Roger Marsh: Hello, I'm Roger Marsh, and today on Family Talk, Dr. Dobson and his special guest, Scott Baller, will be talking about the most important calling in a Christian's life. The call to share the gospel. Scott is with Saturate USA, a ministry that empowers churches all over the nation to reach their communities with the goal of sharing the gospel with every home in America.
Now, before we begin today's program, I'd like to remind you that Family Talk is completely listener supported. If you've been blessed by our ministry and these programs, please consider giving a tax-deductible gift, so that we can continue reaching families. You can learn more about how to give at drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org. And here now to introduce today's program is Dr. James Dobson.
Dr. James Dobson: One of our primary objectives at Family Talk is to introduce as many people to the gospel of Jesus Christ as we can, and to do that through the institution of the family. It's an expression of The Great Commission, of course. You know about that, I hope. Those are the words which Jesus gave to his followers just before he was to ascend to heaven. He told them to go into all nations and make disciples of them, and to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's Matthew 28:18.
What we want to do with our program today is to share a ministry with you that's showing remarkable promise in fulfilling that commission. It's called Saturate USA and it's operating in all 50 states. The plan is to reach 120 million homes by 2027. It's already making a good start at that. Our guest today is the Chief Operations Officer of Saturate USA, Scott Baller. And he's a good friend of mine and he's on the phone with us now. Scott, so nice to have you join us today.
Scott Baller: Doctor, we really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for having me on.
Dr. James Dobson: You have your hands full trying to reach every home in the country. How are you going about doing that?
Scott Baller: Well, it's not much that we're doing, but we're really just taking the lead of the Lord and where he wants us to go and where his Spirit's leading us.
About three years ago, in the spring of 2019, the first zip codes were adopted for Saturate USA, during a meeting with some people that were really concerned about where our country was going at the time. We felt like the only way that we could really have a huge influence in our country was to try to have some revival start here.
And I know we use the word revival all the time, but as we look back at what revivals have been in the past, it always lists some kind of God-sized vision or God-sized action that happened in order to start it. And so, we sat down and said, "How can we do that?" He said, "I want you to share the gospel with every home in the United States." And that represented approximately 120 million households. And so, we then looked at the ways of doing that, and he laid on our heart the opportunity to allow churches the opportunity to adopt their zip code, and to go out and to share the gospel with every household in the United States.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, describe the plan for us. How are you going about doing that? That's an enormous task.
Scott Baller: Well, we had to have a mechanism, Dr. Dobson, of how we were going to be able to share this and what way were we going to get these people interested in wanting to hear the gospel?
And so, many people are familiar with a film called the Jesus Film. It is the most widely watched movie of all time. And we said, "Well, how can we use that here in the United States to share the gospel?" And what we found out was that most people don't realize it, but 30% of the households in the United States, the heart language is not English.
And so, that means these houses are speaking Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, all different languages out there. And what we knew, is in order to share the gospel with them, we really need to have some kind of mechanism to share it in their heart language.
Dr. James Dobson: The Jesus Film has been translated into almost all of those languages, hasn't it?
Scott Baller: Yes. Over 1900 languages, The Jesus film has been translated into. And so, it's a phenomenal tool. It was remastered over 10 years ago and so, it's got modern stuff in it. And it's an incredible thing.
The other thing we realized is, most of the homes in the United States have children in them. And so, we need to reach out to children, as well. Well, Jesus Film also has an incredible tool called Jesus Film for children. And if anyone's ever watched any of the films, to be honest with you, my favorite one is the children's one. It gives the gospel message in the most simplest way and easiest way to understand and most compelling way. And so, we realized, "Hey, there's another tool we can use."
And then lastly, I have some background in inner city work, and we know that a huge majority of our households in the United States now are single parent households. And most of them are a single mother. And so, there's another incredible film out there called Magdalena, which really focuses on the relationship of the woman in the family in that role.
We figured, "Well, the best way to do this is could we possibly... Was there a way that we could provide all three of those films to the household?" And so, with work of technicians and people at Jesus Film and people with our organization, we created a DVD that has all three of those movies on one DVD.
Dr. James Dobson: But how do you get them into the hands of the people?
Scott Baller: Exactly. Well, what we do... We know that for a revival to happen, it's not going to be a para-church organization. It's not going to be different groups. What it's going to be is a local church, that's going to cause a revival. That's going to get their members doing stuff.
And so, what we wanted to do Doc, was empower the local church to go out and share the gospel. And the way we do that is this. A church will hear about Saturate USA and they'll call us and we'll explain the process. And the way the process works is this. They adopt their zip code they're in or any zip code that they want to adopt. We will then send them saturation packs for every household in that zip code.
So, an average zip code in the United States has about 8,000 households. So, we will send a pack for each household. And in that pack, we have The Jesus Film DVD, which has Jesus Film, Jesus Film for children and Magdalena. And each film on the DVD itself, is in the eight top languages in the United States.
So, that will cover about 98 to 99% of the households in the United States of their heart language. Then also on the DVD, is a way where you can stream all these movies in all 1900 plus languages on any device you want for absolutely free.
Dr. James Dobson: The packet that has those materials in it is free?
Scott Baller: That's the greatest part about this, Dr. Dobson.
Dr. James Dobson: Churches don't have to pay for them to even get them?
Scott Baller: That's correct. The whole thing is free. When they adopt their zip code, we send them packs for every household. They will get a pack for every household which has a DVD. It has a bag they can put stuff in and it has a gospel booklet called, "Do You Want to Know God Personally?" And those three things are sent to them. The only thing we ask from the church is that they include local church information in the packets. And this is the key. What we want these people in the neighborhoods to do, is to be connected with the local church.
We know people are hurting right now, with the pandemic and all the different things going on in our country and in the world. They need help. And I truly believe, and I know you do, that the best help for them is through Christ Jesus. Through our Lord and Savior. He can heal. He can provide. He can do all things. And so, what we want them to do is to get connected with their local church. And we know the local church can go out there and they can help these people. They can love them. They can provide services. They can get them to church. And so, that's the goal.
Dr. James Dobson: So, the local church organizes volunteers to take these materials in what you call door hangers and goes to the homes in the neighborhood and leaves these packets on the door handles. Is that correct?
Scott Baller: Yes, it is correct. So, they will provide them the packs. They get them customized maps for their zip codes. So, we actually provide them a tool that allows them to go out and actually logistically walk these neighborhoods and provide the packs to their neighbors. And so, these maps are provided to them and then everything is shipped out free. There's no charge. Literally, the only charge that they would have is whatever church information they decide to include in the packs.
We ship out the materials for free. The maps are free. Everything is a 100% free. And we, even... If it turns out they need more because they're short or whatever... We will send out whatever it takes to share the gospel with these neighborhoods.
Dr. James Dobson: What a creative way to reach people who would otherwise probably not be churched and may not even know about the gospel or even certainly not The Great Commission. And yet, this is a way to do all of it.
Scott Baller: And the great thing about it, Dr. Dobson is this. When the church gets their maps and they get their packs and they get together and they put them together and they have a what they call packing parties and the members get together, the greatest part of this is it's for everyone. Everyone can be involved in this. There's a way that they can all do it.
And the other great thing is it's really COVID friendly. We're not asking for hundreds of people to get together. What we're asking for, is teams of three or four to go out and share the gospel with the maps that they're providing. If a church has a 100 people doing it, then you're going to see 25 to 30 groups out there, sharing the gospel with their neighbors and with the neighborhoods.
Dr. James Dobson: What a creative way to tell people about Jesus. Most people are terrified to do that. To talk to somebody about eternity and talk to them about Jesus and His ministry and His words. People are just reluctant to do it, but all they have to do here is deliver it to the front door.
Scott Baller: That's correct. You know, Barna did a research a year or so ago, Dr. Dobson, And he said that only about 2 to 3% of people in a church, feel comfortable sharing their faith.
So, this is something that can help empower a church, not only by being able to get out in the community and get their name out there, because remember, when they get the packs, it's going to have the local church information in there.
The connection isn't set back to Saturate USA or to Jesus Film. The connection's back to the local church. Equivocally, it's free advertising for the church. Then the second part is, we're now empowering members to go outside the walls of the church, be an Acts church and get out and meet their neighbors. Care for their neighbors. Tell their neighbors, they love them and share the gospel.
Dr. James Dobson: What has been the impact on the local church?
Scott Baller: Obviously, the main impact is we're sharing the gospel with people throughout our community. And so, they're not only getting the opportunity to hear the gospel, but they're also getting a connection to a church that they can get connected in with.
They can reach out for help, as it could be with marriage. It could be financial. There's many different ways these churches are stepping up and helping out.
Dr. James Dobson: Are you finding that people are willing to do this? Are churches excited about it? What has been the other ways that it has impacted the church and the community?
Scott Baller: The biggest way that we didn't realize until this started happening and we started seeing saturations and churches getting together to do this is, is the first part is, we're seeing churches working together.
Now that might sound something not the greatest, but I will tell you different church denominations getting together and working together on a common goal of sharing the gospel with their neighbors is incredible.
Now, they're doing special events together. Now, they're doing vacation Bible school together, and it's basically empowering them together and they're becoming a real church community, not five or six different churches together in a city, but five or six, all working as one.
Another great way that the Lord is using this ministry is the impact it's having on the actual volunteers. And what we are seeing is, is older generations, younger generations, all having a part in saturating the neighborhoods. And so, we've had churches come together and say, "This is great. The older generation, we love doing the packing part. We love putting this stuff together. We can sit in a room and we can fellowship and we can have fun. And we can ask other churches to come together to do this."
And then, what we're seeing is the younger generations are saying, "Hey, what we can do, we can go deliver these. We can get out in the community." It can be the middle, 50-year-old, 40-year-old Sunday school classes or Bible or small groups getting together, but can also be the youth groups. The youth, they can deliver these things like you wouldn't believe. It's incredible. So, what you see is, now we've got everyone in the church, working together. Everyone feeling like they have a part. And it's just an incredible piece to what the Lord has going on.
Dr. James Dobson: Tell us some of the stories of what's taking place.
Scott Baller: I'm glad you asked that. One of the great opportunities or examples of the Lord using multiple people in a church or different generations together is happening in Denver, Colorado right now. So, there's a college in Denver called CCU, and they are really into evangelism and they provide their students opportunities to get out in the community and partner with different churches.
And so, we've had some churches in Denver that have adopted their zip code, but the congregation is a little older. They don't have a lot of younger couples in the congregation. And so, they're not as easily able to go out and to share these packs and the gospels in their neighborhoods. Well, CCU is now partnering with churches in that area and the youth are going out and delivering the packs for the churches. And the church then, is providing not only packing the packs together for them, but they're also providing drivers for the teams.
And so, you'll have an older gentleman or older lady out driving these youth around and they're going through neighborhoods and they're sharing the gospel. They're delivering packs and they're having a great time. And once again, here's a Christian university partnering with churches to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Dr. James Dobson: I've never heard of a plan that is easier to implement than this. And talking about huge numbers of people, millions of people. There has to be a catch, or at least some people are going to think there is a catch. What is it? I mean, this is free? You're sending the materials out. All people have to do is give them away and you'll even tell them how to do that. There must be some catch here that people are worried about.
Scott Baller: You know, the only catch is this. There's a group of people in the United States here that believe sharing the gospel with our neighbors is important. And so, they have funded this. It's a 100% free, Doc.
If you wanted to adopt your zip code in Denver or Colorado Springs, right now, we can send you out packs and within two to three weeks, you'd get all your materials and everything you needed to do this.
Dr. James Dobson: All right, I've got your materials in front of me. And your movement is built on four easy steps, speaking of easy. Tell me what those four steps are.
Scott Baller: The first step is adopt. So, we're asking you to adopt a zip code or zip codes. The average zip code in the United States is about 8,000 households. So, an example is, one person can deliver about 50 households in an hour. So, a team of 25 can deliver 5,000 households in just four hours.
The second step is to receive them. Pretty simple. We will provide and deliver the packs, the DVDs, the bags, the gospel booklet. We will provide customized maps and so forth, to you, all for free. You will provide us the location of where you want them delivered, and you will get a call from the shipping company a day or so before they're going to be delivered, arranging a customized time to have them delivered to your church.
The third one is assembling, and we talked about this earlier, but basically assembling the packs. And so, each pack will have a bag. You'll put in there, the DVD. You'll put in there, the gospel booklet, and then you're going to put in your local church information, whatever you decide that should be. We give you some examples of what that can be, but most churches have a pretty good idea of what they want to get out to their community about their church.
And then the last one is the key. You've got to get out and saturate your area. Saturate the area, what we call your area of gospel responsibility. And so, what you do is you're going to go out and you're going to walk these neighborhoods and you're going to be praying as you're going. It's a prayer walk, Doc. We know prayer's a powerful tool. So, you're going to go out there and you're going to prayer walk, and you're going to deliver these packs to each door.
Dr. James Dobson: Tell us a little more about how people actually walk the streets that they're going to make the deliveries.
Scott Baller: Yeah, usually what will happen is, a team will get together three or four in a group. They'll take their maps that we provide them and they're going to go out and they're going to walk these neighborhoods.
And what's great about Saturate USA is we are not telling you how you have to do this. Because what I realized as I sat in the pews at my church, is I have a background with an organization called CRU and I've been trained on how to share the gospel. The guy sitting next to me maybe has not had that opportunity.
And so, what we need to do is provide a way where it can be okay for everyone to go out and do this. So, one person might decide that they're going to hang them on the doors. Another church might decide that they're going to prayer walk the first time and just walk through the neighborhoods, praying. And then the next time go deliver packs. But what the key is it's really up to the church and this isn't a one and done, Dr. Dobson. It's not the go out, deliver the packs and be done. We're asking you to take on the responsibility of your zip code as your gospel responsibility, which means it's an ongoing thing. We should be sharing with them multiple times in a year.
But what we wanted to do is get them started, to launch them out there and once they get going and they realize they're having communication with real neighbors, real people, it empowers them to do more.
Dr. James Dobson: And all kinds of good things can follow those who respond. Those who call or write. You then have an entree into that family, don't you?
Scott Baller: Yeah. That's what's amazing. I think most people feel intimidated, as we talked about, sharing their faith and what really happens realistically in this ministry, is a person goes out and they think that they're just going to hang it on each door. And what they don't realize is they're going to go out there and as they're walking down the street, they go to the first three or four and they hang it on the door. And all of a sudden they get to that fifth house. And guess what? The person's outside, mowing their yard, washing their car.
Well, it's going to be awkward for me to walk by them and go hang something on their door. It's going to require me to have a conversation. The first time they have a conversation with that neighbor, it's going to sound something like this. "Hi. We're here from the local church and we're just out providing these packs to you. We care about you. We love you. And we would love to help you in any way. Here's information about our church. We'd love to see you come and be part of it."
Well, as we know in life, the first time you have that message, that's what it sounds like. By the time you do it 10 times, that 10th message sounds a lot different because you've done it 10 times now. And now your message sounds, now you're inviting them to specific church services. Now you're saying, "Hey, we'll come pick you up, if you don't have a ride." You get to know the person more. Now, all of a sudden the person shares that they're having struggles. And so, you pray for them right there in the front of their house.
And what happens is, we start building relationships and that's what we have to be doing, as a church. We've got to love our neighbors. It's very simple. That's what the Bible says. And we know this. If we just plant the seed, God promises, the Holy Spirit will do His work.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, we're talking to Scott Baller and it's been a very interesting conversation for me, because I do want to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do care about The Great Commission and I think our listeners do too. And here's a way to do it with the least effort, but it can lead to all kinds of good things. And I really appreciate the people who funded this and those who are making it possible. That's why I asked Scott to join us today. And Scott, this has been very enlightening and I just pray... In fact, I ask our listeners to pray that the Lord will continue to put his blessing on this effort. Then I hope to hear the good news about reaching the goal. Tell us again what it is by 2027?
Scott Baller: We want to reach all 120 million households in the United States.
Dr. James Dobson: That's every one of them?
Scott Baller: That's every single household. And what I can tell you right now, which is such exciting news, is we have had over 41 million households already adopted by a church.
Dr. James Dobson: It's working.
Scott Baller: It's working. And you know, we're in all 50 states. We've had over 30 million households saturated. So, that means someone went out and actually gave a pack or talked to them. And so, we're well on our way to doing this. But if you're a numbers person, 120 million and 40 million, we still have a long way to go. What I need is churches and individuals to adopt their zip codes. Go to saturateusa.org. Watch the videos. Sign up for your zip code, so we can send you these packs and you can go out and you can spread the gospel with your neighbors.
Dr. James Dobson: This is the best idea I've seen to come along to do that. And we'll talk to you again, stay in touch with you, so we know how it's developing.
Scott Baller: Thank you, Dr. Dobson. It's such a privilege to be on with you, and we just appreciate all that your ministry does.
Dr. James Dobson Say hello to your family for me.
Scott Baller: Thank you. Same to yours.
Roger Marsh: If we have such a great gift of salvation, we should be compelled and convicted to share that free gift with everyone around us, shouldn't we? Well sharing the gospel isn't always easy, especially in the hyper-cynical, disconnected culture that we have here in the U.S., but under their hard facades, remember, every person who does not know Jesus is searching for the answer to the meaning of life. And we all know that that answer is Jesus himself. Now, if you've been moved by today's program and would like to get involved in the Saturate USA movement, you can go to saturateusa.org. At that website, you can learn about how to get started, read success stories, even watch The Jesus Film that Scott Baller talked about on today's program.
Again, that web address is saturateusa.org. You can also find a link to that website, as well as listen to any of today's broadcast that you might've missed by visiting our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. You can also give us a call as well at (877) 732-6825. We're here to take that call 24/7, and we're always happy to answer questions about family talk and the JDFI.
We're also available to pray with you, if that's what you need right now. These past couple of years have been so full of unforeseeable stressors and life changing events, we feel blessed when you call us with your prayer requests. So, remember that number, (877) 732-6825.
Well, that's all the time we have for today's program. From all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks for listening and be sure to join us again tomorrow for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.