Fishing and Cleaning

And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
Mark 1:17 NASB® 1995

This is a testimony of how I learned to become a fisher of men and then learned how to train them in righteousness. Jesus says this,

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 NASB® 1995

Jesus invites people to follow Him, and then He makes them fishers of men. He goes on to tell us that we are to teach those we reach to observe all that He has commanded us.

I grew up in church ministry, going out onto city streets and even knocking on doors. I was not Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness; it was called street evangelism. I desperately wanted to tell people about Jesus, but I had no idea what I was doing, and neither did my leaders. We would ask people if they wanted to pray a prayer so they could go to heaven.

At one point, when I was 18 years old, I was with a group of people walking the streets of downtown Fort Worth, asking people this question. After a man prayed the prayer, a thought came to me: What is going to happen to him? He was homeless. I wondered, Who is going to tend to this lost sheep?

Those questions left me feeling uncomfortable with what we were doing, and I never wanted to participate in that type of street evangelism again. Years later, when I was 30 years old, I told God, “If You will teach me how to speak to people, I will share, but I never want to leave people wandering without guidance again.” My heart broke for that man on the street whom I felt I could do nothing for.

When I asked Him to teach me, He began to do so. He told me to be transparent and that by living what He was teaching me, I would be fulfilling the calling on my life. My ultimate desire was to please Him. He showed me that I needed to be willing to share my blunders and hardships—to share anything that demonstrated how God can change a life. He taught me that all these experiences were now my fishing bait to go fishing for people.

I was learning what a testimony was without even realizing it. I thought I was simply sharing what I had seen God do in my life. At the time, I did not understand how powerful this was or that I was learning to live out the Word of God.

Wherever I went, I tried to start natural, organic conversations so that I would feel comfortable sharing and others would feel comfortable listening. Because I was willing to speak, God created opening after opening to talk with people. Often, this happened at parks, grocery stores, and even while standing in line at the post office. I spoke to anyone about anything the Holy Spirit told me to in order to be transparent and reach the person in front of me.

I would ask the person I was speaking with if they would like to exchange numbers so I could hear their story and share mine. I would meet them at a coffee shop or make them dinner. I would do whatever the Holy Spirit led me to do. It was always natural and easy. This brought many mothers and children into my home. This was how I learned to fish for people.

I would then ask if they would like to learn about the Bible. This created opportunities to study with person after person. Some came only once, others came multiple times, and some became lifelong sisters in Christ.

After a few years of studying regularly with women, God asked me a question while I was reading Hebrews 6. He stopped me at verses one and two and asked if I knew the elementary teachings. As I reflected, I realized that I did not know some of them at all, and I did not understand others well enough to teach them thoroughly.

This question drove me into the Scriptures to learn these teachings and to share them with everyone I was studying with at the time. I asked the women in my life if they had ever been taught these things, because I had not. To my surprise, not one of the women I was meeting with knew them. So we studied them together. This is how I learned how to “clean the fish” I had “caught.”

Over the years, I have learned how to teach these elementary teachings by shining a light on the verses that address each topic. By doing this, I have become a stable child of God who is not tossed about by every wind of doctrine. The people God has entrusted to me have also become strong in the Word and are no longer easily shaken by the principalities and powers of this dark world.

Together, we have learned how to overcome and live according to the Word of God.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Ephesians 4:11-16 NASB® 1995

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Ephesians 6:10-17 NASB® 1995

I encourage you, no matter how long you have been a Christian, to dig into the elementary teachings. One thing I have seen that helps people grow in understanding is to examine each elementary teaching by answering these questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how. If you answer all of these questions through Scripture, you will find that you are stable in the truth and able to refute lies.

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
Hebrews 6:1-2 NASB® 1995

To find the elementary teachings on this site, look under the Spiritual Milk tab to get you started on your journey.

References:

Strong’s Greek/Hebrew: Biblehub.com
Edited 3/2026