The Fishermen’s Club: Men’s evangelism at Monte Hebrón

On Friday nights, men from Iglesia Bautista Monte Hebrón gathered to prepare for an evening of personal evangelism. Their meeting place was a park, and their work took them into different parts of the community to speak with people about the gospel. Known as the Fishermen’s Club, the program gave men a regular opportunity to participate alongside Tommy Ashcraft in the outreach of their church. [1, 3]

The club brought instruction and practice into the same evening. A short lesson, accounts of recent witnessing experiences, and the distribution of gospel tracts preceded conversations with people in public places and nearby areas. The surviving accounts follow those encounters from a park bench to the waiting area outside a hospital, and eventually to additional groups led by other men in the congregation. [1–3, 7]

Friday evenings in a park

By December 2005, the Fishermen’s Club was meeting each Friday at seven o’clock in a park accessible to most church members. The location provided a place for the men to assemble before going out, but it could also provide an immediate opportunity to speak with someone. [1]

One evening, as the meeting ended and Tommy handed out tracts, he noticed a young man sitting on a park bench. He approached him and presented the gospel. The young man listened and prayed to receive Christ. A person already sitting near the gathering became part of that evening’s outreach before Tommy had left the park. [1]

By March 2010, the meeting’s routine included a short lesson and challenge on personal evangelism. The men also shared testimonies of recent experiences before going into different areas to find people with whom they could speak. Over several weeks at that time, the group reported an average of more than fifty professions of faith per week. That was a reported average for the period described, rather than a figure established for the club’s entire history. [3]

Conversations outside a hospital

Part of the club’s work took place among people facing illness in their families. By April 2007, a portion of the men’s group went each Friday night to a government hospital. Hundreds of people stood or sat outside while waiting to visit sick friends or relatives. The men spoke with people in that waiting community. [2]

One of those people was Leticia. Her mother was hospitalized with kidney failure, and her father had recently died. As she spoke with Tommy, she wept over her father’s death and expressed disappointment that God had not spared his life. Tommy offered comfort and shared the gospel with her; she prayed to receive Christ. [2]

The encounter placed the club’s ministry within a family’s immediate grief and uncertainty. Leticia was waiting because of her mother’s illness while still mourning her father. The conversation joined the presentation of the gospel with an effort to comfort someone in distress. [2]

The men who went out together

The club depended on a group of men making time for this work each week. In August 2013, twenty-four men took part in a Friday outing and reported thirty-nine professions of faith. Tommy personally led two people to Christ that evening. [4]

By June 2014, he continued to lead the Friday-night men’s program, while Brenda led the Friday-morning women’s group known as Sembradoras. Their schedules gave each an established place in the church’s weekly evangelism. [5]

The Fishermen’s Club was one part of a much larger effort. At that time, eighteen groups went out weekly, including newly organized women’s groups and a Sunday-afternoon program for members unable to attend at other times. The church reported more than four hundred professions of faith per week across all eighteen groups. That combined figure belonged to the church’s broader outreach, rather than to the Fishermen’s Club alone. [5]

A visiting pastor joins the club

During the week of the February 2015 pastors’ and workers’ conference, Pastor Darrell Hurst joined Tommy as his Friday-night witnessing partner. Hurst had preached in the conference and then participated in the congregation’s regular evangelistic work. [6]

Together, the two men led two young couples and an elderly man to Christ. The other men in the group reported another forty-eight professions of faith. Those Friday encounters were separate from the conference’s larger Wednesday outreach, which involved more than five hundred participants. [6]

The visiting pastor’s participation connected the conference platform with the church’s ordinary weekly activity. After preaching to the gathered delegates, he went out with the men to speak personally with people in the community. [6]

Carlos Gallegos starts another group

By the spring of 2015, Carlos Gallegos, a division leader in the church, had started another Fishermen’s Club. On a Friday outing, he and seven other men reported fourteen professions of faith. Tommy’s own group continued alongside it; that same report described him leading two women and a young couple to Christ during a Friday evening. [7]

The new group placed responsibility in the hands of another church leader. The Fishermen’s Club was no longer represented only by the gathering Tommy personally led. Carlos and the men accompanying him were organizing and carrying out their own Friday-night outreach. [7]

Participation after the pastoral transition

Tommy’s involvement continued after Jonathan became pastor in 2016. By December that year, Tommy went with the Fishermen’s Club on Friday nights whenever he was home. During one of those outings, he led a woman and her teenage daughter to Christ. [8]

The change in pastoral responsibility had not ended his participation in the church’s personal evangelism. The Friday gatherings remained an opportunity for him to serve with the men and share the gospel directly. [8]

Across these accounts, the Fishermen’s Club appears through both its regular routine and individual conversations: a young man on a park bench, a daughter waiting outside a hospital, couples meeting a pair of visiting witnesses, and a mother with her teenage daughter. Those encounters give a personal dimension to the participation figures and reported results preserved in its history. [1, 2, 6, 8]