Goldfish can save your soul

Certain kinds of Christians will do just about anything to win souls for Christ. There's clown evangelism, Halloween Hell Houses designed to scare the sh** out of teenagers so they'll never be naughty again, and house parties that mysteriously turn into Bible studies - to name a few recent tactics.

But winning souls with "goldfish bobs" is a new one for me. When I first saw a reference to "Goldfish Bob" on a Christian website, I assumed he was a sickeningly cute little cartoon fish that teaches Biblical stories to kids via colouring books, videos, handpuppets, etc. You know, a franchise. Then I stumbled across this at The Source for Youth Ministers :

"It is up to the youth pastor to use common sense in dealing with games! Some games for some groups may be to gross, but for others that is exactly what they need...In December I took over a group with 13 kids at my first meeting. I promoted a "goldfish bob" for one week and the next week we had over 25 kids. Now 3.5 months later we are having an average attendance of 47! I owe it all to a God idea of a goldfish bob. . . One young man who was into drugs and Satanism, came to our “goldfish bob.” He then came back the next week, and the next, and the next. After 4 visits, He accepted Jesus!! During a recent testimony time during the church's regularservice... he testified about his salvation. In his testimony, he made the comment that he went fishing for a goldfish, and got hooked himself... --John Eldridge, Alabama, USA

So - they're not winning souls with Goldfish Bob, they're bobbing for goldfish. That is by far the freakiest youth evangelism technique I've ever heard about.