As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him. Matthew 4:18-22. I have heard many people speculate as to why Jesus didn’t choose educated men to be his first followers? Why these fishermen, they would ask? Jesus picked fishermen because fishing for fish and fishing for men require some of the same skills and techniques. To be good at fishing, you’ve got to know the habitat, depth of the water and the type of fish that you are going to catch. It takes patience, and perseverance. And this week we are going to be sharing a few rules of fishing that can also be applied to evangelization. First Rule of Fishing that can be applied to evangelization: It’s how you wiggle the bait. Some days you have to fish very slowly, jiggling the bait off the bottom and letting it drift back down. Other times you have to fish quickly. And every fisherman has his favorite retrieval style, like two twitches and a count of three, or three straight twitches and a count of five, and so on. Some times when we are talking to someone about Jesus and our faith, we have to go slowly. Other times, we can present information much more quickly. Sometimes our retrieval techniques require some information or a question, then a pause before we continue, for a response or an answer. Contact us @ Purebreed Christian Church if you will like to experience the love of Jesus Christ. Join us – fishers on a mission.

The second rule of fishing that can also be applied to evangelization is:2 “The barometer and moon phases will affect whether fish are going to bite at all. There are just some days that the dropping barometer reading or a bad phase of the moon will affect anything working. You can drop the juiciest worm right in their face and they will ignore it! Fishermen are trained to understand that when this happens, it’s probably a good idea to just go home. The same is true for evangelization, some days the person you are trying to reach just isn’t in the mood. Nothing that you say or do will work on him that day. As with fishermen, it is probably best to drop the subject, and save your discussion for another day. It might be better to delay your discussion, than to turn the person off, so that they will never have any discussion with you about faith in the future.

Sharing your faith with nonbelievers can be intimidating and difficult, but also incredibly rewarding. Today we will continue sharing some of the rules in fishing that can help you evangelize in your neighborhood. 3. “The bigger the bait, the bigger the fish isn’t always true! Some of the biggest bass I have ever caught have come on smaller baits.” This means that you shouldn’t rush directly into the topic of witnessing. Start with some small talk and ask about what has been going on in his or her life lately. Don’t expect that anyone would immediately trust you. It will take a while before someone opens up to you. Ask them if they have any pain or sickness and offer to pray for them ). A healing from God will help show them that God is real and cares for them. The Billy Graham Association said that 90% of converts remain in a church when they find a friend there. So if you are in the univerisity or school, office, market, your neighborhood etc. you can do this experiment: Sit with someone in the restaurant or any place you know people usually visit for 3 days and make a friend first, then talk faith on the third day. The results may be startling for you, the student may pour his/her heart out to you, even for hours, with questions.