New students inspired to be more intentional following first Everyday Evangelism experience
As a freshman at Scarborough College and someone new to Fort Worth, bachelor’s student Aaron Dose was nervous about joining an Everyday Evangelism team. “I had no clue what to expect,” he says, “but I knew that it was something Christ has called us to do, and I truly wanted to go out and share Jesus with the lost.”
“So I just had to make myself go and do it, which is what I would recommend for anyone who hasn’t gone out yet,” he says. He and his teammates—two other students new to Southwestern along with professors Keith Eitel and Mike Morris—saw two people, Maribel and Marcion, profess faith in Christ.
“It was such a rewarding experience,” Dose says. “All too often we think that nobody craves the Gospel. Maribel and Marcion show that to be a lie.”
The team evangelized in Rosemont Park, Sept. 8. Dividing into two smaller teams, Dose and Eitel engaged Maribel, and the other group, led by Morris, engaged Marcion.
Maribel is in her 30s and has two children. Originally from Mexico, she had moved in with her sister just one week earlier and was searching for employment. “I thought it was awesome to have been able to show her right away how Southwestern was moving in the community,” Dose says of the timing of their encounter.
Eitel took the lead in sharing the Gospel with her. Once he concluded the presentation, Maribel looked at them and said something that left them both dumbfounded—“I do this every day—I read my Bible, and then I pray that Jesus would save me.”
“We explained to her that the prayer for salvation is a singular moment, and [Dr. Eitel] even used a small evangelism cube with pictures to show her the Gospel,” Dose says. “After hearing, she said that she wanted to pray the one prayer to be saved.
“It was obvious she believed in Christ; she had just been wandering around in life trying to achieve something she couldn’t. It was an amazing thing to see Maribel realize, and she did truly seem to understand that what she had been doing was wrong.”
As Maribel truly prayed to receive Christ for the first time, the other Southwestern team spoke with Marcion, whom they found sitting in his car in Rosemont’s parking lot. Marcion is 19 years old, and that day he was picking up his cousin from school.
After a bit of small talk, Morris asked his usual diagnostic question, inquiring if Marcion knew where he would spend eternity should he die that day. Marcion admitted he was unsure, so Morris shared the Gospel with him, speaking of man’s sinful nature, the wages of sin being death, and the grace of God in sending Jesus to die for the sins of the world.
When Morris inquired if Marcion would like to receive the free gift of eternal life available through faith in Jesus Christ, Marcion said “yes,” and then he prayed to accept Christ as Lord. Though he was still waiting for his cousin, he had found the Savior.
Master’s student Leslie Polk, who was part of the team that led Marcion to the Lord, says the experience—her first time with an Everyday Evangelism team—inspired her to be not just intentional in sharing the Gospel, but also fearless. “Some people will hear you, some people will not, but our ultimate goal is to share the Gospel and the goodness and the love of Jesus,” she says. “And that’s exciting. It was an exciting Friday. … If we just take the step to [evangelize], God will take care of the rest.”
Dose adds, “This school is a beacon of hope for many, and many of them don’t even know that yet. Christ, through us, can change Fort Worth; all it takes are willing hearts and hungry followers of Christ.”