Picture this: two extremely “clean cut” young men on bicycles, dressed in nearly identical blue suits, skinny ties, white shirts. They’ve each got a leather binder under one arm, and they’re pedaling from house to house, knocking on doors.

At this point, you’re probably pretty confident that I’m talking about either Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons. Both groups are noted for their determined door-to-door evangelism. Perhaps as a result, the Jehovah’s Witnesses can be described as the fastest-growing religion in America (as a percentage of their relatively small membership[1].)

Most evangelical churches don’t expect their members to knock on doors in an effort to win converts. (I’d look pretty awful in a navy blue suit, not to mention the mandatory haircut.) But I vividly remember my freshman year in college, when two upper class students from Campus Crusade came to my dorm room. An ardent atheist at the time, I’m embarrassed to confess that I wasn’t exactly cordial.

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