And this is something that I've been fighting literally for almost 10 years, is this idea
of people who want to go, they want to go soul winning in Spanish, but they don't want
to learn how to speak Spanish.
And I've been literally against this for almost 10 years now.
I remember back in 2008, people printing out like a script, a soul winning script in Spanish,
and they're like, "Yeah, we're going to memorize this, and then we can, you know, give people
the gospel in Spanish."
But they're not learning the language.
So they're trying to take a shortcut, right, and just memorize the script.
Now let me ask you, is that how we do soul winning in English?
I mean, would we just go read a tract to somebody and then pray with them and call it soul winning?
We would never do that in English.
We would never say that's a legitimate soul winning to read off a script, to read off
a tract, and then pray with someone.
No, but all of a sudden in Spanish, we use the gimmick.
No, I'm against it.
I don't believe that that's the right way to do it.
Here's the thing, English is spoken by most people here in Arizona, okay?
So here's what you do if you don't speak any other language, you give the gospel in English.
Okay?
You give the gospel in English.
And if you want to be a missionary, and you only speak English, guess where you're going?
A country where they speak English, right?
I mean, I know it's common sense, but it makes sense, right?
You go out and you go so many games, and people say, "Well, but it's better than nothing."
No, it's not better than nothing.
It's not better than nothing at all, and let me tell you why it's not better than nothing.
Because while you waste ten minutes at that door with your gimmick that doesn't work,
there's another door down the street of a guy who speaks English that would have gotten
saved if you actually went to him and preached the gospel the right way, and did a thorough,
effective, quality job.
See, there's always another door to knock.
You're never going to run out of doors to knock.
So what are we going to do?
Just let this Spanish speaker go to hell?
You're letting the guy down at the end of the street go to hell.
Because you want to play that game.
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
Because there's an English speaker all the way down at the end of the street.
You didn't get there because you were too busy reciting your memorized Spanish plan
that you don't even know what you're saying.
You don't even know what it means.
And then when they respond to you, you don't even know what they're responding.
And look, I'm all for reaching the Spanish speaking community with the gospel in Phoenix.
I'm for it.
In fact, when I first got here 12 years ago, right away I saw the need there, that people
needed to be saved and they only speak Spanish.
And so I set about to start learning Spanish and learning how to give the gospel in Spanish,
and over about a year and a half, "Oh, but there's no time."
Slow down, buckaroo, and don't be hasty, be diligent.
It took me about a year and a half or so to get to the point where I could effectively
win someone to Lord in Spanish.
And you know what?
There was a time when I'd won probably more people to Lord in Spanish here in Arizona
than I had in English.
So I'm giving the gospel to people in Spanish all the time.
I love it.
But you need to learn the language.
I already knew a lot of Spanish going in.
Number one, because I took it in school, I took it in college, and everything like that.
And then I studied and I learned the language.
Look, you don't need to be memorizing a Spanish soul winning book.
What you need to be doing is downloading Duolingo on your phone, a free app, and learn how to
speak Spanish for crying out loud.
Or whatever other method you want to use, the Pimsleur method, or whatever you want
to use.
But you've got to learn the language.
Don't just be hasty.
No, do a thorough, diligent job of actually learning the language, and then preach the
gospel in that language.
And I'm not saying you have to be perfect in that language.
I'm not saying you have to be an expert, but you need to learn conversational Spanish for
crying out loud before you try to go soul-winning in the Spanish language.
That's where I stand.
That's the way I'm leading this church, and I don't want to see this trend, and I've been
fighting it literally for nine years.
It comes up from time to time, and I hit on this because of the fact that we need to make
sure that our soul-winning doesn't become hasty.