Church Uses Rubber Ducks As A Tool For Evangelism
By Church News
The Springfield Baptist Church in Tennessee, USA, has found a unique way to share the gospel by using rubber ducks as a tool for evangelism within the community.
Pastor David Evans recently discovered that Springfield and Robertson County, Tennessee, have a large population of people who own Jeeps and those Jeep owners like rubber ducks.
“The Jeep community has a thing with rubber ducks,” Evans explained. When those who have a Jeep see another Jeep in a parking lot, they probably have a rubber duck in their car because in that community, they’ll just walk up and they’ll put it on the hood or in the driver’s door handle and then leave, he said.
Evans added, “The rubber duck has become a symbol of encouragement to Jeep owners, when I hear of something unique like this, I naturally think, how can we use this to share the gospel?”
Before becoming pastor at Springfield, Evans served as evangelism team leader for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
“Throughout the years, Southern Baptists have done ourselves a disservice because when you look at our evangelism training techniques, most of them involve memorizing an outline or knocking on a stranger’s door,” he observed.
While those efforts have “produced a lot of great fruit,” he noted, many Southern Baptists are not comfortable with “public speaking to strangers.”
So, when ministers say the words “evangelism or outreach,” people get scared, Evans said.
“They’re like, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ And to some degree, I don’t blame them. Big personalities like mine that never meet a stranger, can walk up to a stranger’s door, recite an outline and really talk and have a conversation,” he said, adding that he realizes most people are not comfortable with that approach.
“As a pastor, I have to think, ‘How can I help everybody share the gospel?’ I have discovered two basic principles. They have to want to share the gospel, and they need to be excited to tell others about Jesus.”
Evans launched a unique way to reach people in the community, or at least those who drive Jeeps, with the gospel.
The church bought 500 rubber ducks and had a URL code on them which would lead them to the church’s website to a page which informs them that “not only does the Jeep community love you, but Jesus also loves them,” Evans said.