One Sunday morning a Christian man walked into the church that I pastor in addition to my duties here at Berean Bible Society. When I asked this man what had prompted him to pay us a visit, he said that it was because his daughter had gone out on a date with my son, and he wanted to make sure that ours was a solid Bible-teaching church. That date didn’t lead to more dating, but that concerned dad soon became a solid grace believer!

Some years later, after finishing my usual late night grocery shopping, I pushed my cart out of the store and stopped to toss some bags of water softener salt onto my cart. I’d paid for them inside, but the store kept them out front on a pallet due to their 40-pound size. I then broke into a run as I pushed the cart toward my car, as I often did in those days to get a little exercise wherever I could grab it. This raised the suspicions of the store security guard, who pulled alongside me in his unmarked car and asked to see a receipt for those bags of salt. I explained to him that I wasn’t allowed to steal, being the pastor of a local church and all, and invited him to attend our services. It turned out he had just started watching Les Feldick on television, and so it didn’t take long before he too was a grace believer.

If you pastors pray that the people of your community will be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth as I do, I hope these examples of how God answers prayer will encourage you. The door to door canvassing that I’ve done throughout most of the community hasn’t yielded any visitors, but God is not limited to such outreach measures when it comes to His ability to answer our prayers for our communities. He still answers prayer by His Spirit using His Word in the hearts of His people, and I know that He will answer yours if you continue to pray—hopefully without you nearly getting arrested for stealing salt!