I am still loving Christmastime witnessing.
As I have said before, it is the most wonderful time of the year for evangelism. It is the only time of the year you can go out in public and hear music about Jesus playing in the public square. The public is being exposed to small morsels of the gospel whether they know it or not.
This past Saturday, my oldest son and I took the trip north to Bethlehem, PA, aka the Christmas City. Bethlehem is one of several neat towns in the Lehigh Valley, and is only an hour away from us -- though surprisingly, and despite my many travels across the state, this was the first time I remember visiting the downtown area.
Last year, my kids and I made two evangelism visits to Bethlehem's famous Christkindlmarkt. Those were great witnessing experiences. It was on one of those trips that I saw my oldest son take two women through the Ten Commandments and explain the gospel to them.
This was different, but in a good way. While I loved handing out tracts at that event, which was held at Bethlehem's Steel Stacks, this week's trip involved walking around a city. To be honest, I love a lot of forms of evangelism, but nothing is better to me than walking around a city doing this. I feed off the energy of the downtown environment. (I hate to use the word "energy." It's not a very Christian word. But I think you know what I'm saying.)
Walking the streets on an unseasonably warm 60-degree day, we handed out approximately 400 Santa tracts. For a Saturday afternoon in December, the town was pretty packed with people, as folks were strolling the streets checking out the restaurants, shops, and Christmas sidewalk vendors.
A lot of people were actually dressed in Christmas attire. We saw several people dressed as elves and reindeer.
At the very end, we came upon a man who was so decked out in Santa gear, we realized he had been hired to play the character. My son gave him our final tract -- a million dollar bill with the image of a Rockwellian Santa Claus on it.
The man laughed as he looked it over. "A million bucks... with me on it?!" he said. Not realizing what it was, he tried to hand it back. "I think it's better that you keep this."
My son shook his head. "I think it's better that you do."
And so that is the story of how we shared the gospel with Santa Claus.
Once again, I implore anyone who is reading this to try this time of year for witnessing. If you get tracts with Santa or any other Christmas symbol on them, they will fly out of your hands wherever you go. Order some tracts from onemilliontracts.com, hit the streets, and simply say, "Merry Christmas, this is for you," as you offer them to people.
You will be shocked -- and pleased -- how easy it is to go out and serve the Lord as we gear up to celebrate his birth.
-JDM-
