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#62 - Finding Five People To Share Your Faith With · Gospel Talks Podcast

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  Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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  My name is George Benoka and with me back in studio today for the first time in about a month is Jeff Musgrave, the author, the founder of the Exchange and Exchange Bible Study
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  and all the materials.
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  He and his wife, Anna, have been busy with seminars and so Anna is in our thoughts and prayers as she's just gone through a little bit of
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  surgery and recovery and so if you guys listening out there think of it pray for her and continued health for both of them but Jeff it's so good to see you again how are you
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  Doing great, doing great.
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  Had a couple of great seminars since the last time that I talked with you.
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  Been in Pennsylvania and in Illinois.
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  the group from Pennsylvania, it was a couple of weeks ago and have gotten word back from them.
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  They've seen a couple of people saved so far and have two or three Bible studies going.
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  It's always exciting when you get people to have confidence in the power of the gospel.
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  It's just exciting to see where it goes.
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  Well, that's awesome.
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  We're going to actually be talking about something related to that.
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  You know, how do you meet people?
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  And in the exchange, we call it how to find five.
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  And we talk about find five all the time.
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  It's one of the cards you get if you've ever been to a seminar is finding five people.
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  And so why don't you tell us where this concept came from?
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  So believe it or not, years ago, we had an evangelist come into our church and he was encouraging people to invite people to church.
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  And he said, you know, rather than just thinking I should, he said, why don't you make a list of 10 people?
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  He called it Target 10.
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  And m I thought that was smart because I think that sometimes we feel we have good intentions, but if we don't make a specific
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  uh a goal, nothing ever really happens.
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  Well, what we're talking about is obviously as far more intensive than just inviting people to come to church.
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  And so it makes sense to me that we're going to have a little bit of a smaller list because we're going to be cultivating these relationships.
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  we just thought if you combine it with what we see in the parable of the wedding feast, we've talked about that in the past.
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  uh in the wedding feast, the servants are invited to go out into the highways and to find people there and invite them to the wedding feast.
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  And so this is kind of the second part of those responsibilities of intentionally going, but then specifically finding people that are in our sphere of influence that God would
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  have us to be able to reach.
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  I feel like when we get to heaven,
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  God is not going to look at us and say, did you have a good time down there?
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  he's, he's going to be asking us, okay, did you accomplish the work that I sent you to accomplish?
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  And if we're supposed to be sent into the world, the very first place I think we should look is that that circle of influence, that sphere of influence, where we live, where we
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  work, the people that we connect.
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  with the people that we see on a regular basis.
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  Those are the people God is going to be expecting me to be able to impact for Christ.
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  And so what we're what we've done with the fine five list is just say, Okay, let's recognize that.
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  And then let's purposely write down some names that we can be praying for and intensifying relationships with those people.
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  I think we do have to be intentional with that.
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  um Otherwise we miss it.
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  And there's actually a whole section of giving the exchange that talks about divine appointments.
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  And so if you're, if find five sounds intimidating, Jesus will help you find those fives.
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  He will point them out to you.
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  We call that divine appointments and there's different instances and types of divine appointments.
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  But God has providentially situated us wherever we are in life, right?
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  To be around the people we are for a reason.
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  There's no accidents, it's not.
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  you know, luck or fate or karma or whatever, it's God's sovereignty.
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  He's put us in that situation and it's for us to pick up our heads and look around.
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  And this is just like, like counting calories.
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  It's just a really helpful way to keep track of something and actually be intentional and keep it on the forefront of our mind.
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  that's a great analogy.
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  You know, just taking responsibility for what God called us to do.
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  Right, right, and the Bible tells us there's a principle of measuring and counting and planning involved in God's work and that we are wise to count the cost of something before
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  we set out to do it.
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  And so I think that that principle very much applies to this.
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  So, find five, who?
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  I mean, anybody?
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  Yeah.
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  I, well, I think of it this way.
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  as I began to ask God, okay, who should I reach?
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  oftentimes it, it just, and I don't know if everybody else is the way I am, but if it feels like God just kind of lays people on my heart and that I recognize, yeah, that
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  person I see on a regular basis, I, I, you know, that neighbor,
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  I, in talking to them, I recognize that, they, they probably don't know the Lord.
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  And, there's a, there's a, kind of a longing in my heart that I would, I would love for them to hear the truth.
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  And those are the kinds of people that I'm thinking of first.
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  And, and as you, we try to live with the fine five list, not just use it for a training event tool.
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  And so as I,
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  go through life and God opens doors with me, those people kind of go on my list because I recognize, there's a person that I could touch with the gospel.
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  Hmm.
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  Have you ever come across somebody in one of your seminars where they can do with a case like, like, I just like, I don't even have one.
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  There's like, I know nobody.
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  Like, what do I do?
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  Like, I don't know.
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  Maybe they live out in the boonies or something.
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  What do you tell somebody like that?
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  Well, I do think that that's a real issue because most of us spend a lot of time at church.
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  And if you've got someone who's working at home or retired and um they're not being thrust out of their home, and the majority of their time not spent at home is at church or with
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  church people.
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  that sphere of influence gets really, really small.
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  Interesting that you asked me that.
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  This last weekend, I was in a training event that was a second of two.
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  And so we do two weekend seminars in which we can accomplish everything that we would in a week long seminar.
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  And so the first seminar we deal with
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  relationally connecting with people and all of the relational concepts that we've talked about here on the podcast.
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  And then the second seminar, we call it just the gospel and we go in and we focus on the specifics of how to articulate the gospel well so that it really makes sense to an
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  unbeliever, putting yourself in the unbeliever's shoes and how does this truth strike him?
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  Anyway,
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  We were all done and I went out to dinner after the seminar was over with the pastor and several of the leaders in the church.
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  And I was sitting across from a woman and she said, Jeff, I don't know if you remember, but last time in the seminar, you were telling us that we needed to have this fine five
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  list.
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  And I told you that I
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  I didn't know anybody.
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  And you told me that I needed to start cultivating connections and purposely strategically find places where I would connect with people.
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  And she said, I started a ministry in which another person and I from the church are going every uh week to connect with uh a bunch of
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  young teenage girls who are kind of underprivileged.
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  And I can't tell you how many opportunities I've had to give the gospel to those girls.
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  And I thought that that was really cool that just a side comment and a question and answer in a seminar led to this woman starting a ministry in which she's connecting with
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  underprivileged
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  uh Young people and being able to share the gospel with them.
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  So that was really cool I do think that's a problem.
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  And and so we have to strategically say I've got to get out of my home and purposely go to find people like that need the Lord
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I don't think we have an opportunity shortage.
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  I think we're short-sighted.
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  We don't see the opportunities that are right in front of us.
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  I was just talking to a lady, shout out to Esther, and she told me a story about they were traveling.
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  They got the rain flooded the hotel they were supposed to be at.
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  And she told them, hey, the key card system doesn't even work anymore.
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  Would you mind going to a different hotel?
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  They go to a different hotel.
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  They checked in.
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  And they're like, yeah, I know that happens in that area Sometimes you get a flash flood in 30 minutes all of sudden that the town is kind of underwater a little bit and so they
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  go to bed and the middle of the night she you know, just was like wakes up and so she just got this kind of sense this leading of I need to go talk with the front clerk and So she
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  got down there.
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  She took an exchange track with her talked to the front clerk and led her to Christ that night
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  And I mean, it's 3 a.m., so there's nobody in the hotel, you know, there's nobody in the lobby of the hotel, nobody coming in or out.
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  And it's really interesting.
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  think sometimes what hinders our vision is a lack of faith, that God can do these things, that God, you can have a relationship with your neighbors, you can introduce them to Jesus
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  Christ.
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  That's not about you and it's not about our gifts and abilities and whether we have the know-it-all or the charisma or whatever to do this, the right personality.
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  No, there's nothing like that.
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  Jesus can do this for anybody who has faith and is willing.
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  I think that's, we need to remember that.
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  think that especially with people we have access to that are in our sphere of influence, we can connect with them over a period of time.
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  It's not like we have to go to them and say, God woke me up in the middle of the night.
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  I need to talk to you.
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  I mean, this was an unusual circumstance that Esther was in.
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  And so.
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  Hopefully we can give some strategies and how to actually make that happen too.
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  But that's later in the podcast.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Well, um so people have all sorts of...
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  I don't know if you've ever thought of this.
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  I think that all of us think I wish I had more of a burden for the loss, you know, that I really do think that that's a legitimate concern for a lot of people because they know
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  they should be concerned for the loss, but they find themselves a little selfish and living for themselves and in the busy-ness and the rush of life.
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  And I actually find that a fine five list helps me keep real people with real faces and real hearts and real lives that I'm concerned for in front of me so that now it's not just
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  a general concern for the loss, but it's a specific concern for my friends, for my family, for my associates at work, for my neighbors.
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  Does that make sense?
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  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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  That's why for me the acronym FANS has been so helpful is because it identifies those groups.
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  I'll be honest, I don't even remember what it's, I don't remember exactly what it stands for so I don't want to butcher it, but maybe you can remind us.
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  I actually have it written down in front of me right here.
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  So no problem.
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  Yeah, I, I, we came up with that word fans a long time ago only because it's real simple, not it.
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  It only has four letters and each of those letters stand for in our minds, groups of people.
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  And so the F would stand for friends or family.
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  And so that's actually two different groups of people, but
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  if you just think of the friends that you have, family members, sometimes we've gotten so used to them not knowing the Lord that we forget, hey, I could actually pursue them with
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  the gospel.
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  And so those friends and family would be the F in fans.
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  A, there's two different groups in this one as well, associates, and you know that can be at work, that can be in
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  community organizations that we work in, all different kinds of associations that we find ourselves in.
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  And so if you look around when you get to your particular places where you associate with people, look around to those associates around you and recognize those are people who need
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  the Lord and ask God if he wouldn't lay a person or two on your heart from your workplace, from your community.
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  organization, those sorts of things.
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  By the way, just uh a little plug here for chapter five in our book, Giving the Exchange.
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  There's a whole section in that of places where you might be going on a regular basis that you don't think to look for unbelievers there.
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  So just a
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  chapter five in giving the exchange you can find a lot of those.
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  And then acquaintances.
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  I think there are some people that we know, but that we don't really consider them a part of our friend group.
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  They're just acquaintances.
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  And those are people we can make friends with and connect with on a deeper level.
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  And so that would be the second in the A category.
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  The N uh just stands for neighbors, just the people that live around us.
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  So
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  Neighbors can be people that live in your neighborhood.
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  And, you know, I can think of immediately about six people in my neighborhood that I would consider close neighbors.
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  I've got people across the corner this way, people across the street this way, a next door neighbor, across the street neighbor, two behind me.
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  And so those are the people that are immediately around me that I connect with on a regular basis.
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  Those are all people that can easily fit in this fine five list category of fans, friends and family, associates and acquaintances, neighbors.
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  And then the last one S I put in there for strangers.
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  And people always look at me and say, wait a minute, strangers.
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  I don't know any of those.
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  No, but you will.
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  And God is, you know, you were talking about divine appointments.
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  God is constantly bringing people into our lives.
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  have a woman who cuts my hair, who is on my fine five list because
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  I met her one day and began to realize here's a person God is wooing and drawing to himself.
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  so I didn't always know Monica, but now I do.
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  so she's on my fine five list.
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  I love that.
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  So I know folks are, you know, probably thinking, okay, let's say you find these people.
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  What's the first step?
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  um Do we just pray or do we start a conversation or do we just go right into the gospel?
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  What's your approach to that?
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  Well, I think the very first step is actually write them down.
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  Make a list, a physical list.
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  Get those people.
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  And I have this on my list, names of people who need the gospel.
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  So there's not just five people that I want to be close to.
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  These are five people that I want to build redemptive relationships with so that I can get the gospel to them.
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  So that's the very first thing.
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  helping myself see this is the list of people that I'm asking God to use me to touch their life.
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  So that changes my mindset about those people.
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  It changes the way I view them.
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  And then secondly, I do think that we need to be praying and specifically praying.
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  I think that if we would pray for open doors and for boldness that God would give me the courage
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  to actually say things to them that would allow them to recognize their need for Jesus.
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  So I think prayer is a significant first step of helping God to help me form that real genuine burden
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  And then to ask God to give me open doors and to give me a boldness.
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  think boldness is a great biblical prayer.
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  We see people in the Bible regularly asking God for boldness.
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  And so I think it's appropriate for us to do that.
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  I agree.
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  And that's one I hear requested a lot from the folks who order materials from us, is they'll ask us to pray for boldness.
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  Because uh fear, think, is one of the biggest inhibitors of evangelism.
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  It's one of the biggest barriers to being a witness.
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  So what about somebody who, yeah.
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  several folks on the phone recently who have given him some specific prayer requests for boldness with specific people they're trying to reach.
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  And so if any of our listeners would like to pray for these folk, we would certainly love to see that.
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  Thank you.
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  Yeah, and even to the audience, I'm telling you guys, if you want to email us, george at exchange ministry.org or jeff at exchange ministry.org, there's some way we can pray for
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  you.
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  I think that's really, really important.
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  It's an essential ingredient in our outreach.
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  So what do you tell the person who says, I struggle with social anxiety?
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  Have you ever counseled somebody like that?
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  Yeah, I think there are a lot of people who consider themselves introverts and talking to someone is just difficult.
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  Here's my suggestion.
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  Don't go at it with the thought process.
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  I've got to have one conversation in which I am going to talk to them and give them the gospel and watch them get saved.
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  If you can think in terms of
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  letting strengthening these relationships strategically, maybe over a period of time.
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  In fact, time is really a critical word in relationships.
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  If you can just think not about having conversations with people, but about spending time with them.
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  So if instead of fixating on this conversation you have to have with them, if you will think in terms of
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  appropriate and enjoyable ways to spend time with them.
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  I can't, I, think sometimes starting relationships with shoulder to shoulder time, as opposed to face to face time might be a little easier.
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  So let's go do something together.
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  and, there's all kinds of things you can do.
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  I, think if, if it's a neighbor, you might want to think in terms of asking them to, Hey, I'm going to,
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  start walking three times a week.
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  Would you be interested in scheduling one of those times with me to walk with me either in the morning or evening?
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  And just finding ways to spend time with people.
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  That's a very good way.
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  I mean, these conversations kind of just happen when we're doing things together.
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  Yeah, yeah, I agree.
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  I would say if you're struggling with an anxiety, training is your friend too.
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  I mean, it's kind of like anything like I'm not the best uh shooter in the world.
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  So I've probably taken more courses than somebody who's natural at it would just because I know that the training helps me compensate for my lack of gifting in this particular area,
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  you could say.
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  But I believe we all have been given the command to go and be a witness.
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  So
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  Jesus has given us all power in the Holy Spirit to go and do that and accomplish that but but training and edifying in the equipping of ourselves and and allowing our elders to
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  equip us and you know what the exchange provides in the exchange online and Coming to seminars in your church and things like that Those are things that I believe the Lord has
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  given us as tools to help with all our anxieties We all have some anxiety about witnessing it could be a social anxiety anxiety about giving the wrong answer or whatever
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  um But I really believe that the training is a big answer to that.
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  Yeah, amen, amen.
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  And part of what we try to teach people in the training is, don't, I don't in my conversations think, how am going to get this conversation to the gospel?
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  I think in terms of how am I going to get this conversation to a soul level conversation, to where I'm talking to this person on a deep level of their soul.
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  Because
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  it's a whole lot easier to get a conversation to the gospel from a soul level.
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  So if you're fixating on how am going to have a conversation with my neighbor about the gospel, know, you may never get there, but if you can think in terms of how can I just
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  have serious soul level conversations and part of that is just a conducive atmosphere, you know, you're probably not going to get
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  to the gospel, talking to your neighbor about the grass every other week.
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  know, it's, it, a conversation in your front yard about the grass is, is not ever going to get you there.
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  And so you're going to have to put yourself in an, in an environment that's more conducive for these deeper, conversations.
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  And then, what I've observed is that the, the scary thing is starting to ask
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  good questions about a person's inner workings of their life.
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  You don't have to go too deep too fast, like you ever been afraid?
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  So, you you can instead start asking people about the various events of their life and then somewhere along the line say, you know, is that scary to you?
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  That would be scary to me, you know, whenever they're telling me about the events of their life.
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  So,
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  Having soul level conversations is not a one step, I'm there.
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  It's just listening and showing genuine interest and concern for a person and letting them know that I care about them.
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  And as I'm transparent and opening my heart and showing them genuine concern, it's kind of almost miraculous how people just start opening their hearts and telling me what's going
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  on in their hearts.
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  Hmm.
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  Yeah, it is absolutely amazing what God can do in those opportunities if we were just willing to be people of crisis.
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  You know, we talk about that quote from, is it Jim Elliot?
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  And Lord, make me, exactly, exactly, make me a fork in the road, not a signpost.
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  um And so really important we, right?
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  And, and I think that, I think that eventually we have to, so we were, talking about how to have a soul level conversations, but, we actually have to eventually share the gospel
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  with them.
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  In other words, it's not, it's not enough for us to, to just be friends.
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  we have to recognize that God gives us deeper friendships with people so that we can give the gospel to them.
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  And we're actually more responsible with these people that we have deep conversations with.
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  I think another thing to remember is that when you've given the gospel, don't quit.
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  Just because a person shows a lack of interest or a lack of conviction,
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  Most people need more than one touch with the gospel.
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  And so don't don't give up on people.
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  If if you don't see results right away.
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  I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but I we actually developed the exchange Bible study specifically for being able to develop these deeper relationships with people.
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  and then inviting them to do a Bible study.
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  And it is shocking to me to watch how a deeper level of discussion around the Bible impacts people's hearts and creates interest.
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  So don't be afraid to ask even a seemingly uninterested person to do that Bible study with you.
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  Right.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  Well, um thank you guys so much for listening and tuning in.
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  And if this podcast was an encouragement to you, we ask you to share it with somebody that you feel like it would benefit them to hear and pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the
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  harvest that he would send forth laborers.
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  We love you guys.
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  You are the laborers out there and we're laboring alongside with you and we care for you and we're here to support you.
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  If there's anything our ministry can do to be an encouragement to you.
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  Just let us know and if we can do it, we're gonna do it.
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  And we love you guys, we're praying for you, and we'll see you next week.