Wednesday, November 21, 2018

For God So Loved the World - Tell Them


I met Harold King in 1972 when he was serving as the Associate to a Youth Ministry Leader at a work in Nashville, Tennessee.

He came with his group of teenagers to our Church in Flint as a part of a great Youth Revival Emphasis that we were having.

One of the things that the group brought with them was a fervor for witnessing and sharing faith. A tool that they used for making connections with others was a small business card that simply had a single verse of scripture printed on it.  John 3:16.

We found that anyone could share the Good News about Jesus with their friends, family, and even with total strangers in an unobtrusive and nonabrasive way by simply giving a card. We discovered that many people were looking for good news or a reason to smile. The card helped them connect with something from their past, from their childhood, or with something about which they had never heard.

This is a copy of one of those very cards!

We learned from our friends from Nashville that we could share good news and great hope with anyone and everyone that we met with this little gift.

Our pastor at the time was John Hamilton. He picked up the thread that was created and went to the printer's and had thousands of these little cards made for the members of our Church to use and distribute. I don't know how many of them we gave away or how many smiles we caused, or how many people's lives may have been changed by reading those few words.


When Harold King, Doug Anderson, and I had the opportunity to travel to India together in the Fall of 1974, Harold brought along a box full of the John 3:16 cards. We had heard that most of the Indian people could read and speak English, so he decided that this little gift might be as successful in a foreign country as it had been in his own. He was right!

Wherever we traveled in India, people of all ages wanted to talk to us, to hear our messages and about our faith -- and they all wanted a card to take with them!


We found that the Indian people were very friendly and were open to speak with us about their faith and to hear about ours. It was a thrilling time for us and God blessed our efforts as many of the people that we made contact with wanted to know more about Christ and about how they could become a Christian.

I am not certain about the public climate today in the land of India. I do read statistics that say that Christianity is growing there, but I also hear that many in the country have responded to that growth and expansion with anger and intolerance. It is the same in our own country.

Today a small business card might start a riot or stir an angry mob. We are living in tumultuous times. But we are also living in times where, more than ever before, people need good news, hope, and words of salvation and life.

God still loves the whole world, and He is doing His greatest work in all of human history right now, in our present day.


There are people who WANT to know, who want to hear.

Tell them.




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