at their home, talking with them talking about New Membership classes and scheduling baptisms.
I was up in Rugby, ND in August of 2021. We dropped by the home of a young woman with three children. She told us she was new to the area, was formerly Lutheran, and was looking for a church to attend. She asked us if someone from the congregation could come out to tell her more about Jesus and the church.
Three months later, one of the lay-leaders from that same church sent me a text-message. It read “I can’t remember names, but tell the kids that we’re in my canvassing group that the family with the really pretty husky pup has been to our church a couple times now. Mom and dad and three young boys! They specifically mentioned because we were friendly. The boy in my group, that was his first ever house he had called on and talked! They planted a good seed!”
These are just a few of many such stories. These experiences are not guaranteed, but they’re aren’t uncommon either. It’s a great joy when it occurs. As St. Paul says. Those who sow bountifully reap bountifully. JD2D is not a magic bullet, but it will help you sow bountifully the gospel seeds in your community.