Some shared with me that they found it beneficial when I posted some simple tips on how to easily reach strangers in the streets.
Here is the compiled list of simple tips on personal outreach. They are easy to follow and are suitable for beginners who sincerely want to reach the lost in the streets.
Simple tip #1 on approaching strangers who need healing. You don't need more boldness. Boldness is already IN you. You just need speed.
The moment you see the stranger, jump straight in to say, "Hello!" That immediately lands you in ministry position. The rest is all God, because you just have to lay hands and let Him do the job.
The faster you approach the stranger without thinking, the more you won't consider twice. Your carnal mind doesn't have time to respond yet. Because it is easier to act yourself into believing than to believe yourself into acting.
Simple tip #2 on approaching strangers who need healing. Don't be concerned with what to pray. Be concerned with WHO is IN you. You just need to lay hands. Let Him do what is necessary.
The more you get yourself out of the way, the more God can have His way. He desires to show up and reveal Himself to the stranger more than you do. Sometimes, we pray too much and try to be too specific as though we are the ones to make things happen. Well, Jesus used the least words in healing - "Be healed", etc. We are not smarter than the Holy Spirit. He can fix any complicated symptoms without your eloquent words. He is the Creator of the human body. Take the stress off you and rest in Him. Just lay your hands. It's that simple.
Simple tip #3 on approaching strangers who need healing. Focus on the person in need. Focus not on the people around you.
If you look at who is around you, you will back down. If you look at the person in need, you will press on. Your carnal mind is going to say, "What if the person doesn't get healed? I'll be representing God wrongly." Well, God is never concerned with His reputation. We are the ones who are concerned with our reputation. Romans 6 says to "reckon yourself dead..." A dead person is not concerned with his reputation. When the carnal says, "What if he doesn't get healed?" Reply the carnal mind, "What if he gets healed and people around him witness it?" That's how mini-healing rally often begins. One gets healed after another and a queue is formed.
Here's the thing: God wants the person well more than we do. He often shows up when we step out.
Simple tip #4 on approaching strangers who need healing. Don't be religious and rigid. But be radical and free to be yourself. Remove the Christian jargons.
Singapore is probably one of the tougher grounds to reach because many are skeptical and cautious about what you are trying to gain from them. If you ask, "Can I pray for you?" It usually shuts down many hearts immediately. When we present ourselves 'religious', people stop being receptive.
But when we show genuine concern, it opens up the hearts of many. "How's your leg?" "How long have you been in this condition?" "Let me take a look." "I do healing for free and people are healed of different problems." These actually open more doors than "Can I pray for you?"
When we lay hand and minister, we don't have to say, "Dear heavenly Father" or "Jesus" or even "In Jesus' name." People get healed not because of what we say, but Who is IN us.
There is no need to rush in to talk about Jesus. But remember to talk about Jesus after ministering. It's about being flexible.
Simple tip #5 on approaching strangers who need healing. Be normal. Don't be weird.
There is no need to shout or command. And please don't close your eyes. It makes the person feel awkward in the public. There is no need to even pray. If necessary, use words. Otherwise, just lay your hand. You don't have to lay hand on the area of pain. I have done handshakes and people still get healed for different problems.
Just typing this halfway and I saw a young chap with a bandage on his wrist. All pain left him and I didn't say a single word.
When you lay hand on the person, be comfortable with silence. Many people pray many words because they feel awkward with silence. You can actually have a conversation with the person while keeping your hand there. It makes the whole thing seem normal for the person. While talking, you can even release word of knowledge and prophecy. Don't just narrow down to pure healing. God has much more to reveal to the stranger.
Simple tip #6 on approaching strangers who need healing. You don't have to preach the Gospel to every single stranger you meet. It is more important to represent love without any string attached. Jesus healed the sick, not so that they could hear Him preach, but because He is the Healer. Healing is His nature. He IS Love.
Those who insist that you should share the Gospel with every single stranger you minister to, often either do not minister to strangers or do not share the Gospel with every stranger themselves. It's called 'the ultimate religious spirit'.
While it is important to let the person know Who (Jesus) healed him, it is also important to discern if he is open/ready to hear the whole Gospel. Do not bruise the seed if it's not ready for growth. Trust the Holy Spirit to lead the person to someone else who continues 'watering' until the fruit is ready to be harvested. Your role for that moment may simply be to bring a person from scale 0 to 5 (10 means born-again). To share the Gospel forcefully when a person doesn't wish to listen will make him feel that you have an agenda. It may even shut down his heart for others to minister to him in future. If you insist on sharing and ignorantly bring a person from scale 5 back to 0, it's bad.
A simple way of discernment is simply by observing the person's eyes, facial expression and body language. If he is ready, go for it. If he is not, you can just say "Jesus loves you." Instead of saying, "God loves you", use Jesus. Not everyone knows that God = Jesus. Thus, revealing the name of Jesus is important.
When in doubt, just present love.
Simple tip #7 on approaching strangers who need healing. What happens if nothing happens?
When we minister to the sick, we always expect instant healing. But when nothing seems to happen, what do we do?
It's actually simple. Just do it again. How many times should we minister? As many times as the stranger allows us to. We may stop if:
1) The stranger is feeling awkward or he asks you to stop.
2) You start striving in the way you minister, instead of resting and trusting God.
3) You have to go.
There is no need to change your words or action when you minister again. It's not about you. It's about Him. The more we get out of the way, the more He can have His way.
Note: However, if the Holy Spirit says otherwise, it is wise to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Example: I once ministered to a deaf lady. After ministering to her ears twice, the Holy Spirit said, "Pray for her back." I asked the lady (by writing on a piece of paper), "How's your back?" She replied, "It's doing fine. The Holy Spirit prompted again. So I ministered to her back. She felt heat. Then I ministered to her ears again and she began hearing. It's a mystery to me. But it's about leaning on the Holy Spirit.
What happens if nothing happens and you have to stop because of one of the above reasons? You thank the stranger for allowing you to minister. Then you can say, "I will continue to stand in faith for your healing. Sometimes it happens instantly. Sometimes it happens suddenly when you reach home or another day. Sometimes, it's progressive."
Don't shrink back thinking, "It's not working." Stand firm in your position. By His stripes, the stranger shall be healed.
Simple tip #8 on approaching strangers who need healing. You don't need them to provide details. You provide the solution.
Before ministering to the sick, there is no need to ask the person for the details and symptoms of his sickness. Knowing the general is enough, i.e. pain on shoulder, lung cancer, etc. Some like to be quick to ask for details, as though details play a part in releasing healing. But you can hardly see Jesus asking for details of a person's sickness throughout His ministry. Jesus was always there to provide solution.
The more details we know, the more we can get overwhelmed by what the person is going through, instead of being overwhelmed by what Christ has gone through. The reality of the Cross MUST be greater than the reality of the sickness. This is the reason why it is better not to know details. Our carnal mind feeds on details and amplifies it without our realisation. Before we know it, we are moving by sight, instead of moving by faith.
Some say, "We should empathise first." Well, Jesus did not ask us to empathise. He told us to have compassion. Compassion means having God's passion to restore the person by taking action. Compassion means healing the person and not leaving him the same way. Because you can have empathy without God's compassion.
We are not doctors. We don't need details to prescribe anything. We just provide one-stop Solution: Christ the Healer. Besides, if we don't need any details when we minister healing in a service setting or a large group meeting, then we don't need details when we minister to an individual.
If we can simply say, "Be healed" for a group meeting, why do we need to say, "I command the ligaments, tendons, nerves, bones, muscles, (and name every scientific and medical term for different parts of the body and organs), etc. for an individual?" I never saw Jesus ever did that. The Holy Spirit is smarter than us. It all has to do with the carnal mind VS the mind of Christ. Again, it is not about our specific words. It's about the power of Christ.
Note: Having said this, we still need to be open to the Holy Spirit, if He leads us to say something.
The lesser we know before ministering healing, the better it is. We can always ask the person for the details of the sickness AFTER we have ministered healing. That's still showing genuine concern, without the expense of losing sight of the reality of the Cross.
Simple tip #9 on approaching strangers who need healing. Your position for healing is more important than the manifestation of healing.
When ministering to the stranger, it is important to get him to test out after ministry. You can say, "Try to do something you can't do before." Or "Is it 100% pain free now?" Some like to use a scale level from 0-10, where 10 means it's excruciating and 0 means pain-free.
As what I shared in Simple tip #8, keep ministering until he is pain free.
When ministering to the person, you can ask if he is feeling anything. Some may feel the manifestation of heat, vibration, tingling, electricity current, cold, etc. You can ask the person to inform you when the manifestation stops, it usually means that the healing is complete.
When the manifestation is present, it is a confirmation of healing. But when the manifestation is absent, it is a position of healing. You take the position that healing has been released and walk away knowing in your heart that it's a done deal. I have witnessed many healings that manifested fully on the next day. One lady had pain on the right side of her body - from neck, shoulder, upper back, lower back, waist, hip and both knees. She suffered for many years. After I ministered to her, there was no visible change. On the next day, she testified that every single pain was gone and she could get up from her bed easily.
No visible manifestation does not mean that healing is not taking place. We are called to walk by faith, not by manifestation/sight/feeling.
What happens if you minister to someone whose healing cannot be verified on the spot, i.e. Kidney problem, liver issue, high blood pressure, etc? You simply minister once and take the position of healing. Your position is always more important than the manifestation.
Simple tip #10 on approaching strangers who need healing. You don't always have to show yourself right. You just show love.
One of the most common & effective ways to reach the lost is through word of knowledge (WOK). WOK is simply receiving information from God about a person which you did not know by natural means. In simple term, it's simply about hearing God for others. If we can hear God for ourselves, then it becomes easy to hear God for others. Jesus said "My sheep hears My voice." We are His sheep. Thus, it is natural for us to hear His voice. It is easy. Often, we find it difficult because we think it is difficult. We keep trying hard to hear His voice, without realizing that the harder we try, the more we miss it.
I have come to realise that if it is natural for a sheep to hear the voice of the shepherd, hearing God's voice should be natural and effortless. When I stop trying and start trusting in the Good Shepherd, I find myself giving word of knowledge to people everywhere I go, in almost all kinds of situations. Even in awkward situations. One of the recent ones was in the toilet when I was answering the call of nature. God caught me and the stranger by surprise. He's probably Jehovah Sneaky when it comes to presenting love.
But we can get so caught up with word of knowledge that we forget to be caught up by His Love. God's heart is to present love to the strangers. If we get discouraged because we didn't hear God rightly for the stranger, we fail to understand His heart. The heart of the matter is not about whether you get it right or not, it's about whether you have presented love.
In the early stage of my lifestyle evangelism, I was persistent because I knew that I was right. I had received word of knowledge. I've got strangers upset because I insisted on ministering to them, who didn't want it. I even recorded each 'bingo' of WOK. I documented so many of them. It made me feel good to be sharp.
One day, God spoke to me, "Do not reduce people to numbers. They are lives to be loved by Me." From then on, I stopped counting. I stopped recording every one of them. I have lost count on how many people I gave WOK to.
When I get it right, I move on. If I get it wrong, I move on. We are not called to present how right we are. We are called to present the love of Christ.
I just took a cab. God spoke to me about the driver. He had diabetes. I could have asked, "Do you happen to have diabetes?" That would get him startled and get myself pumped. But I asked God, "How do I present this to him?" He said, "Ask him about his health and let him tell you."
So I asked the driver, "How's your health so far?" The driver answered, "Still ok. Except diabetes." And I managed to minister to him.
You don't have to present yourself right. You just present love. It's the simplest form of lifestyle evangelism.
Simple tip #11 on approaching strangers who need healing. Be innocent as doves but be wise as serpents. The context is more for Singapore and some Asian countries.
It is important to be sensitive when you minister to an opposite gender, especially ladies. We are still a conservative society. Few years ago, I saw a female youth wearing a knee brace and I approached her to minister. When I put my hand on her knee, someone suddenly walked to me and said, "Hey, don't touch her." I replied, "I'm just praying." But the person continued, "No. You shouldn't be touching her. Stop it." Well, I was as innocent as a dove but not as wise as a serpent. That hindered me from ministering to her.
If you are a young lady ministering to a man, do note that most men will be very open for you to strike a conversation with them and of course, touch them. I'm just stating the fact, so that you can be careful of what may happen.
Since you don't have to touch the area of pain to minister healing, you can simply do a handshake or place your hand on his shoulder to release healing. Well, ladies do have an advantage when it comes to reaching men.
For a man approaching a lady, it is likewise important to be shrewd. Some ladies think that you are hitting on her. I remember asking a lady if she had pain on her shoulder and she immediately replied, "Are you trying to touch me?"
It would be helpful to remain calm when you minister to the opposite gender.
1) If she's with a female friend, you can get her friend to lay hand on her area of pain. You can either speak out the healing or you lay hand on the hand of her friend.
2) If she's alone, you can simply speak healing without touching her, or do a handshake, if you sense that she is comfortable with the handshake. You can tell by looking at her body language and facial expression. Try not to touch her legs, lower back or other areas where your own wife/girlfriend won't feel comfortable to be touched by a stranger, or where you don't feel comfortable letting others touch your wife/girlfriend. It's called "respect" for Asian ladies.
3) If she is with her boyfriend or hubby, don't approach her directly. I would always approach the man first and say something like, "Hi, I notice that she is wearing a wrist guard. Can I help her with removing the pain, etc...?" If you fail to get the man's permission and go straight for the lady, you will likely be rejected on the spot, even if the lady is open. Trust me, because I had learnt the hard way.
When approaching opposite gender, simply be shrewd like a serpent. You don't want to end up in the police station haha.
Simple tip #12 on approaching strangers who need healing. Get more attention and point people to Christ.
There is a way to create a mini healing revival so that more people can hear who Jesus is. While ministering to one person in the public, stay aware of the surroundings. There will be people who are looking at what you are doing. You can tell if their body language reveals that they are in need of healing. Give them an eye contact to acknowledge that you know. Or you may just speak to them directly if they are near you. Alternatively, you can simply tell them what you are doing and ask if they need help.
This attracts attention from more people, which in turn, creates a mini healing revival. You get to share who Jesus is with more people, instead of just one person.
Some religious people will say that we shouldn't be in the centre of attention. Well, Jesus was almost always in the centre of attention when He ministered publicly. True humility is not denying attention. True humility is to acknowledge that the attention you get is meant for Christ. Therefore, the attention given by people is to be pointed to Christ.
"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself." - John 12:32
Extra tip 13: On top of ministering healing, prophecies and word of knowledge, you can simply bless others financially, such as a red packet (Ang Bao) during this Chinese New Year period, extra cash for taxi/Uber/Grab drivers, extra cash for waiters/waitresses, paying for the person queuing behind you, etc. "For God so loved the world that He gave..." So we, too, can give because He first gave us. You can share John 3:16 when you give to the strangers.
