AP Photo Archive
In an attempt to reach out to more people, Jehovah’s Witnesses print proselyting materials in many languages, including Arabic as shown.

Residents of other faiths spread word of God in different ways

Brittani Lusk LUS04002@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

When most BYU-Idaho students picture missionaries, they picture a pair of young men or young women wearing black name tags called to a period of service. But missionary means many things to various people of other faiths.

Local Jehovah’s Witnesses, Steve Molsee of American Missionary Fellowship and Ellen Lox of Ashton Christian Fellowship, share their methods of promoting their faith.

For local Jehovah’s Witnesses, the call to serve doesn’t end in 18 or 24 months.

“We do it for life,” said one Jehovah’s Witness who wishes not to be identified. He doesn’t wish to place himself in the limelight for his work but instead sites Jehovah for the work.

“We don’t promote ourselves. We do what our Creator wishes,” he said.

Every Jehovah’s Witness is asked to do missionary work, he explained. Jehovah’s Witnesses use phone calls, letters and door-to-door proselyting for between seven and one hundred hours a month.

Molsee, a missionary for American Missionary Fellowship, has devoted his life to spreading his faith. He is trying to build a church and congregation in Teton called Way of Grace Bible Church.

“The purpose of our fellowship is to partner with AMF missionaries to reach unchurched people for the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Dr. Lee Inseley AMF general director in an article on www.americanmissionary.org

Molsee used to be a logger, then a shoe repairman, but events in his life led him to become a missionary in 1996.

“I believe I am called by God to do what I am doing,” he said. “I have never worked so hard for so little money and had so much fun doing it.”

To promote the churches he builds and the message he preaches, Molsee trusts that God will send the willing to him.

“[We] operate entirely by faith trusting that we aren’t entirely in control,” Molsee said. “I think essentially that is the foundation and at the heart of what I do.”

Ashton Christian Fellowship spreads its message through word of mouth, said Ellen Lox, a deaconess. In addition to word of mouth, the church places signs on major roads and places ads in the phone book.

Though the fellowship doesn’t knock on doors, people still come to worship.

Lox explained that people come seeking to worship in a relaxed environment. At the Ashton Christian Fellowship there is a free-flowing style of worship. Things are always going on from bongo drums to a children’s sermon, Lox said.