One Conversation and “Can We Talk?”

“Can We Talk?” is a great story.   I knew in advance that I was about to live something out.  I just wasn’t sure what it was.

In 2013, After being asked to preach the 2014 Convention Message of my denomination – a great and humbling honor,  I began to pray about what I was to share.  The Lord spoke to me in a powerful way.  As Adrian Rogers used to say, “It wasn’t audible, it was LOUDER.”  It was, “You will live this.”  And then, you can preach it.

Coupling a deep concern that our church wasn’t doing enough to impact our community with the Gospel, along with a glaring conviction that I was not obeying Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist,” (2 Tim 4:5) I was led to plunge in. Taking what had become my “go-to” form of sharing the Gospel, I felt I should name it, print it and begin equipping our people in it.

In September of 2013, we began to pray for five teams and launched “Can We Talk?” in a six-week gospel-equipping format at First Euless. Within 9 months, after hours of prayer, sharing and writing, we had a huge group of 90 teams that were weekly visiting homes in our community and sharing Christ. We saw 1600 people reached with the Gospel and approximately 300 people professed Christ. Pastors from other churches and denominational leaders began to see what God was doing at First Euless though “Can We Talk?”.  The dedication and zeal from our people at First Euless was incredible.  Our staff led the way – as great leaders do! We saw our church culture begin to change, and our already strong discipleship DNA began to be balanced with both evangelism and discipleship.

By the time the convention message date arrived in June of 2014, I was ready to tell the story.

The response has been overwhelming.  Pastors began to ask how they could implement “Can We Talk?” in their church, and I began to pray further about what God would have me do.  I soon requested that our church grant me the privilege of starting a non-profit ministry that could serve as a vehicle to “challenge and equip pastors to lead and equip people to share the Gospel in their everyday context.”  Following our church guidelines, the committee overseeing this area granted unanimous agreement, and at a subsequent business meeting, the church affirmed unanimously for this to take place.  What a great sense of affirmation and zeal!

One Conversation, Inc. is the organization, and “Can We Talk?” is the resource used to train pastors.  You can see more about what this looks like at First Euless (click here) and join us in sharing your faith, or learn more as a pastor through the “Can We Talk?” resource tab.  So many of our church members came alongside me in setting up this new organization, and so much time and effort has been invested; it’s amazing. One of them said, “Pastor, we’re helping you set this up because we believe in what you’re doing and we want to help you do this AND continue pastoring our church!”  It’s an incredible blessing!

My prayer is that “Can We Talk?” will begin to launch in churches all over the state of Texas and beyond.  The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention asked us to train 1000 pastors in 2015, 2016, and 2017.  We’ve begun leading conferences to do just that.  The goal is to reach 1 million households in Texas with the Gospel.   See the conference schedule here:  oneconversation.org.  Additional conferences are being discussed in various states across America now.  It’s time to mobilize the Gospel!

For years, churches have worked hard to become great disciplers and teachers of believers – and that’s a great thing!  However, most churches have absolutely no plan to equip their people to take the Gospel into the community, where people who need Christ actually live. We are increasingly ineffective and God-consciousness in America is at an all-time low.  It’s time to get into the fields with the Gospel and with pastors leading the way, we can experience a revival of obedience.

Pray for “One Conversation” and “Can We Talk?”  Pray for God to raise up thousands of laborers for the Gospel and thousands of churches to become gospel-centered in that the entire church is both equipped and active in sharing Christ.  That’s the vision of Christ Himself.
You can reach “One Conversation, Inc.” through this website, or you may write us at:

“One Conversation, Inc.”   
P.O. Box 157,    
Euless, TX 76039    
E-mail: info@oneconversation.org