Not too long ago, I was in Phoenix to watch the Suns play the Lakers. Of course, I wore a Lakers jersey. They are my team, and I came to enjoy the game and show my support. A lot of other fans were wearing jerseys to the game, but hardly any of them were the purple and gold of the Lakers. I stood out, I was in enemy territory, but I was not about to hide my identity as a Lakers fan.

Sharing the gospel is a very controversial topic to most churchgoers. Most Christians would agree that we are to share the love of Christ. The controversy comes from the very few who actually do it. Curtis Hutson once said, “The only alternative to soulwinning is disobedience.”

Being an independent Baptist in the 1970s was exciting. Elmer Towns published The Ten Largest Sunday Schools in America in 1969, and we occupied a majority of the spots. People were being saved, and churches were growing exponentially through aggressive soulwinning and outreach.

Have you ever been disappointed as you learned the faults of great Christians? When you discover the flaws in a well-known Christian leader, are you tempted to discount the truths they have preached? I think all Christians go through struggles of this nature.

I think each of us desire that our lives would count in eternity; but the question is: How am I going to make it count and last? I would like to share two ways that I have found help me influence others in a lasting way:

The picture above sits on my desk in a frame, representing a fond memory to me. It was one of those times Terrie agreed to spend time with me in the outdoors for a few days of hunting.

There is no verse that says, “Thou shalt not shoot up heroine,” yet we know it is sinful because of Bible principles. Likewise, the Bible is filled with principles which make gambling undeniably sinful. In this article, we will examine several of those principles from God’s Word.

Sometimes knocking on doors during your scheduled outreach time is the easy thing to do. Please do not misunderstand me. Our church strongly promotes knocking doors in our community in order to witness and invite people to our church. We organize the effort with highlighted maps, print attractive invitations, and try to hit every door in our community about four times a year. Yet the most difficult work is going back to the same person until he is saved and baptized.

If repetition is the key to learning, then, when it comes to working with young people, keeping a big picture focus is the key to sanity. It’s so easy to get into a rut in which we tire of the repetition necessary to develop students.

There are five major influences on our students: home, school, church, TV, and peers. When you consider the time that a child spends with each of these throughout his lifetime, the school and the home definitely have the potential to be the most powerful. Thus, these two institutions must talk to each other, must work together, and must coordinate efforts.