“But if I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak any more in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.” Jeremiah 20:9 (NASB)
One of the wonderful things about being in the Agape Force was the radically creative things we did. We had no one method or model that we used exclusively. What we had, was a willingness to go anywhere, anytime, do anything, or pay any price to win souls.
What we learned early on, was that people come to know the Lord one at a time. Each heart has to be wooed and won individually and that takes a lot of prayer and hard work.
In the early years, we took our cues from the early Salvation Army and followed William Booth’s admonition to “Go for the worst.” We went to college campuses, Youth Camps, bars, laundromats, and of course to the streets themselves. To win souls you had to
go where the people were, get their attention and show them both the love and the heartbreak of God in a way that they could identify with.
The gospel may be the Good News, but good news doesn’t mean much to a person if he doesn’t understand the bad news. The bad news was simple. Without God we are lost forever. Sin separates us from God and selfishness is at the core of every sin. People need God so desperately, but so many don’t even realize it. They don’t understand that their selfishness is sin. They don’t see that it hurts, not only themselves and others, but God and His universe.
This theme ran through everything we did and it’s creative expression gave birth to some of the most original evangelism techniques in our generation. One of those techniques was a skit that was developed in the early 70’s and performed in various places around the country. It never failed to get a rise out of people. And that was exactly what we wanted.
Dee