Literature Evangelists (LEs) from Adelaide, South Australia, joined together from February 3-7 to knock on doors and distribute personal invitations to Pastor Doug Batchelor’s recent evangelistic series entitled “Preparing for Christ’s Return”, hosted by the South Australian Conference.
Local church members from around Adelaide joined the LEs, volunteering their time to letterbox flyers in Brighton and surrounding suburbs close to where the conference was held. Brighton Seventh-day Adventist Church provided accommodation and evening meals to the LEs and volunteers.
During their door-knocking, LEs sold many health and spiritual books and also gave away more than 3800 pieces of literature. Approximately 70 people accepted prayers, some of which expressed a desire for follow-up visitation and enrollment in discovery correspondence courses.
Literature Ministries coordinator Brenton Lowe from Adventist Media (Wahroonga, NSW) joined the LE group in Adelaide to assist with training. Whilst working with Rita Pinzone, one of the senior leaders, a woman showed interest in the books.
“After a while, she recognised one of the books and made the connection with another distributor, Mathew Panozzo, who she had purchased books from for her family years ago,” said Ms Pinzone. “The positive impact Mathew had made in building a long-term customer relationship with her … [meant] she was thrilled to receive prayer, free health and spiritual literature and also signed up for a discovery correspondence course.”
In addition, the woman—who was going through a difficult time in her life—also asked to join the local church Depression Recovery Program.
A highlight from the week was the bonding that Jump Start and Regular LE teams were able to have.
“Jumpstart LEs sell books for cash at the door. They move quickly and cover a lot of area. Regular LEs usually spend more time getting to know people and building long-term relationships, returning back to resell to them and taking people further on the discipleship journey,” said Mr Lowe.
“They grew closer together as they worked to share Pastor Batchelor’s event door to door, and with existing contacts and networks—even over a cuppa at a shopping centre, praying with individuals and families, while morning and evening worships and sharing times were filled with inspiring stories of lives reached for Jesus,” said Ms Pinzone.
Marian Jones, an LE who travelled from Darwin to join the outreach, described the Adelaide LE outreach and evangelistic series as “awesome!”
Pastor Batchelor’s program, which was held at the Brighton Performing Arts Centre (Adelaide) each night from February 7-11, attracted nine long-term contacts. Six contacts are now attending the follow-up program held at their local church in Aldinga Beach, including one new contact from the evangelistic series.
Those who at this time take up the canvassing work with earnestness and consecration will be greatly blessed.”—Ellen White, Colporteur Ministry, page 15.
