Patricia Zimmerman, a 71-year-old widow in Arkansas, has led nearly 300 strangers to Christ. But the retired registered nurse and substitute teacher never had to leave her home to do so.
Zimmerman is among 3,900 "telephone encouragers" for the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) Evangelism Response Center (ERC) who answer phones and share the gospel from the convenience of their homes. Using the ERC’s high-tech "virtual" phone network, volunteers remotely answer calls to 1-888-Jesus2008 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "Internet encouragers" also use computers to share the gospel with users linked to the ERC Web site, www.thegoodnews.org.
Zimmerman, who has answered ERC calls for eight years, says she doesn’t keep up with the number of souls she’s helped lead to Christ. She worries more about pleasing Jesus and "doing it right."
"My biggest job is to reach people for Jesus," she says. "The people who call are like ripe fruit. Others have usually witnessed to them and prepared their hearts. All I have to do is pick the fruit."
During the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, Zimmerman was named 2007 "Telephone Encourager of the Year."
N.S.R.K. Ravi, ERC coordinator at NAMB’s Atlanta-area headquarters, said the center exists to advance the intentional presentation of the gospel.
"We respond and pray with persons who contact us … and refer them to local Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) churches where they can obtain further ministry and spiritual growth opportunities," Ravi said.
The ERC fielded 75,000 calls during 2006–2007, and more than 2,200 callers made first-time salvation decisions, Ravi reported.
In a recently announced partnership with Holman Bible Outreach, a ministry of LifeWay Christian Resources, the ERC will send out 2,000 Bibles free to all callers who make decisions for Christ. And Holman now prints the ERC toll-free phone number in all of its new and reprinted Bibles and New Testaments, totaling more than 500,000 each year.
"God is clearly at work at NAMB, and we wanted Holman Bible Outreach to come alongside NAMB and help support the Evangelism Response Center," said Phill Burgess, Holman’s executive director in Nashville.
Ravi said the ERC is looking for relationships with 6,000–8,000 SBC "covenant" churches nationwide who commit to follow up on callers in their areas within three days. During the follow-up, the covenant church encourages the person to be baptized, discipled and join a local SBC church.
"About one in four people calling the ERC makes some kind of decision — a commitment to ministry, to volunteer or a decision for Christ," Ravi said. (BP)
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