Evangelist Jim Neale has developed a new way to get a gospel message to local businesses. He saw parallels between the subjects of some of the 130 Chick tracts and the nature of local businesses. Using internet "yellow pages" he printed out the names and addresses of a certain category of businesses that matched the subject of the tract and mailed a copy of the tract with a short note expressing genuine concern for their eternal souls and inviting them to call for further help.
Neale`s ministry, "The Fishermen`s Club," is stamped on the back of the tract with a phone number. Some of the businesses that he has paired with certain tracts include, Things to Come for Psychics, Mediums, Astrologers and Spiritualists; Killer Storm for weather bureaus, flood damage restoration, and environmental clean-up companies. Cathy goes to cancer centers, clinics and physicians; Royal Affair to dating and escort services; Earthman to excavating contractors, earth moving equipment companies and garden centers, and Just One More to liquor and beer stores. Many more of the tract titles can fit for various other businesses with a little creative thought.
Neale uses a small greeting card envelope that just fits the tract and a nicely printed note inviting the reader to call for further help. "Personal" is printed on the face to remove it from all the other business-size envelopes normally received by businesses.
Neale and his son, Jonathan, recently visited Cuba and found thriving churches full of Bible believers. "Since religious persecutions eased in the 1980s, there are now over a thousand churches preaching the born-again message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," he writes. Evangelicals numbered only about 70,000 in 1991, but are more than 800,000 today.
They found even the hotel staff and guests were very open to a gospel witness. Jonathan sat down at a grand piano in the lobby and began playing some gospel music that he composed and unsaved people came up afterward saying they had "goose bumps after listening to the music," Neale said, "We know as Christians that it was the Spirit of God moving on them. We had the opportunity of witnessing to many of the guests and hotel staff with Chick gospel tracts."
The Neales found a warm reception by the Cuban people and a hunger for the gospel. He was invited to preach in one of the churches and noted that the explosive growth in the churches has created a great need for Bibles and teaching materials. Chick tracts not only reach the unbeliever, but provide basic training materials for young believers.
If you would like to learn more or help Neale expand his Fishermen`s Club ministry, write to him at:
3545 Lake Shore Blvd West, Suite 402
Etobicoke, Ontario Canada M8W 1P4
Tel: 416-622-9141