Saturate USA, along with The Jesus Film Project, are two of the most amazing ministries I have been blessed to work with.
I will talk about Saturate USA in this post and more about The Jesus Film Project in a future one. Although they really are interconnected.
Some quick statistics about Saturate USA. They have “saturated” over 33 million homes across America with the Gospel. That number includes over 102 million Americans.
They are in every state and have a goal of reaching 120 million homes by the year 2027.
One of the most amazing things about evangelism via Saturate USA is that it is absolutely free. They supply all of the materials. It is encouraged to add your own information.
So, the way this wonderful ministry works is, you “adopt” a zip code with your home church, usually the one in which your church is located, but it can be a different one.
The materials they send you include door hanger bags, a multi-language Jesus Film DVD that has the original Jesus Film, Magdalena (which is geared towards women), and The Jesus Film for Children, (the DVD cover includes a QR code for those who do not have a DVD player), a tract, and maps of your area.
What you do then is assemble the packages including some information about your home church or anything else you would like to add to it.
Then comes the fun part, taking them door to door. This can be done in a few different ways.
You can hang them on the doors without knocking on them and then go back a couple weeks later and follow up with the residents to see if they received the information and have any questions.
Although this way may seem a bit more time consuming, the benefit of doing it this way is, you make sure everyone receives the Gospel message. And it gives people the opportunity to look the information over and ask questions during follow ups.
Another benefit of doing it this way, as we have seen in our own zip code, is it is a great way to get the youth of the church involved in hanging the hangers on the doors. One person drives along and the kids jump out and go door hanging.
Taking them door to door and knocking on the door the first time has the benefit of not having to go back to each home twice. Our adopted zip code is about 15,000 so you can see how that would be very time consuming.
The draw back of doing it this way is that if you knock on the door and someone answers they have the opportunity to reject you and then have not received the Gospel message. It happened twice to us just today.
Either way, it really takes no special training and anyone of just about any age can participate.
One of the things we have done in our door-to-door adventures with Saturate USA is find a local ministry that most people, believers as well as non-believers, can get behind.
A ministry that helps the homeless or offers free meals to those in need. We have put together a half page flyer with the information on it and use that as our opening.
In our case, in our small town there is a wonderful local ministry called the Warming Center that offers free meals every night of the week, a food pantry, a clothes pantry and takes donations.
We present the flyer and ask them if they have heard about it. Very few people will reject you outright and it gives you just a couple seconds while they are looking at the flyer to assess the situation.
You can usually tell within those few seconds if someone is open to talking or not. If they are not, we give them the door hanger bag with the Saturate USA info, plus info on local churches and a town Resource Guide we have put together for those in need.
We have made sure the Resource Guide has the Gospel message in it in many spots.
Also, after giving the initial half page flyer some will then reject the Saturate bag, so we put a Gospel message on the back of the Warming Center half page flyer so either way they get the Gospel message.
You really learn some great tricks as you go along. One thing to lower someone’s guard is as you are walking up to their door look around their yard.
See what they are interested in. Do they have dogs, talk about dogs, do they have beautiful rose bushes talk about them. People love talking about their stuff.
Going door to door doing evangelism via Saturate USA can sound intimidating, and as I mentioned in previous post about what to expect when evangelizing, you really never know what to expect.
You will have people that are lonely and invite you in. You will have people that are not happy to see you.
You will have times where you cover 10 homes in 10-15 minutes and other times when you spend a half an hour at one home talking, fellowshipping, and praying with other believers or discussing the Gospel with non-believers.
After we get the Warming Center flyer and Saturate USA bags into their hands, we usually either ask them if they need prayer for anything or if they attend church locally. This gives us a good idea where they stand in their relationship, or lack there of, with Jesus Christ.
From there, if they are a believer, we ask them if they were to die tonight are 100% sure they would get to Heaven. You would be surprised how many confessing Christians say no.
We carry a small pocket New Testament from William Fay and Share Jesus Without Fear and if they are interested, we take them through the parts he recommends that show someone how they can know 100% for sure they will get to Heaven.
I would highly recommend carrying these pocket New Testaments with you. We also carry a small note pad to write down prayer requests and prayer for those who need salvation.
One other thing we do, since our local God 411 is a Christian Resource Center, we get some relatively inexpensive Christian books to hand out on prayer or devotions or growing in your walk, something to help them grow.
For those who are questioning things, one of the best resources is a book by Mark Cahill called One Heartbeat Away. It has answers to just about any question they may have. You can buy them for bulk on his website. It is a bit more than some other books that you can get for 99 cents at Christianbook.com, but it is really worth it.
Christianbook.com is a great source of inexpensive evangelism books and materials. Many times, they have books on sale for 99 cents and then a week or two later it is 15 bucks. So, if you catch them at the right time, you can get a lot of materials at a very good price.
We have taken the Saturate USA model and added things such as free coffee mugs or tote bags with a short Gospel message on them that you can get at a place like pens.com at a reasonable price.
It is just something that has the Gospel on it that they will keep around and use and see the message regularly.
Going door to door evangelizing via Saturate USA or just on your own, like much of evangelism, can be very rewarding and very exciting. You get to meet some interesting people in your town and make new friends.
As you go along you will see what works and what doesn’t. You will learn very quickly if someone is open to talking to you or not. It can be addicting evangelizing in this way. We were only going out once a week, but have bumped it up to twice a week.
Remember, the best thing about evangelism via Saturate USA is it is absolutely free.
When you think about “Going big for God,” make sure your plans include Saturate USA and going door to door. Saturate USA really is a God sized vision whose goal is to spark true revival in the United States.
Directly from the Saturate USA website:
Why Saturate USA?
It's world class. Who preaches the Gospel better than the Jesus film? In 1600 languages? It's irresistible. Who refuses a free gift of real substance? It's interdenominational. The focus is Jesus - pure and simple! Everyone can participate. All ages can participate. No special training. Everyone knows they should share their faith but they don't know how. Even with training people often feel ill-equipped. Volunteers love it. Volunteers often said "It was a privilege", "It was an honor" and "Do you have more?". Churches love it. Besides new converts, the church can expect their invitations to church to reap a harvest in attendance. People love it. Everyone, with very few exceptions, were very receptive. Moreover, many expressed their conviction that they are happy to see the church reaching out. Even unbelievers, skeptics and people of another faith welcomed the gift about Jesus. It's anointed. The Gospel itself is anointed, yet God is anointing the church's obedience (Mt.28:18-20; Mk.16:15). And yet God chose this vision for this season. A trifecta!
Great Information