Internet inspires new way to share “Old, Old Story”

TrueLife.org creates church invitation cards pointing to video answers for life"s toughest questions

The gospel is simple: The Son of God died on the cross to forgive the sins of anyone who would trust and follow him.

But life can be complicated.

How can people know the Bible is reliable? Why does God allow evil? Is evolution rational? Is abortion ever OK? Does God love gay people? Could the events described in “The Da Vinci Code” novel be true? Did a flood really cover the whole earth? What is the difference between Mormonism and Christianity?

It may seem at times that the questions outnumber the answers, and a fear of not being able to answer those questions might be what keeps many Christians from opening their mouths to share their faith.

TrueLife.org founder Jesse Connors has created a tool to help displace that fear by loading videos that answer life’s toughest questions onto his website. A myriad of categories contain video explanations from experts on topics from marriage to evolution to archaeology, all available free of charge.  

TrueLife also partners with churches nationwide, offering them a database of answers accessible at their church website so that visitors can tie their truth seeking to a local congregation. Churches that partner with TrueLife receive a webpage address and personalized invitation cards for members to hand out. On one side of the invitation cards is information about the church. On the other side is “truelife.org—free video answers to life’s hard questions.”

Richard Land Jr. works in pastor relations with TrueLife and said the video answers, gospel presentation and local church emphasis help congregations connect with lost people in their own communities.

“Our goal is to expose those with hard questions to biblical truth [and] then connect them with a local church using our online location system,” Land explained.

The site and the cards are devised primarily as an evangelistic tool, but some churches have seen the ministry as helpful even to their own members’ spiritual growth. Ed Gatlin serves as pastor of New Life First Baptist Church of Krum and says TrueLife has been helpful in his church even in the four months they’ve been using it.

“The videos are excellent, and our people are going to the site and getting a lot of good out of it,” Gatlin said. “That makes it worthwhile. Several of our people have gone to it when they have questions about different things or have gotten into discussions about different issues. It gives them a good, solid, biblical perspective of the different issues.”

Tony Rogers, pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Bowie, said his church’s partnership with TrueLife has given members more confidence as they share the gospel in their community.

“I thought it was an easy way to get my people more involved in evangelism because it cuts down on them having the fear of answering unanswerable questions,” Rogers said. “We put the website on the back of our business cards, and they take the business cards and pass them out around the community. It takes all the fear out of giving a personal witness, because you can refer them to the video page or church page.”

Land said TrueLife has seen tremendous results in mobilizing church members to engage in evangelism and invite people to church.
“Eighty percent of evangelical Christians that attend church more than one time a month feel a personal responsibility to share their faith,” but only a small percentage do so on a regular basis, Land told the TEXAN, citing a LifeWay study. “When you combine this with the fact that 84 percent of the unchurched responded that they were at least somewhat likely to attend a church if someone they knew invited them, we have a big, big problem. With our implementation strategy, after just one week’s introduction of TrueLife.org, we are seeing, routinely, 70-80 percent get involved in sharing their faith in our churches.”

Rogers said the simplicity of the website and the partnership process has been a key factor in the smooth incorporation of TrueLife into his church’s ministry in North Texas.

“It’s very easy to get linked up to it, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out,” Rogers said. “I see it as very worthwhile and would highly recommend it.”

Land says TrueLife cards provide something to hand out throughout the day even in situations where a long, sit-down gospel conversation is not feasible. The response, he said, has been consistently positive.

“I can tell you as someone who hands out these cards all the time, they are super well received,” Land said. “You don’t always have the opportunity to have long conversations with someone, but every time you are at a drive-through window, a bank teller window, at any cash register, getting gas, you have the time to hand someone a card. The incredible thing is that once you get used to doing this, you become aware of how many lost people are all around you all the time, and once you see it, you can’t un-see it.”

TrueLife has been endorsed by widely recognized leaders such as Woodstock Baptist Church Pastor Johnny Hunt, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Daniel Akin and Answers in Genesis President Ken Ham. The ministry offers partnership plans tailored for churches of all sizes, at truelife.org/join.

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