It has been an exciting and busy few weeks in Kentucky as nearly 1,700 Kentucky Baptist churches have been involved in the Find it Here door-to-door evangelism campaign. We’re estimating that approximately 42,000 volunteers participated in distributing more than 1.4 million Gospel presentations to homes all across our state in the weeks leading up to Easter. At the same time, more than $182,000 worth of paid advertising provided “air support” for the Gospel delivery. Newspapers all over the state reported on the special effort by Baptists to share their faith.

So far, close to 1,900 response cards delivered with the brochures have come back indicating decisions from individuals and prompting follow up by local churches. Web site hits from Kentucky on the www.findithere.com Web site spiked significantly during the campaign as expected. And the stories from churches of increased attendance and people coming to faith have been wonderful. Click here to read about some of these.

So now what?

Do we say we claim that we’ve now reached Kentucky? That we’ve fulfilled the Great Commission because we’ve now given nearly everyone in the state at least an “opportunity” to have received the Gospel message?

Not hardly. As anyone who works in marketing will tell you, getting a message to audiences in a way that cuts through the clutter and really sticks takes continual hard work. And while I certainly don’t equate Jesus’ message to selling Coca Cola, we certainly can learn from the softdrink giant the importance of sharing our message, sharing our message and then sharing our message again and again because that’s what it takes to really reach people.

Hopefully, all Kentucky Baptists who have been involved are seeing Find it Here as just the beginning — as a wonderful, eye-opening experience that got us outside the walls of our churches and focused on the people and the needs of our communities in a new way. I am praying that our Find it Here experience means we’ll never be the same and that we will now always be focused on finding ever-better ways to share Jesus.

Dr. Don Mathis, our current Kentucky Baptist Convention president and staff evangelist at Eastwood Baptist Church in Bowling Green, recently provided some really practical advice for churches in the wake of Find it Here through a column in the Western Recorder. Check out what he had to say:

Beyond Find It Here: ‘What should we do now?’

By Don Mathis

KBC President Don Mathis

One of the most exciting events in recent times in the Kentucky Baptist Convention has been Find It Here. Leading up to Easter Sunday, a gospel witness and an invitation to attend worship was either placed in the hands of residents or hung on the door knobs of 1.4 million homes.

Find It Here followed a time of prayerwalking communities in preparation for the distribution. It will be followed by a High Attendance Day in Sunday school on April 18.

Positive results are being reported by many churches. The Kentucky church where I preached in revival the week before Easter already has had five families attend as a result of Find It Here. A neighboring church reported 24 first-time guests—more than they have seen in years.

I preached in revival in an out-of-state church with services beginning on Easter Sunday. With a normal Sunday morning attendance of 82, they had 174. More returned on Sunday night than they have on a typical Sunday morning.

I am sure that many churches have experienced similar results. What will result from Find It Here in the near future? What about months and years from now? God only knows, but it will inevitably be positive. God has promised that His Word will not return void.

An even more important question becomes, “What do we do now?” Let me offer a few suggestions:

1) Immediately start or re-energize your existing evangelistic visitation program. Knock on the doors of the persons discovered through Find It Here. There are a lot of “programs” for doing visitation. Use one of them or develop your own. If we don’t knock on their doors, they won’t come through ours.

2) Enroll every possible person in a Sunday school class. This is a good time to start new classes. Remember, new classes grow faster.

3) Pray, plan and work toward your best vacation Bible school ever. Make it an outreach VBS. Almost half of the people baptized each year in our churches come from VBS. This, too, will be at it best with the direct involvement of the pastor, including his leading the invitation time.

4) Follow up with a Harvest Revival sometime between August and November. Couple this with a High Attendance Day in Sunday school and special revival nights. With the actions mentioned above, many of the gospel seeds sown now will be ready for God to give a harvest.

5) How about simultaneous revivals next spring? We always baptize more people when we have revivals than when we don’t.

In short, let’s not let Find It Here be another program that comes and goes. We can deliver the gospel to every home in Kentucky. Let’s keep our focus on the 63 percent of our state’s population who do not know Jesus. They need for Find It Here to be more than a one time event.

– Robert Reeves