He was sitting on the back row of the church near the aisle and obviously not a member. Half the people in church at that moment had already walked by him, yet there he sat in silence. I dropped into the seat beside him and briefly got to know him. Later he told me how grateful he was that I took interest and spoke with him that day. That is an example of why Teri and I go to church early and seek out people who are new, alone, or simply look needy for someone to talk to. It is not an official role but a passion from the heart.

When I’m out and about, I’m always looking for people to engage. The grocery store, gas station, or Walmart are great places to go fishing. It is easy to begin a conversation, and I love to do it. Why?

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).

Yet, from my experience with many believers, they are reluctant to engage people they don’t know. Consider you are walking in a park by a lake and hear someone crying out for help and see them thrashing about in the water. Wouldn’t you do everything you could to help them? What if you didn’t know them? Would you be embarrassed to help them? Of course not. The problem is that most people on their way to hell don’t know it. If they did, they’d be screaming for help. We must see people we don’t know as if they were calling for help.

Let God’s command to love our neighbor and then seeing them headed for hell motivate us to reach out to everyone we can.

“…he that winneth souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30b).

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ …” (2 Corinthians 5:20a).