#72 - Christmas is an open door: Using the season God gave us!

Christmas is a season God has already prepared. The culture slows. Doors open. People are more willing to be invited, more willing to listen, more willing to step into conversations they usually avoid. The question is not whether opportunity exists, but whether Christians will recognize it and act.

This conversation presses on a simple conviction: outreach is not primarily about events, but about people. Churches may host gatherings, services, and experiences—but what matters most is what happens next. Hospitality that does not lead to connection, and connection that does not lead to truth, will always fall short. The goal is not a moment, but a relationship in which the gospel can be clearly spoken.

Christmas gives a natural context for this work. Inviting neighbors into your home. Sitting down for a meal. Asking good questions and listening well. Creating space where people feel seen and known. Many are carrying loss, loneliness, or quiet disappointment beneath the surface, and this season brings those realities closer to the heart. Few things speak louder than opening your life and letting people see a faith that is worn “comfortably on the shirt sleeve.”

But love must eventually speak. Words matter. A line left out of the water catches nothing. Faithfulness requires that the message of Christ be spoken plainly—that there is a Savior, that peace does not come as the world gives, and that forgiveness is found only in him. Evangelism is not pressure, but it is also not silence.

This episode calls believers to think intentionally about the people God has already placed in their lives—their neighbors, coworkers, extended family, and children—and to use Christmas as a moment to deepen those relationships rather than delay them. The work is simple, often costly, and rarely flashy. But God uses it.

The harvest belongs to the Lord. Our responsibility is to step forward, speak when the time comes, and trust that God is already at work behind the doors he invites us to knock on.

Check Out The Exchange Bible Study!

#jesus #bible #gospel #podcast #christmas

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the worldbecome more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
I am joined by my dear friend and brother in Christ, the founder, the author of theexchange, Jeff Musgrave.
I feel like I'm introducing a boxer every time I introduce you in these podcasts, weighingin at 155 pounds, Walter weight champion.

(00:22):
Anyway, and
Gospel Talks podcast all about arming you guys to the teeth with ideas for evangelism andthis is going to be a really fun episode.
We have no notes in front of us.
We're going to be shooting completely from the hip, but this is something that Jeff and Iare just chock full of ideas on and that is how to use Christmas and the Christmas season
as a, as an outreach opportunity to branch out to your neighbors, family, as a church, howdo you use it to branch out to the community and reach people with the gospel?

(00:50):
So Jeff, me what made you want to pick this one?
Obviously it's the Christmas season, but what are some of the things on your heart?
Well, I think sometimes churches tend to think Christmas season, Christmas events.
And I just kind of want us to go a little bit beyond Christmas events to how do weactually connect with the people we're drawing on to our campuses during these Christmas

(01:14):
events.
And I just thought if we could take the relational concept and apply it to the variousopportunities that
presented themselves to us during this Christmas season.
Yeah, well, I'm chock full of ideas on how a church can use it because I was part of thisthing called Walk Through Christmas at my previous church that I was at in the north side

(01:37):
of Phoenix.
And, uh you know, I remember my first day on the job, we had this big meeting, like a fourfive hour long meeting, a strategy meeting for the year.
And I just kind of made a comment, hey, you know, like I noticed that our Christmascantata as we do that.
I don't know if you probably did this in your church, traditional music, Christmascantatas with some scripture reading, kind of Reader's Theater kind of thing.

(01:58):
And it was indoors and it was always poorly attended, like almost always poorly attended,at least for the last five, six, seven years at our previous church, was poorly attended.
And so I just, wasn't trying to pick on, what's that?
know, I could imagine that we, we always did a Christmas cantata and we actually had greatattendance.
but that was 16, 20 years ago.

(02:20):
And, and our culture has changed so drastically in terms of, the, the taste that peoplehave in, Christmas entertainment, so to speak.
And I just feel like,
ah It's it's one of those things that I just don't know that you can pull off wellanymore.
Well, it's funny that you say that, Christmas entertainment, right?
Because people are looking kind of at Christmas time for an experience, like a memory, amoment, you know?

(02:45):
And so we kind of, that's what the comment I made, said, why don't we, it's Arizona, firstof all, it's 70, 60 degrees outside in the middle of winter, it's beautiful weather, why
don't we just give them an outdoor experience that we use to communicate the gospel?
And so we came up with like a couple ideas, then,
The senior pastor that night couldn't get any sleep and just wrote down five, six ideasabout what five, six stations at this event would look like.

(03:12):
And before you knew it, was called Walk Through Christmas.
The first year our church had 1,800 visitors as a result in two nights, in two three-hourslots, back-to-back, two consecutive nights.
I mean, that's more visitors in those two nights.
than maybe our churches had in a decade or two.
And then the next year we had over 2,000 people visit.

(03:35):
And so this is the fourth year they're doing it.
This is the first year they're doing it without me there.
But they've got a great team in place and they're gonna keep doing it.
And as a matter of fact, one of my friends from seminary, you know him, Miles.
Miles saw everything that was happening on social media with Walk Through Christmas and hebasically reached out and he was like,
Hey, do you have like the blueprints for this thing?
I was like, sure, I can give you all my notes on it.
There's nothing proprietary here.

(03:56):
And so I sent them everything I have, how I build the budget, how we recruit volunteers,the communication plan, the promotion plan, all the stations, all the descriptions.
And they created, I think they created a better version of Walk Through Christmas than wecreated in North Phoenix, they created in Colorado.
And so they just did their second year of Walk Through Christmas in Montrose, Colorado.
And they didn't...
Awesome job.

(04:17):
mean, I mean I was blown.
I was like man.
They thought of things.
never even thought of
watching that on Facebook and they had over 500 people in Montrose, Colorado, walk throughtheir walk through Christmas experience.
And I just think that's amazing because for those of you who don't know Montrose is a, asa fairly small little community and not only are you going to draw a few smaller group,

(04:42):
but I think the connections are going to be much, I mean, everybody knows everybody upthere.
And so these are going to be great connections for victory.
Right, right.
mean, uh it may not sound like much, but you know, I think in the two times they did it,in the two nights they did it, they had something like two, 3 % of the town there, which

(05:03):
is amazing.
uh If you had two, 3 % of Denver, I don't know how many millions of people live in Denver,but that would be huge, you know?
So proportion-wise, it is a pretty awesome outcome.
But I think...
And I don't know what you think about this, the place where churches sometimes fall, andit's me too, right?
I'm a pastor, so I take responsibility for this.
We don't follow up well.
And I don't know that we ever quite cracked it as far as how to follow up and walk throughChristmas.

(05:27):
They went through the Nativity, we gave them gifts at the end for each family, not justlike a mug from our church with our church logo on it.
Like, no, we give them like a
Christmas book, a very nice Christmas book.
We got in touch with the Hobby Lobby Foundation and they paid for all the books.
They paid for like a thousand books, you one for each family unit.
And so we gave away a thousand books and gave away hot chocolate and kettle corn and allthis stuff.

(05:50):
And the biggest thing is we were trying to make an impression of love and hospitality andthey got the Christmas story from the Bible and we actually built a nativity scene into
the side of our hill.
And then at the end, basically the gift bag was geared toward
The next step would be, let's sit down over coffee.
Would you be interested to learn more about Jesus?
So we actually had a station at the very end of the event, the exchange table.

(06:13):
And so we had a banner and it just basically said, how would you describe yourrelationship with God?
had a QR code to take them to set up an appointment with somebody from our church.
And we built like a team of 20 people that was ready to receive people.
Over the three years that we did walk through Christmas, we had something like.
six families directly joined because of Walk Through Christmas, but then we had all thisother growth that was a result of people coming in and word of mouth and people becoming

(06:38):
aware that our church was there.
And so it may not have been the people visiting because they already had a church, butmaybe it was one of their neighbors that they invited who didn't have a church, ended up
coming to our church.
Same thing was happening with VBS, but I think at this time of year, churches have a realopportunity to just capitalize on our culture celebrates Christmas.
And why don't we just turn into that a little bit and try to catch what's happening there.

(07:01):
Yeah.
And I think, I think walkthrough Christmas is amazing.
By the way, George, I feel like, this would be a great, um, exchange project for us is tokind of build a, a little walkthrough Christmas uh model and then make that available to
churches who are interested in working through that.
and, but frankly, it is a lot of work and you've got to make plans a long time ahead to beable to make something like that happen.

(07:27):
didn't you say you had something like 40 volunteers that helped you with walkthroughChristmas?
So my leadership team was 22 people.
The volunteers were 300.
300 volunteers from our church.
Six months of Yeah.
That's a lot of a lot of work.
You know, our church is a growing church.

(07:50):
But when we were really small, we would do a Christmas Eve service.
And with our Christmas Eve service, we would basically assign a passage of Scripture totell the Christmas story to a family.
And so each each family, there are like eight or 10 families in our church, each family,

(08:11):
would get up and they would practice it in their home.
They would read it however they wanted to some of them just stood up there and mom readand all the kids just watched mom read and some of them did readers theater kind of a of a
fashion.
But it was it was what our little church could do and we had guests every single time.
And I just think every church has the ability to do some sort of outreach at Christmas.

(08:36):
I agree with you.
I see signs all over town, know, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day services that churches have.
The church where I'm pastoring right now, we're going to do a Christmas Day service,something our church has always done.
It's also great because you're going to get the families of, you know, visiting yourmembers or your attenders, they're going to get a chance to come to your church and you're

(08:57):
to get a chance to
pray with them and share the Word of God with them.
So those are also gospel opportunities.
There's a couple that I just visited at the hospital this morning and basically told metheir daughters are coming in from Texas and we're hoping to bring them to church so they
can hear the Word of God, so they can hear the gospel.
And so there are gospel opportunities that are gonna come as long as you're willing toopen doors for this.

(09:19):
Yeah.
I think that's really, really important.
One of the things that I wanted us to talk about, if it's okay, George is when people showup, what do we do?
And obviously we, we give the gospel in the service and, and, um, we connect with peoplethe best we can.
But I have always believed that the greatest experience through walk through Christmasthrough a Christmas Eve service,

(09:44):
is actually being able to connect with people, get their contact information and ask forpermission to, can I contact you next week?
And let's, let's get together sometime and, and, and talk about whatever it was we met andchatted about, or, you know, I'd like to talk to you more about what Jesus has done in my
life, hear your story and make those personal connections because it's that personalconnection that's going to allow us to have that.

(10:11):
um, more time and more truth type of a, an experience rather than, a brief experience witha brief gospel.
just feel like that, that hit and run, type of evangelism, it's not by any means wrong,but it's not nearly as effective as let's sit down and talk about this.

(10:32):
I think you're right.
The key is, when we're talking about follow-up, is we're trying to kindle friendship asquickly as possible.
So, as quickly as possible as we can kindle friendship, as we can sit down and show careand love and they can see the love of Christ in us, that starts to give us a bridge.
It buys us time.
And then over time, we earn opportunities to share truth, right?

(10:55):
And so,
Like somebody walks into the church, I get to meet them and shake their hand and they say,yup, visiting and just checking your church out.
Hey, so can we go to coffee this week?
Can we sit down for a meal this week?
Would you like to come over to our house, my wife and I's house this week and have dinnerwith us?
You bring your children.
Then you get to there, you get to that appointment.

(11:17):
That's where the friendship is gonna start.
Absolutely.
As long as you're a friendly person, as long as you model love, like the Bible tells us tomodel love, you're gonna do well.
You don't have to have a certain personality.
Uh-huh.
ah
ask good questions, listen well.
That's the way to connect with people.
That's right.
That's right.
And at the holidays too, I think there's a real opportunity to let people open up, likeyou said, to listen.

(11:41):
You can do a lot of listening in the holidays because it's when people think about thepeople they've lost.
It's when they think about what is and what isn't in their life.
They think about what's missing.
They think about what they don't have.
And it's just a real opportunity.
For Christmas, as happy as people may seem, as many presents that they have that are kindof masking,

(12:02):
the underlying problems.
All that pales in comparison to somebody sitting down and saying, so tell me aboutyourself.
And during the Christmas season, think people want to share with somebody.
They want to talk and they want to connect and have a human to connect with.
So I think it's a real opportunity in terms of relationship.
Yeah, I, I totally agree with you.
And in fact, I believe the relationship, uh, opportunities just, just almost areeverywhere.

(12:27):
If we're thinking about evangelism at Christmas time, and we're thinking about at the, atthe department store, witnessing to the person who waits on us, um, we're, probably not
going to get real, real far.
Those are going to, I'm not saying you shouldn't carry tracks with you.
I'm not saying you shouldn't say Merry Christmas and, and,

(12:47):
try to do that as much as possible.
But I think in terms of this is a great time to connect with your fine five.
So if you've got a fine five list going in your brain, think in terms of okay, how can Iutilize Christmas to be able to make a meaningful contact with this person and be able to
take this friendship deeper?

(13:08):
Hmm.
I agree with you.
You're exactly right.
Christmas becomes a magnet for that person who's been building relationships.
And so, if you expect to maybe build relationships and use the magnet of Christmas all inone go, I think there's very few people you're going to get the opportunity to do that
with.
But if you're building work friendships and neighbor friendships and...

(13:30):
and then you have your family on top of that, which I want to talk about in a second.
you know, then Christmas becomes, hey, let's have a, you know, hey, we're having aChristmas dinner at my house.
You guys want to come?
And there are people that don't have a place to go and they're going to want to come.
It's going to be such, it means going to communicate so love.
It's going be so meaningful to them and just them come.
You don't have to get them anything, just them having a place to go and have people to bewith and have food to eat with.

(13:55):
That's gonna mean more to them than anything you could get them.
Anything anybody else could get them because it's connection.
It's what people are built for.
Yeah.
And you're actually bringing them right into your family.
I think, there's something very, very powerful about that.
We have to be willing to put aside our selfishness and, um, be able to reach outside ofourselves to be able to make things like that happen.

(14:18):
Well, I'll tell you, I've been absolutely put to shame in hospitality by Mormons.
Mormons are some of the most hospitable people I have ever met.
And that's why it's so hard to get away from the LDS community sometimes is because theybring you in and they're so tight knit that pulling away is really quite painful and can

(14:40):
even be harmful to your life and business.
so honestly,
like some of the most welcome I've ever felt is in a Mormon's home, much more welcome thanmaybe I've ever felt in a Christian's home.
And it just, was a rebuke to me.
It's not a rebuke to anybody else.
Listen, I'm talking to George Benoka right now.
It's an absolute rebuke to me.
It's like, man, I need to do that with my house.

(15:01):
You know, here this guy has a big, beautiful $700,000 home and all he does is share itwith people.
Why am I afraid to share my house?
Why am I afraid to share my family and my time?
That's the thing that's gonna make a big difference.
In this time of year, it's one of the best gifts you can give your neighbors.
That's really beautiful.
I think it just a notch down from inviting them to Christmas dinner is just, taking aplate of cookies.

(15:25):
mean, my wife and I always do Christmas goodies for our family and then share them withpeople in our neighborhood.
And we have a good portion of our fine five list is right there in our neighborhood.
And here's what we've discovered, George.
is the conversations that we have, we have one particular neighbor that every single timeAnna and I go together to take the food over and they always invite us in to come and sit

(15:51):
down.
And the conversation we have in that environment is totally different than theconversations I have with him on the sidewalk while I'm walking my dog.
You know, you just gave me such an awesome idea.
So what's unique about my life, I only have four neighbors because every house to the leftof me hasn't been built yet, quite built yet.
It's almost there.

(16:11):
several of them in front of me aren't sold.
So I have only four or five neighbors.
That's it.
The street behind me is empty.
The street in front of us is empty.
And so I think I should put a plate of cookies.
on every one of those doorsteps and maybe even an invite to Christmas day dinner.
That is awesome.
You know that's such an awesome.
as coming in as their neighbor.

(16:33):
I'm I'm introduce yourself as a pastor and invite them to your Christmas Day service.
That's a what time is your Christmas Day service?
I'm curious about that.
Yeah.
It's 10 a.m.
It's something the church has always done.
This is my first year as their pastor doing it.
So I just, you I don't wanna, if people are expecting this every year, I don't wannachange it up on anybody.
But I think it's cool.
think you're right.

(16:54):
I didn't even think about that.
You just added another layer.
You gotta stop giving me so many ideas.
You're giving me a lot of stuff to do.
You just add another layer of, could actually invite them for dinner the night before andthen invite them to the Sunday morning service.
It might be easier for them to come the night before as well in terms of dinner.
that's, that's, those are all great ideas.
You know, I've been thinking about this too, George.

(17:15):
and you were mentioning, do you want to talk about family?
And I'm not sure what you meant, but I, I think we dare not forget that evangelism needsto take place inside of our homes.
have a son who has, uh, two little ones in his home and, uh, they have an advent calendar.
He built it.
It's it's a kind of boxes with doors on each box.

(17:39):
And of course, numbers across it.
And every day they get to open another door and there's some sort of a little eithergoodie inside of there, some sort of note that tells them what they're going to do.
And this is just a great time of year.
to give our children the gospel to help them understand not just that there's a Jesus wholoves you, but all of us need to bring Jesus into our lives and help them to be able to

(18:06):
begin to understand the need that they personally have for Jesus.
think you nail the nail on the head because we can forget that our children, this is agospel opportunity for our children to explain what Christmas is really about.
And if we convolute what the world tells us Christmas is about, which is basicallymaterialism and being selfish and getting what you want, if we tell them it's about
giving, it's about serving others, it's about doing what Jesus did, it's about the gospel.

(18:32):
I think that's one.
The other thing I was thinking about, and you can tell me what you think about this, isfor our extended family, especially those that maybe don't share our worldview, don't
share our faith in Jesus Christ, this is an opportunity for them as well.
I'm inviting several members of my extended family over, and I would say three or fourdon't share my faith in Jesus Christ.

(18:56):
And it's just an opportunity for them to come into a home that does believe that.
and I'm not gonna shove it down their throat or rub it in their face or anything, they aregonna see unapologetically I'm wearing, like you say, I'm wearing my Christianity
comfortably on my shirt sleeve.
They're gonna see the Bible verses on the wall and the Bible verses on the Christmas treeand stuff like that.
And it's another opportunity to just present Christ to those kind of people in my family.

(19:19):
Yesterday in our morning service, our son is our pastor and he was preaching from Isaiahnine and focused in specifically with Jesus is excuse me, the Prince of Peace.
Jesus says, Peace I give to you not as the world gives.
And I
peace is one of those words that come up at Christmas time that your home has a peace init that most homes don't have.

(19:49):
And I think just inviting people into that peace and allowing them to see that genuineatmosphere of peace and give them the opportunity to be able to say the source of that
piece is the Prince of peace.
Mm-hmm.
I love that.
I love that so much because our world doesn't have peace.
just by opening your home and letting people in and letting them see what a Christfollower is like and let them see Jesus through you, that's the thing that God will use to

(20:19):
draw them in.
That's the thing that God will use.
And we have to be willing to step out in faith.
The reason that what your ideas, the three ideas you gave me just sitting down here withyou right now, the reason that they're a challenge to me and a rebuke to me is I have to
now say, okay, I've got to be willing to do this.
I got to be willing to actually go make those cookies, drop them off, invite people overfor a dinner, and then have the courage to invite them to church and see what God will do.

(20:43):
But if I have the faith to step out, I ask God and beg God and he gives me the faith tostep out, then God can do incredible things.
But when we don't have the faith and we can't believe that God can do the impossible, man,we just fall short.
We just fall short.
I'm a fisherman and I fly fish and fly fishing can be a little difficult because I get myline tangled and that sort of thing.

(21:05):
And I'm constantly thinking the only way for me to catch that fish is to have my line inthe water.
the same thing is true about words.
um You're, never going to help someone recognize their need for Jesus without words.
we eventually we have to speak to them, we have to tell them that there is a Savior, andhe can meet this particular need that you have in your heart, if you would just allow him

(21:35):
to come in.
Yep, I love that.
That's exactly right.
Hope everybody's got a line in the water or several this Christmas.
At least five, we would recommend at least five.
That's what we call the find five list.
And so I challenge you guys as I've been challenged today, just sitting across from Jeff,that this is what we got to do with Christmas.
This is how we redeem the time.

(21:55):
This is how you make an impact on eternity and escape insignificance.
um
And so that would be the best Christmas present, I think, for any Christian is to be ableto introduce one of their neighbors, coworkers, family members to Christ this season.
That would be truly incredible.
George, I don't know if you are comfortable with this, but I am so proud of you that youare now the lead pastor at the churches called you.

(22:19):
I'd love for you to tell people about what you're doing.
Yeah, so back in the summer, there's a church about 50 miles south east of where I wasministering.
I was the outreach pastor at a church there on the north side of Phoenix and Berea BaptistChurch reached out to me and told me that, you know, their pastor had transitioned out and

(22:39):
they were in search of another pastor.
Would I be interested?
Some of the deacons on the team knew me from my days as a missionary traveling around.
ah So I said, sure, I think I'd love to pray about it.
I think I think we'd be interested and we started the process and about, let's see, firstweek of October, they voted and they voted me as their next pastor.

(23:01):
And so then we basically put our house on the market and bought a house on this side, putan offer on a house on this side, sold that house and did like one of those simultaneous
things, which was super stressful.
had to move all our stuff into the garage of one of the members.
He has a big, big garage, one of the members of the church here at Berean and in SantanValley and then moved into our home in this brand new neighborhood.

(23:23):
so now I have the privilege of being the lead pastor at Berean and it's a phenomenalchurch body, so caring, so loving.
And uh I've just seen God's grace in the last...
In the first two sermons, first two sermons as a pastor, I've been rusty.
I haven't been a pastor.
He's been regularly preaching in the pulpit for the last three years of my ministry, whichwas different for me.

(23:44):
But I was worried about how rusty I was and God just said, hey, I've got this and he'sblessed and blessed and blessed.
And there are great things happening.
There are hard things to deal with, but there are great things happening and God isblessing and he's with us.
And so we're we're thrilled and
We can't wait to unleash everything we've learned about the exchange on the church in agood way.

(24:07):
So I just, I'm so excited because there's nothing but outreach opportunities out here inthis new part of the valley.
We have a huge track of land as a church.
We've got two buildings already, but they're small buildings and on Sunday mornings we'repacked like sardines.
So.
If God keeps growing the church, probably have to go to two services really soon and umconsider building a building on the big piece of land.

(24:32):
But we have a piece of land on the busiest road on the main vein that goes into this wholebedroom community.
And so there's something like 50,000 cars that pass this property every single day.
And so it's just absolutely crazy how many people, but nobody really knows because thischurch is
kind of buried on the backside of the property.

(24:52):
we're still.
Well, I think I think the good news is you've saved that front side of the property forthat for the larger building.
So that's pretty exciting.
So if you know of anybody in the uh Santan Valley, let them know.
Berean Baptist Church has a new pastor and we're super excited about we'd love to have youcome by and visit.
Yeah, yeah, well, it's a privilege, so thanks, thanks.

(25:13):
Thanks for allowing that.
All right, well, hey, we love you guys and we're excited for you this Christmas season.
Can't wait to see, I mean, if God does some incredible stuff in your midst, guys, pleaseshare the stories with us.
Reach out to my email, george at exchangemessage.org, reach out to Jeff, jeff atexchangemessage.org and drop us your stories about how God used Christmas and.

(25:34):
We're going to be praying for you.
Pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborersbecause we know the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.
And we're praying for you guys.
We love you.
See you next week.