A funny thing happened while swimming in the ocean -

We are just back from our annual sabbatical to the beach for much needed rest and relaxation. As always, I try to make sure there are plenty of gospel tracts in the car, suitcase and pockets when we make our trip and this year was no exception.

One of my favorite things to do in the evening and early mornings while on the beach is a little prospecting. I bring my metal detector every year in hopes of finding a lost ring, loose change or something cool. Usually I find about $5-$10 in loose change or a kid's toy car; along with more pull tabs and beer cans to fill up a small cooler.

The cool thing with metal detecting is that many people will come up to you and ask you what you have found so far. This is the perfect opportunity to pull out a Million Dollar Bill tract and start up a conversation.

This year I found another way to give out tracts while at the beach...

One day while my wife and I were chilling on the beach and the kids were at the pool, I had to run back upstairs to the room and get the boogy board I'd forgotten to bring down with us. The waves were starting to roll in pretty good and this old man still likes to act like a kid at the beach when there are waves to be boogied. When I got up to the room I saw some tracts laying on the dresser so I grabbed them up and put them in my pocket so I would have some at the beach (just in case you know).

After stopping at the pool to check on the kids I headed back to where my wife was and chilled out a little more with her before I went out into the ocean with my boogie board. After getting out to the spot to wait for that perfect wave to ride, I swam around a little with the board and noticed that there was something floating away from me very quickly...gospel tracts~

Before I could gather a single tract up they swam away from me at breakneck speed and right into a trio of older teen girls about twenty to thirty yards aways. One of the girls plucked out a swimming tract and started to read it....out loud.

Well this is pretty cool, so I strained to listen to her read the tracts amid the sounds of the ocean.

She read the tract out loud to her friends but stopped and objected at the 7th Commandment. I could hear her say, "If you look with lust you are guilty of committing adultery in your heart."

"Wait" she told her friends, "that's not true...you can only commit adultery if you are married."

"No" said a friend, "it said in your heart...that's different than just being married."

They seemed to go back and forth over the lust/adultery issue for a few minutes and then an older lady (maybe a parent) walked out to where they were and joined in the discussion.

They ended up plucking out all of the tracts (which were 2 or 3 different types of tracts) and taking them back to shore with them.

Ocean evangelism without even trying!