She had never heard the gospel

She can see the church building every time she walks through her front door to get on the school bus, but she had never heard the gospel.

The 12-year-old girl with four siblings lives in a mobile home a couple hundred yards behind the church building. I met her and her mother recently while doing door-to-door evangelism with a long-time deacon of the church prior to a revival the church was hosting. This deacon and other members from the church care deeply about their community and want to see it reached with the gospel of Jesus.

During our hour and a half outreach, we went to several homes and had multiple gospel conversations. In fact, each home we visited turned into an opportunity to share Jesus. The most memorable one was at the front porch of a single mother with five children.

When we met the mother at the door, she was friendly and open to our conversation. She was already acquainted with my deacon friend — he had been to the home before to invite this family to church. As I began to ask friendly questions to gauge her spiritual beliefs, it became apparent that she had attended church at some time in her past, but was not a Christian. When I asked permission to share the gospel, she was open, but she made a request. She asked if she could go inside to get her oldest daughter so she also could listen. That doesn’t happen very often in cold-call evangelism, so of course we obliged.

The 12-year-old stood on the front porch and read aloud each Bible verse that I pointed her to. She was able to understand the biblical concepts of God, creation, sin, the cross and resurrection, forgiveness  and eternal life. After sharing with her, I asked if she had ever heard this message before. She said that she had not, but that she had been asking her mother about church and about spiritual matters. I have prayed for her since then, that God will continue to convict her and draw her to himself for salvation. I ask that you pray for her also. This precious 12-year-old child is just one of many living reminders that there are multitudes in our state who have never heard the good news.

My prayer is that every Kentucky Baptist church (there is one for every 1900 Kentuckians) will develop and implement a strategy to ensure that every person in their community has heard the good news of salvation through faith in Christ.