Creative Ideas From Tim Berends

“One day I walked up to a rough looking car and handed the driver a tract. I said, ‘Don’t let the cops catch you reading this’ and the guy in the back seat said, ‘I want one, too!’”

Sometimes humor is the best way to get someone to take a tract.

When Tim Berends was a child, his Baptist minister father passed out tracts wherever they went. If they arrived at a gas station, his father would tell Tim to get a tract out to give to the station attendant. Once, Tim complained, “Do we have to give a tract to everybody?” Now, 70-some-odd years later, Tim makes it his goal to pass out tracts to “everybody.”

Visiting Bethlehem, young men mobbed him for Chick tracts

When the Bible says, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” Tim takes it seriously. It’s his goal to put the gospel in front of as many people as possible while he can. He has been all around the world, passed out countless numbers of tracts, and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Passing out tracts can feel daunting, but with a bit of practice, it doesn’t have to! We talked with Tim and he gave us some of his best tips and tricks for passing out tracts. He has used these ideas everywhere from the Las Vegas Strip to the Temple Mount in Israel to Nairobi, Kenya. We’d encourage you to try some or all of these ideas and let us know what worked for you!

Get Creative

Put tracts in creative places where you know people will take them.

• In Grocery Stores: “If I park at Walmart and forget a tract, I go back and get tracts. I look for the beer section and put tracts inside the cases of the beers. I pray for someone on the verge of suicide to pick it up.”
• In Little Free Libraries: “Place a variety of tracts inside Little Free Libraries around town. Put a stack of different titles inside so there will be variation for children and adults. People already go to these free house-shaped receptacles to find a new book or magazine, so it’s a great spot to place tracts.”

Notice Something About Them

• For Women: “When I’m passing out tracts to women on the strip, I say, ‘This is for all the lovely women I see today.’”
• For Veterans: “Thank them for their service and say, “Here’s a gift for you.”
• For Sports Fans: “If I see someone with a NY Yankee hat, I walk up to them and hand them a tract and say, ‘This is for those who love the Yankees more than the Red Sox.’ Of course, Yankees fans hate the Red Sox, so they take it!”
• For Celebrity Fans: “If I see someone wearing a Tupac Shakur shirt, I walk up to them and say, ‘Tupac would want you to read this.’” This phrase works well for anyone wearing a celebrity shirt/hat/etc when the celebrity has already passed away.
• For People of My Same Generation: “If I see an older person, I walk up to them with a tract and say, ‘This is free for everyone I saw at Woodstock.’ One time I had someone actually say, ‘I was at Woodstock!’”

Go with Friends

Passing out tracts with a friend can make you more effective.

“A friend and I and his daughter pass out tracts to schools in the area. So far, we’ve covered 106 schools, and we’ve been to six of them twice. His daughter just turned 15 and we’ve been doing this since she was a little girl. The kids come out and take the tracts.”

“About 30 years ago Jack Chick said to me, ‘Tim you need to meet this pilot who hands out tracts.’ We met and God has done some wonderful things!” He graciously let Tim use his free miles that he gets as a pilot. “We’ve been on 52 international trips together and 100 trips total.” Each one was a targeted saturation of a city while waiting for the pilot to be scheduled for the return trip.

Stay Encouraged

Passing out tracts isn’t always easy, and we may not see the reward in this life. But we know we are obeying the Lord to go “preach,” putting the gospel in front of as many people as possible.

Tim says,“Whenever I get discouraged, I turn to I Corinthians 15:58, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

We’ll have people come up in heaven and say, ‘I was on the verge of suicide. I got saved. Here are my wife, children, and neighbors I led to the Lord.’ But you won’t see many results down here. Most of it will only be seen in heaven.

In Africa, I worked with 1st Baptist Church of Nairobi to pass out ten thousand tracts in two weeks. One of the men there said to me, ‘We Kenyans may not have much, but we’re looking for a city. No sorrow, no pain, [just] streets of gold.’”

That is why we pass out tracts to everyone we meet. To give them the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ and a future with no sorrow, no pain, and streets of gold.

We can’t all travel the world, but anybody can use a tract to “preach” the gospel. We all live in a mission field no matter where we are.