Aaron Proffitt

Towards the end of last year, I started to become discouraged about the lack of interest from our people to do evangelism. Evangelism is such an important part of what we do at Aletheia (it is one of our core values). We do it specifically and intentionally, just like Paul did as we see this was “his custom” in Acts 17. It has been incredible to see God work in people’s lives over the years through us doing this at all of our church plants. But pastor Josh at Aletheia Richmond got me thinking after a conversation we had in November. He had told me about a unique idea that they did in Richmond on VCU’s campus to bring awareness to truth.

Knowing that most people will never do specific intentional evangelism, we needed to start thinking of new creative ways in which people could be involved with the sharing of the Good News. Because the fact of the matter is, people are scared to go up to random strangers and get into spiritual conversations. So as much as I push it to our people, very few ever step up. Well, the wheels started turning in my head, but I am not very creative (in other words, these proverbial wheels were stuck in mud), so I asked my most creative guy here in Tampa, Graham. Well, he immediately started strategizing (his creative wheels are like good year all-terrain tires). He in turn went to our other creative guys Emilio and Ace (they have the good year thing going on too). And what was birthed out of those three creative minds coming together was “The Black and White Forum.”

If you haven’t checked it out yet please do so. What we do is get on campus at least once a week and put out a box and hand people cards asking them to write questions down on these cards that relate to spirituality and put them in the box. Well, the idea has gotten off to a pretty great start. Not only is it a great idea, but the design is fabulous. Our design team here in Tampa is amazing! And we are answering the tough questions. If you want the site address it is http://blackwhiteforum.com/