In Reply to: Cruden's Concordance posted by Jules (reposted) on October 11, 2004 at 02:29:17:
When I first joined the Family, I was witnessed to by a number of people who all completely stressed the "God is love" theme and with such sincerity that I opened my heart to the concept and to Him and that has never left me.
Throughout my 23 years in the Family, that was the only way I witnessed, I simply could not bring myself to do the salvation by fear stuff. I absolutely know that some of the people who "said the prayer" with me were truly opening their hearts as well, and esp. during the years when follow-up was emphasized, I know for sure that many of these people continued their walk with the Lord and it truly made a difference in their lives. There were a couple of really good years where we stressed follow up big time and my witnessing partner and I had a whole long list of people we went back and saw one to two times a month, not to sell them anything or ask for money or anything else, but just to keep in touch, offer to pray with them, etc., read some Bible together, and developed real friendships.
Other people who prayed that prayer- well, yup, it did not have a whole lot of meaning to them and was just a way of having padded stats. I knew it then but, God help me, I truly did love to witness and knew that if my stats stunk I'd probably be given less chance to do so.
I am grateful that those who originally witnessed to me were firmly in the God is Love camp, as that is a belief that has never been shaken.
Laura