Tonight, we're going to be looking at the next step beyond contacts.
We talked about a little bit this morning about the contact cards, the bookmarks that you have in your Bibles.
Those bookmarks are specifically for those that are lost.
These bookmarks are for you to keep individually for yourself.
You're not turning them into me.
You're not turning them into Aaron.
You're not turning them into Eddie.
These are for you so that you have a name by name basis of people that you know.
that are lost so we can pray for them on a daily basis every single day.
To move from contacts, a contact is not a contact, because that bookmark is just a bunch of names right now.
They don't actually become contacts until we get contact information.
This is why you put people in your phones, because you have their phone number or their address or some way to get them.
But what we're going to do at some point is take names off of that individual list, your private list of prayers on that bookmark.
And if they're going through a life event, be it sickness,
recently moved into the area, loss of a loved one, whatever that may be, we're going to take them and now on the back table, on the evangelism table, we have contact cards.
They're little cards in the back where you can put down the information that you've collected, their phone number, their address, so that we can send them compassion cards.
We're going to show them just how much we care.
This is called prospecting.
Prospects are who is going to get
our compassion cards, but we need their information to be able to send them.
Now what is prospecting?
When I first saw this from him, I couldn't help but think of the dictionary value of prospecting.
That's searching for mineral deposits in a place, typically caves, especially by means of experimental drilling and excavation.
You prospecting is about seeking.
And that's the whole work of the church, right?
Seeking to save the lost.
It's a hard work.
Sometimes it comes with a lot of uncertainty.
Sometimes you can, you have miners that go into caves and drill for months at a time only to find more rock.
There's no coal, there's no diamonds, there's nothing of precious value there.
But the rewards when all the work pays off are very precious.
Any gold panner who sits there and pans the water in the stream to find the little bits of gold will tell you a little bit of gold pays a whole lot.
But you gotta sift through all the dirt first.
to be able to get to the gold.
Tonight we're discussing spiritual prospecting, not physical prospecting.
But we're using a different method.
We're going to be using compassion cards to reach out and touch hearts, hopefully and eventually winning souls.
Like drilling into the ground, our work may not yield immediate results, but persistent compassion can break the hard soil.
But we all have to get to work.
So the prospect lists,
are people we're going to send cards to for three to four weeks.
We're going to send at least 10 cards per prospects, and we're going to mail them evenly.
These are not going to be cards that we simply sit there and have one card, send it to someone to show that we care, and everyone in the congregation signs the one card.
Like, that's a strong statement to have everyone sign it and send it, but it's a lot stronger when you get individual cards from every individual member on every individual
day of the week
for three to four weeks.
If you did this for just two weeks, you're talking only 14 cards.
It takes a lot of work on our part, but we can sit there and we can write these in advance for that specific person.
We're gonna start having card writing nights and someone's going to be coordinated to drop these cards off each day at the post office.
So what we're doing is a constant reminder, day in by day out, reminding them that we care, that we're thinking about them, they're on our prayer list, their name is stuck in
between the pages of our very Bible.
and that we're here for them.
I promise within a single week they're going to be looking forward to going to the mailbox.
I look forward to going to the mailbox when I order the thing from Amazon.
I'm sure almost everybody does.
And that's only one package, let alone getting compassion card after compassion card after compassion card.
But before we get into this, we're going to look at a few different verses and we're going to look at the heart of compassion that we read about in the Bible.
If you would turn your Bibles over to Luke chapter 10.
we're going to go through verse 36 and 37.
Luke chapter 10.
We're gonna read 36 through 37.
Here Jesus is telling the parable of the good Samaritan.
It's an answer question about eternal life and the love for one's neighbor.
Jesus redefines neighbor here as one who shows mercy.
It's one who cares.
When we read about the golden rule, is treat others as you wish to be treated, that's called just being a good neighbor.
A good neighbor isn't one who yells at you for cutting a little across the property line or that you blew your leaves over into his yard.
The good neighbor is the one that goes by and knocks on the door and says, hey, do you need a glass of milk?
You need some salt?
If you ever need anything, just come knock on my door.
I'm right here for you.
I noticed your head just got a little overgrown.
You know what?
I trimmed them for you.
You didn't even have to ask.
The Greek word here is Elios, which means mercy, not just a feeling sorry for, but wanting to do something for someone.
Jesus says, however, go and do likewise.
This is the focus of these verses.
This is making it not to be a lesson, but a command for our lives.
We have to show mercy.
to get it.
We have to show how to be a good neighbor before they're a good neighbor to us.
Erin perfectly reflected what Rob said a few weeks ago.
They don't know how much you care until you...
And I'm getting my words all mixed up now.
Say it again.
Now there we go.
Sometimes it happens up here.
just...
Our cards are a modern way to show mercy to hurting souls.
In fact, this is one of the best ways.
Especially in a country where most people don't want you knocking on their doors and talking to them face to face, no one's going to get mad at sending compassion.
And it's certainly not wrong to go through the mail and show how much we care for somebody.
The next verse is going to be Matthew 9 and verse 36.
Matthew chapter 9 and verse 36.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.
Jesus didn't ignore the lost.
He felt for them.
And in this instance, we see that he acted, but his heart wasn't stirred simply because of their physical needs.
He was stirred for their spiritual needs.
True compassion sees beyond the surface and moves us to care for the hurting, to minister to the hurting.
If you truly care about someone, we're going to provide for them.
I'm sure we've all heard the saying a long time ago, you can feed a man and he'll eat for a day, but you teach a man to fish and he can feed himself the rest of his life.
Showing mercy and caring for someone goes beyond just taking care of the immediate need.
It's looking at the underlying problem that's there and addressing it.
Forward.
Our cards are an expression of Christ-like concern for those who are spiritually lost and burdened.
It shows them how much we care.
1 Peter 3, 8 is the next one.
Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion one for another, love as brothers, be tender-hearted, be courteous.
The word here literally means to suffer with, to have a genuine empathy for.
These cards are a way for the whole church to share in the mission.
This isn't just my job.
This isn't Eddie's job.
This isn't Rebecca's job.
This isn't just Aaron's job.
These cards are going to be the entire congregation.
No one's being left out.
Men, I know it's hard to write a card.
We're gonna have little one-liners that help you start the card.
But remember, when we write those cards to people, we don't have to write a book.
It's two to three sentences.
Hey, we're thinking about you, we're praying for you, we hope things get better for you.
In whatever context it is, we wanna make sure to make it personal because we actually do care.
We're going to all write these individually.
That way they're not getting just a stamped letter in the mail that's been mass produced and sent.
Nobody likes that.
They want it signed.
When we write the addresses on them, we all want to individually write the address.
And I get it.
Megan will tell you.
My penmanship is like chicken scratch.
I'm sure there are several other men in here that can attest the same thing.
But we're going to take our time, we're going to write it out, because I promise you that when they receive that card, they're going to be able to tell if a man wrote it or if the
wife wrote it.
And we want them to know that it came from us and from our heart and from our mind and from our concern for them.
Compassion in the church, the compassion that we're sending them,
is going to lead to unity.
For them, it's going to show them love, and for many, it's going to be a healing factor for them.
It's going to help them get through what they're dealing with.
Funny, it's almost like just like a family, isn't it?
Isn't that what the Church of Christ is supposed to be?
A family?
We don't call each other brother and sister for no reason.
It's because our spiritual family is incredibly important, and it's going to outlast the bodies that we're in right now.
And finally, Jude 22.
I put one in there, but there's only one chapter in Jude.
and of some have compassion, making a difference, and others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Jude speaks of rescuing those who are wavering and doubting.
These compassion cards are more than just cards we're sending in the mail.
Sometimes these can be lifelines to people.
I often wonder those that have sat in the past with suicidal thoughts if they simply got a compassion card.
That lifeline, that one little thing to hold onto, what it might have kept them from doing.
But compassion requires discernment.
We have to discern when to send them, who to send them to, and what they say in the card.
We need to show them a genuine respect and care for them.
Now, I get it.
The verse says that with others we save with fear.
We're calling these compassion cards, not fear cards.
We have to show them compassion here.
When they get into the church, if they can come and listen to it, some people we're not going to reach with these cards.
We're have to just be honest about that.
Some people don't want compassion.
They don't want our love.
Unfortunately, that's a society we live in many, many times.
Regardless of how they feel about it or what they say to us, it is never wrong to show that we love somebody else.
It's never wrong, never a bad thing, even if they reject it.
if they do, we have to move on.
Maybe they'll hear a lesson that will spurn the fear in them.
This verse shows right here, some will be saved by fear and others by compassion.
Some hearts are ready and others may not.
Our job is to simply plant in water, isn't it?
In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 6, it says, gives the increase, not man.
And I can't help but think that when Christ said, go and do thou likewise, the compassion cards are how we're doing that.
Christ had enough compassion for us to be nailed on a cross, hang there for hours, and still had the compassion within Him to say, forgive them, Lord, for they know not what
they do.
We should be able to write two sentences on a card to show how much compassion we have for them.
Because our Savior did so much more than that for us.
So why do we write these cards?
Well, we do this to glorify God, obviously through evangelism, and to reach and save the lost.
To win souls by opening doors to, hopefully, future Bible studies.
We got to get those studies.
It's a simple and effective way for every member in this congregation to get involved.
and we are all going to get involved.
We're not sure how many groups we're going to have just yet, but we're going to have group assignments.
I think we're talking four groups somewhere around in there, and we're gonna have set Sunday times where that group on this Sunday are going to write so many cards.
And we'll have little stations.
uh The minute bits of it we'll figure out later, but we're gonna make it nice and easy.
You'll sit down, write about two cards, move over to the next section.
write two more cards.
We'll have all the information right there and then we can set them all down in a pile.
They'll be organized and we'll be able to send them out as needed and make sure that those cards get to where they need to go.
Everyone in the congregation has a part to play, myself included.
Megan?
And yes, that means the little children too.
Even the little ones have to get involved.
We're going to supply crayons, we'll put little stickers.
Who wouldn't love to get a compassion card from a little one?
Man, love to see you visit today.
Love to have you back.
Little crayon drawing from a five-year-old.
I don't know about you, but that would either break my heart or warm it.
Maybe both.
but we're going to get everyone involved.
Dozens and dozens of types for every occasion.
We have different card types.
Cards that we're not going to find out at Walmart or Dollar General or Walgreens or insert box office name of large card store.
The one that sells all the Christmas cards, I can never remember the name.
Hallmark, there you go.
Even Hallmark doesn't have these.
I've never walked through a Hallmark and saw a section labeled
People that recently moved into the community.
It's not there.
New converts to the church.
Nope, haven't seen that section either.
But we got birthdays and anniversaries and that's fine, but unfortunately a lot of the cards that we have in today's society out at the store are not scriptural.
They take verses out of context, they teach things that aren't true.
We have cards coming in, thanks to Rob and the Whitakers, that are scripturally sound.
If we need to make more cards, we can design and do those ourselves, but we're going to reach these people.
We have special invitations, sending get well wishes, praying for you.
We just prayed for you.
Prayers for you and yours.
God's blessing during the difficult time.
You see how all these different cards can be used for different reasons?
Loss of a loved one, sick in the hospital, and just passing through.
then we have to compose.
Remember, we are seeking to win souls.
We've got to think long term.
Out of those two or three sentences that you write, you're having trouble writing something, put down a favorite memory verse.
Put down a quote from the Bible.
That's our focus, right?
To get them into the Bible, get them back to it.
It needs personal touches.
We're going to have return addresses that are pre-written.
ah
Up at the side, it'll say Collierville Church of Christ.
We're probably gonna get a stamp to do that with.
That'll make that much easier on our secretaries.
ah Remember, when we're composing these cards, we're going to handwrite the prospect's name, and we're gonna handwrite their address.
We want that more personalized.
It's not gonna be printed by a computer on the outside of the envelopes, because then it looks like junk mail when it's coming in.
I don't know about you, but I can tell the difference between that Amazon box or package and the card grandma sent me for my birthday.
with the little stamp and maybe some balloons drawn in crayon on it, it makes a big difference.
The personal touches.
Sign your name.
But when we sign our name down at the bottom of the card, make sure after it, you put the little dash or a slash or whatever symbol you want, not a Batman symbol, but have it point
over and say, the Collierville Church of Christ.
That way they know who sent it as well.
They don't just have your name and some random card, but they know it's from the Collierville Church of Christ, both in the card itself,
and on that handy return envelope that we pre-stamped for you.
It's going to have it all.
The mailing will happen in waves.
We're gonna have three to four cards each day for each prospect, and we're gonna get those coordinated so that way they can receive the compassion.
I actually realized I have not been pressing this when I should have been.
We're gonna catch up.
Don't have to write a book, sign your name.
All right, we are going to try and divide these cards into different days.
Again, we're still working out the logistics behind this, but just to let you guys know, me, Rebecca, uh Eddie, and several others are working on getting the compassion card room
set up.
We're gonna get all the bones and structure set up before we do much of anything.
We have to have a good strong foundation, otherwise we're gonna fall over our feet.
A runner doesn't run the relay race.
You know, the 100 yard dash, not the 100 yard yet.
They're not going to run a long distance race in a few moments.
Slow and steady wins the race, right?
We have to do this a step at a time.
We're gonna send these over three to four weeks, evenly spaced.
I'm thinking cards that are organized by baskets or little bags that say Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
We have all the days of the week.
We know that you've written the card for somebody, right in the bag.
We're going to make this nice and organized and easy.
We're going to figure it out for you.
The cards will be stored in the library.
It says library on here.
It's gonna be the compassion card room.
We have the cards there if you need them.
Organized for easy access.
And the coordinators we put in charge are gonna go oversee the inventory.
That means we're not going to run out.
We will have plenty of them.
It takes a lot of neighboring to get a Bible study, so we can't get up.
Give up, we have to keep working.
So what happens at the end of the three to four weeks?
I'm sure you guys are wondering that.
If not, you are now that I brought it up.
What happens at the end of the three to four weeks?
We have a visitation team.
We're going to go visit them in person.
We've tilled the ground.
We've sat there and grounded up the soil.
We made it nice and soft.
Now is when you go and plant the seed.
They've gotten a card day after day after day, not just one card, sometimes two and three cards every single day.
We have been showering them with love and affection and care for so long, I highly doubt we're going to knock on that door and be turned away.
They're going to find out that we're from the Collierville Your Real Church of Christ, and we just wanted to make sure that they had been receiving our cards, and we want to check
up on you.
We want to see how things are doing because we care about you and see if you need anything.
Rob's told me stories personally of
people sitting there crying about the cards.
One lady had them up on her mantel top with 50, 60 cards all lined up, all sat up straight.
She's like, I look at them every single day.
Immediately invited into the home.
All those cards cultivated the hearts.
It cultivates hearts just as we cultivate the ground.
And then we go and we put the seed in.
And once you've watered it, God gives the increase.
Some hearts are hard.
We're not gonna get it every single time.
If no response, stop and move on.
But we're gonna move them over then because on the little contacts list, when you look at it for the congregational, when you put it in the little box, ah which we have a little
box set up there now, it'll be mounted on the wall at some point, we're gonna make it easy for you.
If we're moving someone from your individual bookmark, your prayer bookmark, over into a contact list to start getting cards, we have the contact cards out there on the evangelism
table.
You fill out their information.
and there's a box right there, you just drop it in the little box.
It's locked that way, we don't have personal information just out there willy nilly, but it will be readily available when we go to sign cards.
So everyone can sign it, everyone can write the letters and we'll get them to where they need to go.
But after that, we're gonna move them from multi to single.
So on the cards, you'll see a little place for an X, two little boxes, and it'll say multi or single on it.
It's not saying
if he's single or not.
It's not saying how many wives he has.
It's saying how many cards are they going to get.
Is this their first time on the compassion card list?
Yes, they're going through a really hard, life-changing event right now.
Okay, we're gonna send them multiple cards.
So we're gonna put that X for multiple cards.
At the end of that, we're gonna get the contact card again.
We're gonna strike it single this time.
That's when, every now and again, maybe once a month, we send them the card with all of our names on the single card.
So we're not continually just blasting them with cards.
We are in the first because we know it works.
But if the ground's hard to till, if we just prospect and find nothing but rocks, we can't continually send cards.
So that's the next step.
We all join together, we sign the one card and we send it.
We remind them why it matters.
Most people are gonna be moved by our compassion.
But we have to remember that evangelism is not simply an event.
We're gonna have the events, we're gonna have the specified times for the specified groups to sign cards.
Just like we have game night, it's gonna become a regular thing.
But this is a lifestyle of love, not just an event.
We gotta change the way we think.
And remember, it's never wrong to love someone.
To finish up, we've got to keep prospecting.
We're mining for something far more valuable than gold at the bottom of a wet pan.
We're prospecting, we're mining for an eternally valuable soul.
If it takes 2,000 cards to save one soul, that is money well spent.
That is a fantastic deal.
Like Christ, we're gonna have to be moved with compassion, and we're going to move them with the compassion we share.
We're gonna use these cards as a tool of mercy, empathy, and outreach.
Please don't underestimate what one small act of kindness can do in leading someone to Christ.
We all have to write a card.
Men, that means you.
Children, that means you.
No one is going to be left out.
So tonight,
I want to leave us with Galatians chapter 6 and verse 9.
Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
We have to put our heart in it.
The compassion isn't just something we write down on a card saying we think about you.
That's the reason why we have those bookmarks, so we can actually pray for them.
If you need prayers tonight, we stand ready and willing to help.
If you haven't put Christ on in baptism and given your life over to Him, know that we care enough to sit here and talk to you about Him.
We're ready to have a Bible study.
We're ready to immerse you in water should you need it.
Or if you simply need prayers, we're here to pray with you because we're supposed to act like a family and that's what families do.
If we can help you out in any way this evening, please come and let us know as we stand and as we sing.